This will be the third in the "length" series and probably the last one.
There are many genres and subgenres of stories. Each of them have specific guidelines as to how long they should be.
I already looked at children's books on my first posting Wednesday.
What are the different genres we writers can write? You have nonfiction, fiction which covers a plethora of categories to include children's, fantasy, horror, mystery, romance, science fiction, short fiction, thriller/suspense, western and young adult (Source). There are also a plethora of combinations of these genres but that won't be the focus of this posting. Basically, I'll be looking at standard lengths for the overall genre.
Let's define the genres and then talk about length for each.
CHILDREN'S: These are written for the under 13 age crowd for the most part and usually include board books, picture books, early readers, et al. as described on my post a couple of days ago. The length of this genre varies according to the type of story it is and the target audience.
FANTASY: Stories in this genre usually contain a "fantastical" element - animals talking, werewolves or vamps, et cetera. These stories can occur on Earth or some other realm or world and the humans or other characters do "magical things".
HORROR: This genre evokes an "eww" factor in most humans. I think of Stephen King as a horror writer. I've not read his books but have seen bits and pieces of movies based on his books and to me they are all horror stories.
MYSTERY: This is the solving a puzzle or figuring out the unknown factor. Mysteries cover a lot of subgenres but the most common is the cozy. This is the story written where the murder takes place off the pages and the protagonist has to figure out whodunit before the end of the story. Agatha Christie, Carolyn Hart, Elizabeth Craig Spann all fall into this category.
ROMANCE: This is your basic love story but can get steamier than just girl meets boy, boy likes girl/girl likes boy and they fall in love and get married.
SCIENCE FICTION: This is the genre that covers robots and outer space, aliens and whatever one can imagine. The only stipulation to classifying your story as "science" fiction is that it must be scientifically plausible.
THRILLERS (SUSPENSE or formerly ACTION or ADVENTURE): This is the genre that keeps you on the edge of your seat because you are so caught up in the action and thrill of the experience that you forget you already know the ending.
WESTERNS: According to the definition of this genre, it is the only one that is time and place specific. This genre usually follows the times of the cowboys and Indians and the hero is usually the sheriff, cowboy, cowhand. Think John Wayne movies when thinking Western.
YOUNG ADULT: This is the genre geared for the 12 to 18, on up to 20 something year olds. This genre also has many subcategories. Since Young Adult stories fell in the length posting on Wednesday, I will only cover this one briefly.
From my research and several sources but one of my favorite sites states that most novels fall in the 50,000 to 110,000 word range, except of course children's books which I covered on my post of Wednesday. Most publishers will have their own guidelines as to the length of the submitted piece. If you are going to submit any work to a publisher, either by way of an agent or directly, make sure you follow their posted guidelines or you could see many rejections. Rule of thumb is to come under the maximum word count accepted so that you are less likely to be rejected for being too wordy.
If you are self-publishing, again, keeping with the overall guidelines on word counts for your genre is probably a good idea since you are building your readership and as an unknown, you don't want to lose a very large reader base out of the gates.
I hope you all have enjoyed my postings on lengths. Next week there will be some repostings from the Writers on the Move blog and then I may start my picture inspiration series showing some backstory in how I'm developing my novel, Imogene.
Since I still haven't given away a signed copy of Finally Home, leave a comment on this posting and I'll do a drawing for either a signed printed copy or an ebook of Finally Home. See you all in the postings. - E :)
Showing posts with label birthday giveaways. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birthday giveaways. Show all posts
Saturday, June 09, 2012
Friday, June 08, 2012
Pacing and Maggie Toussiant (discontinuation of the 50-day blitz)
Last night was our monthly local Sisters in Crime meeting and our guest was author Maggie Toussiant. She talked about pacing your scenes, chapters and books and how to catch some of those pesky pacing problems. We also had an interactive session where she gave us two characters and we provided a little bit of background information and then we formed several small groups and had to come up with a scene - either a fast paced action, slow paced action or fast paced dialogue or slow paced dialogue. Interesting what happens with the same background information, how each group came up with different scenarios. A fun exercise in pacing.
