Apparently its common for authors to post the count of the number of words they’ve written for a day. This seems kind of like a waste of time, since so much of the work of shaping a novel goes past simply writing words. If I’m spending my time editing, I’m not getting much new writing done am I?

Though, I have read that you should always be writing something. So perhaps many authors are simply posting the count of side projects, if they’re on an editing cycle of the main thing they’re working on. I don’t know.

I’ve finished the second rewrite of Penumbra Part 1, and I’ve found myself in an unfortunate position, in that the manuscript is not just around 52k words. The issue is that Parts 2 and 3, are going to add at minimum another 90k words to it, which puts me far past the industry standard and therefore, is a very poor length for an established author to try to sell–at least in regards to urban fantasy.

I’ve checked and double checked and the target goal here is 75-95k, which means I’m either way over, or I’m way under. So what to do?

Well that’s the dilemma isn’t it. I considered re-appropriating some of part 2, to flesh out the last bit of Part 1 and send off for publishing that way, but I don’t think my story will treat that kindly. The other option is to flesh out part 1, which is something I’m wary of, considering I feel like it’s fairly trim at the moment.

At the moment, I don’t have a good answer, or idea of how to go about making the changes, so I’m hoping if I sleep on it I’ll have a flash of inspiration. We’ll see.

I read Stormdancer: The Lotus War during my long absence of blog writing. I was very enthusiastic going in, but I’ll be honest it was a bit of a let down. It starts off incredibly slowly and it isn’t until exactly half way through that the plot picks up and then it moves at marathon speed through to the end. While I love the aesthetic for Steampunk, I’ve yet to find a novel that really fits my taste and appetite for it, but I hope to come across something in the future. I have had an idea for a novel in a Steampunk style setting, but its a distant project now.

Well, tally forward my (currently) non-existent reader, the answers will come and if I come up with the proper answer to my own problem, I’ll be sure to fill you in!