I hit a bit of a milestone yesterday. A short while back, I did some research on what the 'right' length for a novel is. A bunch of the short stories that I've written have ended up in the 10,000 word range, and while I think that length gives you enough space to tell a good, rich story, anything like that is a pain to sell because most print magazines and anthologies want 5000-6000 word pieces. There were different opinions, but many agreed that 80,000-100,00 words is a good length.
I started this book, Roja, a few years ago, and set it aside when I got a better idea of what the market and the competition are like, and focused on short stories so that I could get my name out there on paper somewhere. Now that I've picked it back up, the last thing I want to do is look up when I'm done and realize I have a monstrosity the size of Atlas Shrugged. I tend to have all sorts of great ideas about other stuff that should be added when I'm rewriting something, and while I don't plan on hacking out stuff that fits someone else's formula, one of the end goals is to have something that some hard-working editor will pay me for.
Last night, while still cursing the fact that I seem to have lost one of the handwritten sheets of paper that I'm transcribing, I looked up after hitting the 'save' button once again, and did a word count. 80071 words. Not bad for someone who used to abandon whatever he was working on whenever he got a new idea.
Next stop, who knows? I'll keep you posted.
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