FRANK Stuff

I hit 205 ppg last night in FRANK.

I was originally aiming for an even 300-ppg first draft. Then I read Twilight while I was AZ. It's a big, fat book - these things are lit by the pound, man - but it's fast and breezy. I finished it in about a day.

FRANK isn't exactly Umberto Eco. It's supposed to be a quick, fun read. I try to punctuate each plot point with an action scene, never a dull moment. At the same time, I feel like there's more story to tell than 300 pages can hold.

So... I'm still determined to crack this thing out by the end of the year. And I think, at my present rate, I can get in a 325-400-ppg first draft in, anyway.

There are some aspects of this novel that are straight from the base of my brain, bubbling up from the primordial ooze much in the same way THE CASTLE formed out of nothingness. I'm writing fast and pushing myself hard on purpose - the less time I have to carefully think things over, the closer this story is to my soul, because I'm forcing myself to use half-remembered dream imagery.

Not to get all wiggy or anything. I'm referring to stuff like Adam's super-hearse that shoots piles of skulls out the back to confound pursuing cops.

I also increased the main protagonist's age to 15. There are several reasons for this, creative and commercial. I'm digging the change a lot -- a younger kid creates a gravitational pull, hauling the tone of the story towards that whimsical bullshit I was trying to avoid in the first place. Whereas I'm far closer to my 15-year-old self; I can get that voice in my head without getting drunk, first.

It's coming along. Good times.