How Long?

I mean how long does your book usually end up after the first draft? I'm not talking total word count here, because that depends on the book and the genre. But in comparison to your final draft, how long is your first draft?

You see, with me, it wavers. Spectacle was HUGE after the first draft, and still it ended up larger in the supposed-final, and then after some major trimming, I cut it down to a nice pre-firstdraft weight. Then Caldera came along and barely tipped the scales with the first draft being around 60K words. Working it's way (weigh?) up to 86K (depending on your method for counting words. )

Blink is sitting at about 67K right now, and I expect it to get around 90K when it's all said and done. Poor thing is a tad undernourished right now.

So, it seems that after the first monsterly hugenormous novel, I'm falling into my first draft being around 75% of the finished product.

Where do think your work sits at? Are you someone who writes a ton and then trims, or someone who writes the skeleton and then fattens it up?

Inquiring mind wants to know. =oD