Saturday Night Writing

And here’s the Saturday night post for all of you playing along on Write A Book With Me.

Any breakthroughs? Anything cool?

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20 responses to “Saturday Night Writing”

  1. Lee Avatar
    Lee

    Well…

    Where once I thought I was writing *a* book, I suddenly learn I actually have two…

    The word count on this monster and the story is way too much to try and confine to one book, keeping in mind the standard industry novel size of around what–190k words?

    Word count stands at 225k-ish. ANd that’s with some of the cuts I made. Well, okay so there is a new chapter and some necessary scenes added, but still…

    But what do I do when I go to submit it? Indicate that the end of the story is in a second book, but it’s also written too?

    Curious thing though, I found the perfect place to split the book into two, well, somewhere in the middle lol

    1. The Pencil Neck Avatar
      The Pencil Neck

      Um. I think your novel size estimates are a bit off.

      A rough estimation is that there are about 250 words per page on a normal science fiction/fantasy type of novel. I believe a “normal” stand alone novel usually runs from 300-400 pages. So that’s 75,000 to 100,000 words.

      At 225,000 words, you’ve got about 900 pages. That’s… long. There are definitely some novels out there that are that long and longer but I think that’s going to be a hard sell if it’s your first.

      If you really can split it at about the 112,500 word point, then you’ve basically got two novels of about 450 pages and while that’s a tad long, I don’t think it’s too bad.

      But, I don’t have any experience with this sort of thing. I’m just going on what I’ve heard.

      1. Lee Avatar
        Lee

        Whups.. how’d that 1 get in there. I meant 90k 🙂

        But yeah, it’s split, and also a good sign that I may not be a one shot wonder lol

  2. Don Avatar
    Don

    558 words and watched a little football some History Channel. Broncos won in nail bitter 4-0 never in my wildest fiction could I wrote it. On the sports talk show they’ll be screaming Super Bowl, and with the Rockys ahead in the wild card race….. Oh God how I shudder.

  3. Larkk Avatar
    Larkk

    1460 words, many of them in the form of questions, and things are getting a lot more complicated in my imaginary world.
    Funny you should ask about breakthroughs.
    Today, while I was driving in the cold October rain, I suddenly knew why I wrote my first novel. Yeah, after I finished it, but better late than never 🙂 Because, although the writing was great fun, more than I ever thought it could be, there was something else, a part of me that burned to write it, that needed to get this down. I hadn’t been able to define where that came from. I was still wondering “Why?”
    But now, I realize that I wrote it because I needed to create a world where love can heal, where love actually means something, where love truly is eternal, and where the world is a different and better place because we loved in it. The sea and the sky imagery became so important because they are eternal in my world, and I wanted love to be eternal too. I want the fact that we loved to make us eternal.
    I know, of course,that this is not the case in the real world, but that is why I think I need to go there, to my imaginary world, to escape the cruel reality that love doesn’t make one bit of difference in the way things turn out in the world. I want love to matter, so that is why I had to write it.
    Love matters, and love is powerful. That might qualify as the elusive theme for my novel. In any case, I know now, it is what drove me to write it.

  4. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    It’s 11.20 in the evening, I just finished doing my tax. The debate is now, do I go to bed or do I write? … I reeeeally want to write…

  5. Lisa R Avatar
    Lisa R

    140 words. Nothing much. This week I didn’t come near my goal. Hopefully I will do better this week.

  6. Khena Avatar
    Khena

    339 words for me, and none the day before. I didn’t want to write last night, but I made myself. I intended to write only 250, but I got caught up in the scene I randomly started. Isotte finally cornered Nathalan about the assassin he murdered, and he explained to her she could never understand because she was highborn and had never seen the things he had seen, or endured any of the horrors those lower born had to face.

    My free time has been cut into a lot lately, since I have a tatting class I need to teach soon, and need to prepare for. My mother-in-law also has a booth for some Christmas bazaar so I have been making Chistrmas ornaments as well. And yesterday, I made the guadiest ornaments I have ever seen. Today, I hope to actually make something tasteful =)

  7. Debora Avatar
    Debora

    700 words, most of them not my own, but rather excerpts from diaries kept by some of the townspeople of Gettysburg during the weeks just prior to the battle. I am trying to figure out what topics need to be addressed, and in what manner? This is difficult. Several of my main characters will not show up until the first day of the battle, and they are growing mutinous. It would be so easy just to skip ahead to July 1, 1863. Why don’t I?

