And that, my friends, is a sigh of relief....

I was working on my story, and really -- I'm near the end.  Sure, I'll go back and add to it, even things out, make them blend more, but I'm getting to the climax, which, in a novel comes right before the end.  So....  I was looking at my word count, about 25,000.  Immediately, I thought, "Crap!  That's not good!"  So then I did some searching on the Internet.  I wanted to know how long should a novel be.  AND, I found the answer!  YIPPEE!!  I'm right on target for my prospective audience!!

This is what I found:
(Taken from http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/fiction/2004/12/how_many_pages_.html)

How Many Pages Make a Novel?

That question just arrived in my email, and it's a good one. The answer is: It depends.

Some publishers, especially in genres like romance, have requirements as uniform as a muffin tin: Each manuscript will be long enough to fill a book of exactly so many pages. Others are far more flexible.

In the days of the typewriter, a double-spaced page with 1-inch margins would hold an average of 250 words. So you could assume that since 4 pages = 1000 words, 240 pages = 60,000 words, which was the typical length for most mainstream and mystery novels.

Then came the personal computer and the writer's own choice of typeface and point size.

This threw the old estimate right out the window, but word processors of course give us a precise word count—and word count is what most publishers are interested in.

The number of words in a novel will vary depending on the genre. A young-adult novel will run between 20,000 and 40,000 words. That would be the length of a novella in mainstream fiction.

Many genres seem to have succumbed to supersizing. A mass-market western, mystery or SF novel used to run to 60,000-70,000 words. Now they're more likely to hit 90,000 words. Fantasy novels seem to be about 125,000 words—per volume, with some series going on and on. Mainstream fiction can be anywhere from 55,000 words (about the length of many mass-market romances) to ten times that.

And how many pages will your published book have? Again, book design and typesetting can influence the total. I've noticed a lot of hardback mainstream fiction lately with text that's really double-spaced, with generous margins: clearly the author handed in a short manuscript, and the publisher is trying to puff it up into something that looks worth the price.

Mass-market paperbacks don't seem to have changed their design much, however, and I've noticed that a typical page of a paperback novel will run around 440 words...not quite the equivalent of two double-spaced manuscript pages. My novelEyas was just about exactly 500 pages long in manuscript, and came out in print at 354 pages.

If you're working in a genre like SF or romance, it's always a good idea to visit the websites of genre publishers to see what length they want. If you go to Harlequin and browse through their FAQs, you'll see that different romance series require much different lengths, from 50,000 words to twice that.

For you this is a craft, maybe even an art. For them, it's an assembly-line business. If you're J. K. Rowling or Stephen King, you can tell your publishers how long your next novel will be, and they will tug their corporate forelock, thank you very much, and plan accordingly. But lowly scribes like you and me are unlikely to enjoy such freedom.

2,000 words later....

I did a lot of writing today.  Michael's not home to disrupt me -- he is spending the day shooting with his buddy.  I did a lot more reading than writing -- I'm up to chapter 7 of Midnight Sun.  My writing is definitely not up to par with hers...  This is disappointing.

I guess time will tell if it's something I can fix.

Another problem...  I'm on pg. 140 of Midnight Sun and she's still at the beginning of the story.  I'm at pg. 82 and nearing the climax.  I'll probably be ending by the time I hit pg. 140.  I guess I will have a lot of filling to do.  I just worry that I spent too long building up and I don't have enough at the finish line at this point.

Keep writing and see how it all plays out, right?

Back to reading....

Frustration

I'm afraid to write out of order, but I don't know how to get from where I am in my story to where I want to go next.  I know what other events I want to have, but I don't know how to make it flow into the story.  It's like I wrote myself into a hole.

AND, I'm afraid I'm taking too long getting to where I need to go.  Maybe it's where I'm breaking my chapters -- maybe I should consolidate them some more?  I'm trying to break them where each significant event has it's own, though.  I dunno...  Maybe this story just isn't going to be any good.

I guess I'll skip ahead to what I want to have happen next and then work backwards later.  I have to get stuff down.

I've been reading Midnight Sun this morning, since I was stuck.  LOVE IT!!!  I wish I could write like Stephenie Meyer....

