Thoughts on... Word Count

I did not write everyday this week. (Sadface.) Well, it's not easy setting aside time to write as a mother of four. This past week I had managed to sit down in the evening to write after the kids were in bed a few times. I wrote out a scene in my notebook and the next morning I typed it up. That worked well. But there always come days when after the kids are in bed for the night my brain is just totally fried and I can barely put two sentences together. Yeah, that happened a few times this week as well.

So I'm still working out my schedule. Fitting writing time in around my kids' crazy antics is... problematic, but probably doable. Possibly when they are "napping" in the afternoon. (My kids no longer sleep, they wait. Except for the baby who is an angel.) The real problem is getting my mind to focus on the writing after being harried by them all morning. BUT! If I save my shower for after I put them in their rooms and shower before I write, that's always been known to help get me into the creative frame of mind. (This plan will have to wait a few days though since right now our water heater is broken and there are no hot showers. Sob.) I can totally do this! I can be a writing mom!

Anyway, I am still 2759 words ahead of where I was before I started writing in earnest again. I also have a new map of the region my current WIP begins in. Since ultimately it will traverse a good portion of the world, I'm working on a larger world map as well. I like having maps. It helps me to visualize the plot.

I've been thinking about word count this week because I honestly have no idea how long the story in my head is. For all you people doing NaNo right now, 50,000 is called a novel. But I'm writing an epic fantasy which are often expected to be around 100,000 words. Fantasy readers seem to like our door stoppers.I'm not really sure what my goal is for my WIP.

I read recently that these are the word count definitions used for the Nebula (Science Fiction) awards:

• Short fiction: under 7,500 words
• Novelette: 7,500-17,500 words
• Novella: 17,500-40,000 words
• Novel: 40,000 words and up

 And I know that in the world of ebooks, shorter works have had new life breathed into them. Indie authors tend to decide the price of their books based on their wordcount. You can download short stories for .99 easily. (You can also find novels for that much, but I ask where do you go from there?) 2.99 seems to be one of the go to prices for novels. (But novels how long? Shorter novels?) While I remember reading that a successful fantasy writer, Michael J. Sullivan, put up his fantasy series for 5.99 and had marvelous results. (Which makes me wonder, were these the typical door stopper fantasy novels? Does that mean fantasy readers are willing to pay more because they expect more?)

But what occurs to me is the potential in a system where price is a factor of how long the work is. You needn't write with a certain word count in mind. You don't have to say to yourself "This is a novel so I need to squeeze 100,000 words out of this story idea" or "This is a novella so it needs to be between 17,500 and 40,000 words". It seems to me that in such a world you can just write the story however it works in your head and then count the words and say "Oh, 70,000 words, I guess this one is a novel" or "This one came out to 8,000 words, should I call it short fiction or a novelette?" (I kinda really like the word novelette, by the way.) And then set your price according to what you have to offer and clearly state it in your product description:

This is a novel of 60,000 words or roughly 240 pages.

That's using the standard 250 words equals a page, which isn't really accurate, but a good average. I think I'd price such a novel at 2.99. If I did end up with a door stopper of around 100,000 words I'd probably go with 4.99. Just under 5 dollars seems a good limit for a good little future indie author like me.

So at this point, the point of all this is, I don't have an ultimate word count goal. I'm just going to write and write until the story is done and see what I have at the finish. I find that idea very liberating.

Weekend Musings: I R Writer

 So, I have a confession to make. For many, many months I've been stuck in a rut. It was the "I want to be a writer, I talk a lot about writing, but I don't do much actual writing" rut. Anyone else know that one? And honestly, I think it was because of the blogging.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm soooo glad that I started blogging. I've gained so much from it The amount of stuff I've learned is positively overwhelming. And the amount of fun I've had must surely be sinful. So I don't regret a moment of it and I've no intention of stopping. But there does come a point of non-productivity where it suddenly becomes a lot easier to sit and read blogs because holy crap there's so much you still don't know and you'd better learn it all before you put pen to paper again lest your WIP be one smidgen less polished than it could be if you knew everything.

I never thought that consciously, but being confronted with the vast amount of information on writing blogs that I didn't know before has had a sort of freezing effect on me. My mind constantly asking, are you doing it right? Are you sure you're doing it right? What if you're doing it wrong? What if you're doing ok, but you could be doing it much better if you just read all these writing tips?

So, I'll be honest, it's been a while since I actually wrote any prose connected to my work in progress. As I said in my last post, my creativity had stalled and it's because I'd started thinking too critically all the time. I've been too concerned with the format of my stories as a future series when I haven't even managed to write one novel yet.

Then something happened this past week. I sat down and wrote a new opening scene for my WIP. I wrote it out in my notebook first and then typed it into my computer from my notebook, doing light editing along the way. And it felt good. More than that, I liked the finished product. And so I remembered that I am a writer. Not just a plotter. Not just a worldbuilder. But a writer and most importantly a storyteller.