    Because my MC won’t let me. This is her story, and to skip ahead would be to omit both a chapter in her life and a particular person who were immensely important to her. Someday, when I have written through to the end, I will know better what to keep and what to omit. But for the purposes of this first draft I feel I have to experience it all, everything I know as a historian would have had some impact on her.

    Argh.

  8. Greg Avatar
    Greg

    No particular breakthroughs, but hit my targets.
    D&D: 534 and someone about to receive bad news that could precipitate a disaster.
    OFL: 1026 and a public argument.
    RFW: 1008 and the threat of invasion.

  9. Teri Avatar
    Teri

    After a few days of not writing due to a slump that started on Wednesday, I made up for it on Saturday with 1,177 words. Taskh has reported to his employer, and is now busy figuring out how to start a war. Because wars are profitable, and currently neither the rebels nor the establishment want the situation to deteriorate to actual civil war.

  10. The Pencil Neck Avatar
    The Pencil Neck

    540 words – Development.

    Had the last of the performances tonight. Very fun. But it took away from my writing time. And I’m tired.

    Semi-kinda finished the overview. At this point, I’ve got 4 endings and I’ve figured out a couple of ways that The Princess is able to save herself from the Empire without having to be rescued… although it takes a little bit of coincidence. Not sure I like that. And a couple of the endings actually allow her to reconcile with her mother.

  11. Julian Adorney Avatar
    Julian Adorney

    I spent the night editing the Prologue of my novel, which I’m turning into Chapter 1. Part of my edit-a-chapter-a-day plan.
    So officially, an hour and a half of work for no net words. But the chapter’s tighter, with more conflict and some danger for the MC.
    On to Chapter 1 (which is becoming 2) tomorrow. Can’t wait!

  12. May Avatar
    May

    First of all, I want to say that I read about TALYN on Amazon, and it sounds amazing. As soon as I get some money I’ll be sure to buy it.
    My word count is very small, but–this is very strange, don’t call me crazy–I saw my entire day through the eyes of my main character. As in, I thought what SHE would think, I felt the way SHE would feel toward something, and occasionally, one of her Old-English phrases would slip out. That has never happened to me before, and believe me, I’m not insane. I guess this shows me I have a lot to learn–not only about writing, but about the essence of my characters.
    She has an extremely interesting point of view on things, so breathtaking that I am considering writing in the first person from her point of view. The only problems: you would know she doesn’t die (unless she is telling the story as a ghost, but this story isn’t really paranormal), and there are a few scenes from other points of view that are essential to understanding the plot.
    We’ll see where this takes me.

    1. Patricia Avatar
      Patricia

      No you’re not crazy, unless that means I am crazy too, because I’ve gone through a day or two thinking like my main character, and he’s a *man*. Talk about weird. 🙂 Most of the time he just sits in the back of my head though, inserting his own opinions on what I experience. He doesn’t do it very much anymore though, because I had a talk with him about invading my head only when I need him to. He’s a gentleman, so he actually listened. So now the only time I think and speak like him are when I’m writing. Which is good because the book is in first person.

  13. Michelle Avatar

    Haha, sounds like fun, Rabia!

    I got 346 tonight. A good man got a bad court ruling.

    1. Rabia Avatar

      I used my husband as a sounding board last night and now I know why she’s here and what she’s going to find. Yay!

  14. Rabia Avatar

    523 words and every one felt like it was pulled out of me with red-hot tongs. Kai’s in this surreal anti-world (yeah, this makes no sense to me, neither), after getting pulled through a place where the boundary has been stretched tissue-thin. I don’t know why she’s here. I’m hoping RB does, and knows how she’s getting outta here, because the story I planned out is all happening Back Over There. I have no index cards for this. *spreads out hands and shrugs*

  15. Red_dot Avatar
    Red_dot

    Zombieland and grandbaby took up today. I caused a scene at the theater, yes I am afraid of clowns!

    “Come here big fella, only gunna take a little off the top!”

    Going tomorrow to see it again, dressing nerdlings as zombies and I’ll break out the “Sean of the dead” outfit including cricket bat.

    “Big Al says dogs can’t look up”

  16. Clare K. R. Miller Avatar

    I got 648 words, completing the scene I wrote yesterday. It’s a smallish, fun, but quite important scene, and I’m very pleased with it. Cricket finds out that her friend is who he says he is, but he’s soon to be employed by the bad guys. They were going to let the government deal with the bad guys (even though the government doesn’t believe them), but now Cricket insists that they do it themselves–otherwise, her friends from the street who are innocent but poor might get hurt.

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