Merry Christmas!

I've been doing a lot of reading and writing.  Things are going pretty well.  I've just been busy with all the holiday stuff going on.  But MERRY CHRISTMAS!!  Maybe I'll be done by this time next year and working on something new.  :)

And vacation has begun...

I was hoping to get more writing done than I have, but I am still working when I can.  Michael's home on vacation, too, and he won't leave me alone.  He's forever trying to see what I'm doing.  He just discovered I have a Facebook account, though he's seen me on it a zillion times.  Apparently he hadn't realized what it is.  But he doesn't like that I have it -- he seems to think I've been keeping it a secret.  Whatever.

I did do quite a bit of re-writing, however, and I wrote another 1,000+ words yesterday.  I've been doing a lot of reading.  I read 2-1/2 books between yesterday and today for one of my classes.  I have to read 12 all together.  YA novels.  Not really anything I would have picked so far...  Although I'm only halfway through The Adoration of Jenna Fox and do far I'm liking it.  :)

I read Tyrell and another called Weetzie Bat that I wasn't overly thrilled with.  I'm dying to get into City of Glass but I really feel compelled to get these others done first since I'm on a deadline with them.

OH!  And I finally caved and ordered myself a Nook.  It won't ship out till Feb. 1st though.  That BITES!!  But I'm excited about getting it.

Alrighty...  I fixed up some of the whole relationship scenario with my main characters.  And I think I need to give "The Watcher" a name...  Something "old-timey" but not boring, something that sounds like it could be a bad guy's name...  I dunno.  Victor, Edgar...  Something along those lines.  Cuz I've got them talking and you'd think that she'd ask him his name through all this.

I was thinking, too, this could be a whole "Heaven Can Wait" kinda series.  I could have a teenage girl die in labor and she helps her boyfriend adjust to being a single dad at age 16/17...  Or, I could have a teenage BOY die and have to help his pregnant girlfriend decide whether to have the baby or give it up.  Oooh, that might be good.

I could have a girl die and her bestie is a witch so even after she's gone, she can still see her and talk to her.

I saw a book on Shelfari that had a boyfriend and girlfriend and one had died and it said something like "even death couldn't keep them apart."  So, I dunno.  Lots of different scenarios could work if I can just get the first one to amount to anything.

Got in touch with my dad that I haven't talked to in God only knows how long.  I remember talking to my step-brother, Aaron, when I was living in Wilmington like 12 years ago.  GAWD, can it really have been 12 years ago???  I don't think I talked to my dad at that point, but I may have and just don't remember it.  Yeah, I guess I did cuz I knew he was about to be moving because my half-sister was playing soccer on the junior national team and had gotten an offer to play at a private school or something and it was a really good opportunity?  I don't really remember the specifics.

Anyway, my brother called me in the middle of the night, drunk, and left this loooooong rambling message about how he wants to find our dad.  I told him the easiest way would be to find Aaron because he has the least common name.  My dad's name is apparently EXTREMELY common.  But I would never have been looking for him in freakin' TX anyway -- I thought he lived in Massachusetts.  So, anyway, Shawn's not a take-charge kinda guy, so I did it myself, and immediately got in touch with Aaron, who then got me in touch with everyone else.  Turns out my step-brother, Ryan, and my step-sister, Brie, are only about an hour and a half from me.  They live here in Durham, NC.  Aaron's in Wisconsin, not far from Kim who's in Minnesota.

So...  I guess it's only been a couple of days, but that's pretty much what I've been up to.  Hopefully I can write some tomorrow, and as soon as I post this, I'm going to open my file back up and see what I can add to what I was working on yesterday.  I think I got cut off by Michael before I could finish what I was working on.

Well, better hop to it.  He could come home any time now and spoil all my fun.  :)   hehe

Not much new...

I haven't had much of a chance to write lately unfortunately.  Michael hasn't been going out so he's here beside me most of the time irritating me, or I have children hovering about asking for stuff for Christmas.  Not a moment's peace!!

