Good Afternoon Blogiverse,

As you may know, I just finished my second writer’s retreat in Hermann, MO.

I rented out a beautiful cottage near downtown and have stayed there the past four days. The city, like most other cities right now, was mainly closed down, but I did get a chance to relax and rewind a bit while I embarked on my writing quest.

If you recall, the aim of my second writer’s retreat was the finish the rough draft of my Reaper sequel that I’ve been writing for almost a year now.

I’m happy to announce that I successfully finished the rough draft of my Reaper sequel!

In the past four days, I wrote a total of 8,766 words, or just about 35 pages. What a victory! I’ve never written that much in such a short time, and I’m very proud of myself for pushing through that finish line.

Most of all, I’m so happy for all the support the online community has shown. I couldn’t have done this without your support, and I am eternally grateful for your constant positivity.

So where does this leave me?

Well, the rough draft is finished at 93,656 words, or roughly 375 pages. But after a rough draft comes a first draft, then an alpha and beta read cycle for readers. In the following week, I’ll be planning out how to approach my first draft.

First drafts are tricky. You have to take what you have from the rough draft and ask yourself what works and what doesn’t. You have to be really thorough or you’ll end up doing endless edit cycles.

There are already a number of things I’ve made a mental note of that I want to change, so I’ll be compiling quite the laundry list over the next week or so. After that, I’ll go about editing 93k words worth of story. Let’s hope that doesn’t take too long!

Wish me luck everyone, and have a great day!

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