David Drake

Dear People,

I am in the stage now in which the current book (this time it’s The Road of Danger, the next Leary/Mundy space opera) moves forward about as steadily as Juggernaut’s Carriage. The process is about that graceful also, but I’ll be editing the heck out of my rough draft, as usual.

I’ve been averaging a hair over a thousand words a day since Newsletter 61, a process which I expect to continue until I get to the end of my outline. I strongly suspect the final draft will be about 130K, but I don’t swear to that. continue reading…

Dear People,

Well, I haven’t completed the rough draft of THE LEGIONS OF FIRE, the start of my new fantasy series for Tor, but I’m close. And I’m darned consistent: two months ago I had about 60K; now I’ve got a bit over 125K, so I’m averaging a hair over a thousand words a day regardless of holidays, crises (the water line froze; on the other hand, about this time last year a drunk in a pickup crossed the road and hit us, so I’m not complaining), birthdays, colds and flu.  continue reading…

Dear People,

Folks frequently ask me how long it takes to write a novel. (People ask me a lot of questions that presumably seem simpler from the outside than they do to me.) The answer depends on a lot of things, in particular the length of the novel. (I average about a thousand words of rough draft per day; thus a novel of 135K words takes around two weeks longer to write than a similar book that was 120K words long.)  continue reading…

Dear People,

Foof. I _did_ finish IN THE STORMY RED SKY, the latest RCN (Leary/Mundy) space opera, as I said in #45 that I hoped to do soon. Usually by the time I’m three-quarters of the way through the rough draft, I start to come out of the Slough of Despond (“This book is crap. People would find a phone book more interesting. My career is doomed.”) This book was more of a stretch than most, and it depressed me more and longer than most do.  continue reading…

Dear People,

The major news item is that while I haven’t yet finished IN THE STORMY RED SKY, the next RCN (Leary/Mundy) space opera, I’m getting darned close. As I write this I’m in the midst of the climactic battle, and I hope I’ll have gotten into the conclusion by the time you read it.  continue reading…