Pots on the boil
Feb. 13th, 2019 10:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eight_of_cupsThere's a lot happening on the Original Project front right now!
Last week I finished a full draft of the novella-size story that deals with the aftermath of Ryswyck (Book 1). It's now off to beta. While that's going on, I'm deliberating on a couple of thumbnail designs that my commissioned artist came up with for Book 1's cover -- very cool, and I'm looking forward to the finished piece once I've chosen a design!
Then next month I'm going to fully tackle the storyboarding for Book 2 and get started on a draft. I mean, I could do that now, but it seems wise to catch my breath after finishing the draft of Book 1.5, you know?
Also, can you believe that the quasi-official word count of a novella tops out at 40k? I think that's nuts. What are these 50k-word "novels" people are writing? I just looked up the NaNoWriMo target word count and it is indeed 50k, which just boggles me. So you're telling me I just wrote a 53k-word novel in a month and a half -- whose plot heavily depends on the plot of the book before it, which let's just say is a Large Ass Book?
I'm continually nonplussed by this disparity in perspective. I mean, for assignments and sermons and just about every kind of set-piece of writing, I consistently come in way under budget, as it were. Then I looked into selling my novel and it's like, "Nobody has any business writing a novel over 110k words." The hell you say!
As far as I can tell, it's down to the commodification of books and a sense that readers don't have the attention span for a book of more than 175 pages. Which I think is bullshit because I'm ADHD and I can read a doorstop with enough motivation. The way I figure, as an author I want to provide the motivation, not portion control.
Well, that turned into a bit of a rant, didn't it. Suffice to say, I just wrote a 50k-word goddamn novella, fight me.
And now, back to work. :)
Last week I finished a full draft of the novella-size story that deals with the aftermath of Ryswyck (Book 1). It's now off to beta. While that's going on, I'm deliberating on a couple of thumbnail designs that my commissioned artist came up with for Book 1's cover -- very cool, and I'm looking forward to the finished piece once I've chosen a design!
Then next month I'm going to fully tackle the storyboarding for Book 2 and get started on a draft. I mean, I could do that now, but it seems wise to catch my breath after finishing the draft of Book 1.5, you know?
Also, can you believe that the quasi-official word count of a novella tops out at 40k? I think that's nuts. What are these 50k-word "novels" people are writing? I just looked up the NaNoWriMo target word count and it is indeed 50k, which just boggles me. So you're telling me I just wrote a 53k-word novel in a month and a half -- whose plot heavily depends on the plot of the book before it, which let's just say is a Large Ass Book?
I'm continually nonplussed by this disparity in perspective. I mean, for assignments and sermons and just about every kind of set-piece of writing, I consistently come in way under budget, as it were. Then I looked into selling my novel and it's like, "Nobody has any business writing a novel over 110k words." The hell you say!
As far as I can tell, it's down to the commodification of books and a sense that readers don't have the attention span for a book of more than 175 pages. Which I think is bullshit because I'm ADHD and I can read a doorstop with enough motivation. The way I figure, as an author I want to provide the motivation, not portion control.
Well, that turned into a bit of a rant, didn't it. Suffice to say, I just wrote a 50k-word goddamn novella, fight me.
And now, back to work. :)