My goal for this current round of A Round of Words in 80 Days (don't talk to me about Nano, I don't do well with hard deadlines) is to get back on track with actual writing. I want to, by the end of this session, be regularly writing for my WIP everyday. I want to actually make progress as a writer. I started to make some progress this week. And I feel hopeful that I can keep it up. I really felt in the creative zone when I was typing up that first scene. I'm excited.

To help keep me on track, I've decided to only post here twice a week. One brief (briefer than this one) status report on my WIP for Row 80 on the weekend and one other longer, hopefully interesting and thought provoking post during the week. I'm putting a serious limit on the amount of blogfests I'll sign up for too. I've been a bit too compulsive about that in the past. That's the plan. Hopefully by the end of this ROW 80 I'll be seriously involved in my current WIP. I have high hopes for this one.

Awards and Challenges and Blogfests Oh My!

Today is for playing catch up! I've been so out of the blogging loop, just barely hanging on, during the month of September. But now it's October and I think I'm ready to get back into the game!

First things first, even when I dropped off the face of the blogosphere and didn't post for a while, I had a few blog awards come in. That really made my day, coming back and seeing that. Dawn Allen and Kadie Kinney passed the Versatile Blogger Award on to me. And Deniz Bevan gave me the Liebster Award. Thanks, ladies! It really means a lot to me that you enjoy my blog enough to pass an award on to me. (I have this weird feeling that someone else gave me an award too, but I can't for the life of me remember where it was from. If it was you, please remind me!) It's traditional to share seven things about yourself with the Versatile award, but instead I'm going to share this awesome video:



And I'm passing both awards on to everyone in my Fantasy Campaigner group, whose blogs I need to visit more often.

Amanda Leigh Cowley
Leann D. Baldwin
Christine Tyler
Michele Helene
Notes from the Jovian Frontier
Rachel Morgan
J. A. Bennett
Mel Flowler
Stephanie at Word by Word
Heather McCorkle
Roger Eschbacher
Rebecca Ryals Russell
Alberta Ross
Eileen Wiedbrauk
Liz of Home is Where the Cat Is
Andrew Leon
The Golden Eagle
Concrete Pieces of Soul
The Kelworth Files
Ninja Owl
Hektor Karl
A. B. England

The final round of the year for A Round of Words in 80 Days has started this week and I'm giving it another shot. I failed spectacularly last time and learned the truth behind the old saying "Ambition should be made of sterner stuff". I'm going to curb that ambition this time, while still setting myself a goal that will give me a challenge.

My goal is to write everyday. And I don't mean blog posts or challenges or worldbuilding notes or outlines. I mean that I need to write narrative for one of my WIPs everyday. I'm not setting a word goal, because my days are just too unpredictable for that. But if I can manage to first establish writing something everyday for 80 days then hopefully it will become a habit and I can start setting myself word count goals in the future.

That's my hard goal. My soft goal to go along with that is that I would like to complete a short story, have at least a basic outline for all of the stories in my Apotheosis Cycle and finish worldbuilding the lands of Palis and Akhet. But these goals will be the icing on the cake.

Anyway, wish me luck! I'll be trying to keep my blog actually updated as to my progress at least once a week this time.

And last bit of business: blogfest announcements!

Tomorrow is the monthly Insecure Writers Support Group hosted by the fantastic Alex Cavanaugh. I know a lot of us could use the encouragement.

This week the Rule of Three Blogfest finally kicks off. You can post your first story installment either Wednesday or Thursday. I'll be posting on Thursday due to the IWSG.

Sommer Leigh is holding a month long MonsterFest where you can sign up any day during October to write a post about any type of scary creature from stories. I'll be posting on the 24th about Apep, the serpent god of Egyptian mythology, and how I'm using him as the inspiration and source of the Big Bad in my fantasy world.

And I'm spent. Have a great blogging and writing week!

Progress? I laugh in the face of Progress.

Ha ha ha! 

*sob*

So at the beginning of Row 80 I set myself a pretty steep goal. I have utterly failed.

I did set out on schedule to begin writing my new story. And I've tried. I've written I don't know how many beginnings. I made decisions about POV (I've decided to go with first person, since this is a story centered around one main character) and figured out more about the plot and how I want it to work, I worked hard on a map as well, showing on it the changes to the land that this story will bring about. But I could not write the actual story. I couldn't get into the MC's voice. (Which is kind of a problem with first person.) 

I tried a popular exercise that seems to help a lot of bloggers I read: casting your characters as an actor or actress to help visualize them. I cast my MC, whose name is Narmer, but it just didn't feel right. It didn't help. I was starting to get desperate. 

Then last night I had a breakthrough. I realized (remembered, really) that it doesn't matter to me what a character looks like. I don't need to see them, I need to hear them. If I can hear their voices then the dialogue flows like water. So I needed to cast a voice for my main character. And as soon as I thought that, I realized I had already heard his voice recently. I just hadn't recognized it for what it was at the time.