I wrote a little this morning.  About 3 pages worth, I guess.  I'm having issues with working my Watcher into the scenes.  I'll be focused on my main characters and what they're dealing with when it will dawn on me that I need this other arc happening too.  It actually worked out okay in one scene today -- she was focused on her thoughts and what Jeremy was saying and then realized afterwards that this guy's standing there in the corner of the room taking freakin' notes on what they're saying.

So anyway...  Here's hoping that Michael will pick back up with his training schedule so I can get back to my writing.  It's way easier to do when I have the "I'm writing a paper" excuse.  If I write now, he'll want to know why cuz he knows I don't have any classes at the moment and I really would rather keep my book private at the moment.  Besides, it's not like he'd be at all supportive of it.  He's too self-centered for that.

OMG!!  His friend is thinking about going to work overseas in like the Middle East.  He said if you work for 9-10 months over there you earn $80-100,000 tax-free.  On the one hand I'm thinking, that's 9-10 months of peace -- I can really focus on my writing and not have to bother with entertaining him or listening to him act like a retard.  On the other hand, that would dump his kids 100% on me to deal with 24/7 for 9-10 months.  He's very little help as it is, but at least he's a "threat."

Anyway...  I doubt anything will come of it anyway.  I'd say it would be nice to have him earn that much money, but he'd just waste all of it anyway.  He said he'd use it to pay off his house (key words HIS HOUSE).  That way he wouldn't have any bills -- he already paid off his truck.  I pay all the other bills, have a car payment, have credit cards and student loans...  He wastes sooooooooooooo much freakin' money and then acts like I must because I never have any.

See, that would be the biggest plus of getting published.  Additional income to pay off my freakin' loans!

Finito!

Not my story -- but with my semester!  I uploaded my final artifact and reflection tonight and am completely done with this semester, with my 4.0 still intact.  :)  I got a new idea to add to it today, but I've been so stressed, I haven't felt up to writing.  Hopefully tomorrow!

Breathing a little easier....

It took me most of the weekend, but I'm nearly done with the semester.  I submitted my huge project for my 6144 artifact that had been such a nightmare.  Got that done this afternoon and about an hour and a half later, my professor wrote back saying it was approved (an A -- I love Dr. Jones!!) and to show her my reflection so I could post them to my portfolio and be DONE!!  So, just waiting on that.

Then I was working on my 6018 paper -- a collection development policy.  I'm almost done with that.  Jennifer's going to send me hers tomorrow so I can make sure I'm doing it right.  I know I'm saying the stuff he wants, but I'm not sure if he actually wanted something "formal" instead of a narrative telling what I'm doing and why.  I've only got 2 sections left to it (unless I discover tomorrow it needs to be drier).  So, I need to finish up my evaluation and my diversity policies and call it a day.  Er, a semester!

Anyway, since I've been busy working on these I haven't had time to do any of my writing.  However, I got a fortune cookie yesterday that said "You will be unusually successful in business."  Considering I'm a librarian, I'm not in "business," so maybe it's an omen that someone will one day like my book.  LOL, see me holding my breath?  Stupid cookies....  I got one last month that said something about "Your wife will..."  I was like, news to my HUSBAND!!  Sheesh.

Well, I'm going to go shower and do some reading, I think.  I did finish up Dark Visions.  I must say, I wasn't impressed.  I did like the Night World series, though.  Especially the first one.

I found another series I want to read.  I need to get a Nook so I can cuz I have no room left for more books.

It's only Tuesday?? Seriously??

This has been such a long week!!!  And I'm only 2 days into it!!

Monday I didn't get to write.  The boys had scouts and Michael was home and I can't concentrate when he's there watching The Jeffersons online.  Grrrrr...

Tonight I had class, so I didn't get tooooo much time to spend on it, but I did manage to write a little over 3 pages and do some revising.  It's 10 now so I think I'm gonna read for a while.  I'm currently working on L. L. Smith's Dark Visions.  I don't think I like it...  I'm almost finished, but it just seems to be taking forever to go nowhere.  I'm kinda disappointed.  I guess I just don't particularly care for the characters.

I hope readers will like mine.

I introduced my "watcher" in what I wrote tonight, too.  :)  I'm on page 52, Chapter 7.