Take Two at Mulholland High: Numbers.

~ Ann Benjamin ~ Leave a comment

Hello! I come to you from the depths of editing Take Two at Mulholland High.

A few numbers to share with you.

  • 69,523, original word count. I knew this was going to have to change, because I (intentionally) skipped writing two chapters.
  • 72,709, first draft, after adding and subtracting a lot of words. I have a Google doc with 10 pages of cut scenes, so there was a lot of movement, including cutting a few plot lines that went nowhere.
  • 71,104, what I would consider my ‘1.5’ draft. After meticulously going through and removing a ton of unnecessary words, this was the lowest point.
  • 74,818, with added chapters and final second draft.  I’m not sure where the final draft will end up, but I don’t expect a change too much on +/- 1,000 words, which is nearly identical to the first book in the series.

I’m currently waiting to send this draft to my editor, and once back, I will have a few people read the next iteration (it’s not quite there yet). I will say this draft took longer than I thought it would, but that’s okay. I’m happy with the efforts so far (and yes, I know what the third book looks like, which may or may not get written this year).

What’s next? As Mulholland 2 was one of two books (!) I wrote last year (!!), I’m moving on to edit the sequel to Confessions of a Teenage Band Geek.

And yes, the cover for Mulholland 2 is already lined up.