We don't have TV in our house so my husband and I usually get our visual entertainment through Hulu.com. We watch a fair amount of anime on there and we have been watching (and just finished) the anime show Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok. (A cute, less than serious show with some very funny aspects.) There are two versions of Loki in the show, a child Loki and a teen Loki. Teen Loki's voice was very distinctive, and I responded to it on a visceral level. (Voices have always affected me that way.) But it wasn't until early this morning that I knew why: his voice was the voice of Narmer. I can hear him now. 

So I am very excited to make a fresh try at writing my story tomorrow. I think it's going to come this time. I set my goal at 1500 words a day at the beginning of Row 80. I'm going to be more modest from now on. 1000 words a day is fine to start out with. If I can get to the point where I easily meet that goal every day, I'll up it later on. 

Alright, let's try this again!

Progress Report of a Cute and Delusional Writer

I keep saying to myself "it's just one of those weeks", but really, it's just one of those lives. I'm not sure why a mother of four is ever expecting her life to quiet down and become less busy. Probably because she's delusional. Also, apparently, cute. At least, according to Deniz Bevan of The Girdle of Melian who passed this award on to me...

This award asks you to list 5 books, movies or TV shows you've experienced in the last year.

TV show: Farscape. My husband and I just finished watching all four seasons together and are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the wrap-up miniseries, The Peacekeeper Wars.

Movie: Ghostbusters. For years my husband was shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, whenever I reminded him that I'd never seen this movie. Finally he brought it home from the library for us to watch together. It was quite good.

Book: The Wise Man's Fear. I was really looking forward to this as I had really loved The Name of the Wind, the first book in this trilogy. But this one was just a major disappointment. It'll take something special in the third book to make me like this series again.

TV show: Castle. I'm not normally a fan of murder mysteries, but we gave this a try because.. well, because of Nathan Fillion. And we were totally surprised, in the best possible way, by the greatness of this show. Can't wait for the show to return in the fall.

Book: The Westing Game. I just reread this kids book yesterday on a whim and it is still as good as I remember it. A really clever murder mystery/ puzzle game.

And I'm passing this award on to Rebecca Kiel, Stephanie Thornton, Michelle Gregory, and Jeanmarie Anaya.

ROW 80 Progress Report

I've made some important strides forward with my world-building this week. My world-building notebook is considerably fuller and I've worked out some of the geographical logistics that were giving me trouble for the story I intend to start writing this week. I intend to dive into the writing of that story tomorrow (1500 words a day for 5 days a week is the goal). It's a story with a "cast of thousands" so today I need to establish a few more of the secondary characters so I don't get stalled on names and such while writing. I think I'll be ready for tomorrow. Beginnings are always the hardest part for me so... *fingers crossed*

I'm really excited to get into it though. This story takes place at the effective beginning of history for the world I'm creating and it's the story that leads to everything else. It opens up the world and with any luck, you'll be able to read it before the year is out. All I need to do is manage to carve out some serious writing time without distractions. Sigh. I am delusional.

A Round of Words in 80 Days: My Goals

I like goals. Goals are helpful. But inflexible deadlines with strict rules only cause me to panic. NaNoWriMo would never work for me. A novel in a month? I've got four kids to look after, people! But I want, maybe I even need, something to help give me motivation. A Round of Words in 80 Days is a writing challenge for people with busy lives. (Me!) It allows you to make your own goals to suit your needs and to change and adapt them as you go along if you need to. It is, in other words, the perfect writing kick in the butt for me.

The current round began on Monday, July 4. (You're welcome to join in whenever you want though. This challenge is nothing if not flexible.) And this, three days late, is my post stating my writing goals for the next 80 days.

July 4-10: Essential world-building, nothing too in depth. Just the foundational material I need to write my story.

My regular may now be saying, "Wait a minute, haven't you done, like, a ton of world-building? You talked our ears off all April about it!"

Yes, yes I have done a lot of world-building. Here's the thing... I was world-building a specific part of my fantasy world in preparation for a specific story. It's the story closest to my heart, the one that I hope will be my masterpiece. And for that reason, I've decided not to write it yet. Because I want it to be good but I don't have nearly enough practice yet. So despite all the research and world-building and outlining and character development I've put into that story already, I've made the tough decision to shelve it for now and work on a different tale.

This new story will be set in the same world but earlier in that world's history than my other planned story and should provide some interesting, though not essential, background for when I get back to that story. But it starts in a different region of the world in different circumstances so a little more world-building is necessary before I can begin. I'm a planner and plotter. I need to have my ducks in a row before I can delve into my creative side.

July 11- September 22- Write a frelling book. 

My goal is to write 1500 words a day for 5 days a week (Monday-Friday) during this period. If I can manage that I'll come out to about 80,000 words. Honestly, I'm not sure if this story will even need that many or if it will end up being on the shorter novel side, but better to shoot high than fall short. Weekends I'll reserve for continued research and world-building.

Hopefully by September 22, I'll have a finished manuscript. (Trivia: September 22nd is Bilbo and Frodo Baggins' birthday.) My goal for the rest of the year will be to polish it and get it ready for self publication for the Christmas season.

How about you? Do concrete goals help you stay motivated or do they just hold you back?