I wonder if, after all this, anyone will want to publish this
I haven't mentioned it much lately, but I *am* still writing. Not at the frenzied let's-fill-the-hole-in-my-life-left-when-Kender-took-Dragon-Age pace, but it's been very regular and active and shows no sign of waning.
I had to work through some troublesome plot haziness - it's no longer hazy, thank goodness. It took me a week to fix what I messed up in just a day or two. But I guess that's how it goes. I'm noticing that my pacing has changed, too. Now that I'm beyond set up and into plot, chapters and scenes are getting longer and more complicated. I don't know whether or not this means I'll have to double back at the end and plump up my early stuff. I guess I'm willing/able to do that, but I don't want to if it's not going to add anything.
So how long should a first novel be? A fantasy novel? A young adult fantasy novel? Of course, I'm not really even sure it's still YA anymore(not only do I have a semi-racy scene and intend to add a couple more, but it's starting to look like the 30-something wizard might be the real heart of the story, rather than the 15-year-old girl I thought would be). I was initially aiming for somewhere in the area of 100,000 words, but given my current pacing, it may be much longer than that. I'm at currently 32,000 and I still have to introduce three of the main good-guy characters and bring the villain (and sub-villain) into the light (they've been discussed, but have had no page-time), not to mention the big fight/climax/whole friggin' point of the novel, which I expect to take about 20,000 words by itself. So how long is too long? And how short is too short? Does anyone know this stuff?
My goal is to be done with chapter nine tomorrow. This is a doozy of a chapter though (major skirmish and the introduction of two of the three remaining party members), so I'll probably be working on it all day. But Tom will have my car for work and I finished the laundry today, so it's not like I have much else to do. If I don't get it done tomorrow (I learned the hard way to let my goals be flexible), I figure I'll have it done by Friday at least. Then I'll send it off to my sister and (with any luck) she'll praise me and pat my head and I'll be ready to write three more chapters. It turns out that I thrive on praise. That's probably why I write so much fanfiction.
But for now I should go to bed. I worked a lot tonight and my eyes feel droopy. Goodnight.
I had to work through some troublesome plot haziness - it's no longer hazy, thank goodness. It took me a week to fix what I messed up in just a day or two. But I guess that's how it goes. I'm noticing that my pacing has changed, too. Now that I'm beyond set up and into plot, chapters and scenes are getting longer and more complicated. I don't know whether or not this means I'll have to double back at the end and plump up my early stuff. I guess I'm willing/able to do that, but I don't want to if it's not going to add anything.
So how long should a first novel be? A fantasy novel? A young adult fantasy novel? Of course, I'm not really even sure it's still YA anymore(not only do I have a semi-racy scene and intend to add a couple more, but it's starting to look like the 30-something wizard might be the real heart of the story, rather than the 15-year-old girl I thought would be). I was initially aiming for somewhere in the area of 100,000 words, but given my current pacing, it may be much longer than that. I'm at currently 32,000 and I still have to introduce three of the main good-guy characters and bring the villain (and sub-villain) into the light (they've been discussed, but have had no page-time), not to mention the big fight/climax/whole friggin' point of the novel, which I expect to take about 20,000 words by itself. So how long is too long? And how short is too short? Does anyone know this stuff?
My goal is to be done with chapter nine tomorrow. This is a doozy of a chapter though (major skirmish and the introduction of two of the three remaining party members), so I'll probably be working on it all day. But Tom will have my car for work and I finished the laundry today, so it's not like I have much else to do. If I don't get it done tomorrow (I learned the hard way to let my goals be flexible), I figure I'll have it done by Friday at least. Then I'll send it off to my sister and (with any luck) she'll praise me and pat my head and I'll be ready to write three more chapters. It turns out that I thrive on praise. That's probably why I write so much fanfiction.
But for now I should go to bed. I worked a lot tonight and my eyes feel droopy. Goodnight.