Scary biscuits

This book is going to be 100,000 words or thereabout. That's the intention. Short and sweet. This makes it slightly alarming that I've almost hit 25,000 words* when it doesn't feel like I'm a quarter of the way into the story yet. This comes after I guessed the other day that I only average about 70,000 words a year, so it's almost equally alarming that I've hit 25,000 words in a little over a month.

I've also tried a different approach toward writing this book. In the past I have been religiously linear. The first draft has been written as it reads, from beginning to end. This time, instead of the process stalling when I hit a sticking point, I've jumped ahead and written a later scene. Not exactly rocket science, but it shows that even after thirteen years of this writing business, there are still some really obvious techniques I haven't tried yet.

I wonder if the other writers work the same way and whether they use scenes as the primary building blocks for their stories? I've probably always done it, but I've certainly become more accomplished at distilling an idea into scenes as I've done more screenwriting and filmmaking. I refuse to go as far as using index cards, but I've certainly found it helpful for plotting and weeding out unnecessary passages before I have to actually write them.

Hmm, makes me also wonder how much the approach to writing affects the end result? I'm not sure if the result would necessarily show evidence of a different style or substance, but it might be evidenced by a more ephemeral difference - a different flavour perhaps?