Across a Jade Sea, the book I wasn’t supposed to be writing, not only suddenly (just over a year ago) decided that I must write it, it also suddenly (a couple months ago?) decided that I must transcribe it. (It was written longhand.) I have finally finished that effort, and although the resulting draft is still pretty rough, I finally have a wordcount for this thing. As of this draft, it’s just over 230K words. (As a reference point, most publishers prefer to see “first novels” of about 100K words.)
So yesterday, I went into my database, and declared by authorial fiat that I didn’t write and transcribe one (huge) book this past year–I wrote and transcribed three 75-80K books: Serendipity’s Tide, Treachery’s Harbor, and Fealty’s Shore. (Lengthwise, dividing it in two might have been better, but structurally three is the better split.)
That means I’ve written not ten, but a full dozen novels so far.
…and it also makes me so far behind on the revising, polishing, and editing end of things that I don’t even want to think about it. Especially since I was just doing that… Serendipity’s Tide is in pretty decent shape, it’s the other two that still need boatloads of work done to them. And I still haven’t got the second Bambi book revised and polished yet.
What happened to my nice little schedule that served me so well all those many years?
2 replies on “Chopping it into pieces.”
Oh my, reading about your process has made me feel even more inadequate. I wrote a trunk novel 12 years ago and always meant to go back to it. Now I’m addicted to short story writing, which is fine unless you want to get paid! Jealous of your accomplishment(s)! Way to go!
I find writing short stories extremely difficult. In the past dozen years I’ve written fewer short stories than I have full length novels. So I get to be jealous of your accomplishments, too. 🙂