Anita rode with me to the meeting and as usual I was the talker all the way home. I did a little brainstorming about Imogene's story thinking about the pacing of the story. So far, the three pages I've written are slow paced, narrative, not much action but fitting for where the story starts. I know the prologue will disappear because I've got the scene in my head and unsure if I've put it down on the paper yet as to when the secret comes out. I don't know if I can pull off a slow-paced beginning with a faster-paced majority of the story or not but I'm going to try. One thing that did come from the brainstorming session with Anita is that I believe this story will call for a "postlogue", not so much an epilogue but more of an "author's note" explaining certain elements in the story. Don't worry it won't be long - a couple of paragraphs at the most and will be something to the effect of: This is truly a work of fiction because after my many hours of research and the findings of historical data and other information would not make this story happen in such a way. (I know it needs some work and there will be a little more to it than that but you get the gist of the meaning - Imogene is pure fiction and there are no facts to really base much of the story on other than possible places in a different time from when the story takes place.)
I'm discontinuing my 50-day giveaway blitz as I've had only three comments (six actual but only three answered the question) on the first day and I've tried to go to my social groups and post everywhere to stop by my blog and leave a comment to be entered for whatever the day's giveaway is. Since it seems no one is interested in leaving comments, it isn't worth my time to put out there my time or effort to get readers and followers and folks who will at least just leave a comment in order to try to win whatever I may be giving away on any given day. I'll go back to my posting schedule as before - Mondays and Thursdays with guest bloggers the 4th week of the month and an occasional review of books I've read on my kindle.
The end of this month, Jen Wylie and Darcia Helle as well as Jo Linsdell are my guest bloggers and there will be free ebooks during Jen's and Darcia's days. Jo will be a guest on my blog two more times as part of her 3-month blog tour and a free ebook will be given away on her last appearance. I will probably do some occasional giveaways during the next couple of months. I haven't really decided.
I hope you all will still at least read my blog and see what I have to say. See you all in the postings - E :)
Anita rode with me to the meeting and as usual I was the talker all the way home. I did a little brainstorming about Imogene's story thinking about the pacing of the story. So far, the three pages I've written are slow paced, narrative, not much action but fitting for where the story starts. I know the prologue will disappear because I've got the scene in my head and unsure if I've put it down on the paper yet as to when the secret comes out. I don't know if I can pull off a slow-paced beginning with a faster-paced majority of the story or not but I'm going to try. One thing that did come from the brainstorming session with Anita is that I believe this story will call for a "postlogue", not so much an epilogue but more of an "author's note" explaining certain elements in the story. Don't worry it won't be long - a couple of paragraphs at the most and will be something to the effect of: This is truly a work of fiction because after my many hours of research and the findings of historical data and other information would not make this story happen in such a way. (I know it needs some work and there will be a little more to it than that but you get the gist of the meaning - Imogene is pure fiction and there are no facts to really base much of the story on other than possible places in a different time from when the story takes place.)
I'm discontinuing my 50-day giveaway blitz as I've had only three comments (six actual but only three answered the question) on the first day and I've tried to go to my social groups and post everywhere to stop by my blog and leave a comment to be entered for whatever the day's giveaway is. Since it seems no one is interested in leaving comments, it isn't worth my time to put out there my time or effort to get readers and followers and folks who will at least just leave a comment in order to try to win whatever I may be giving away on any given day. I'll go back to my posting schedule as before - Mondays and Thursdays with guest bloggers the 4th week of the month and an occasional review of books I've read on my kindle.
The end of this month, Jen Wylie and Darcia Helle as well as Jo Linsdell are my guest bloggers and there will be free ebooks during Jen's and Darcia's days. Jo will be a guest on my blog two more times as part of her 3-month blog tour and a free ebook will be given away on her last appearance. I will probably do some occasional giveaways during the next couple of months. I haven't really decided.
I hope you all will still at least read my blog and see what I have to say. See you all in the postings - E :)
Thursday, June 07, 2012
Story Category Lengths
This is a followup posting to my book lengths posting from yesterday. Today, I'm going to touch on defining your story. Is it a flash fiction? short story? novella? novelette? novel? Again, these are all based on word lengths and not pages.
Most of the shorter categories are usually for contests and not publication per se. As with yesterday's post, the lengths for the different categories of stories will vary from site to site. One site, The Short Mystery Fiction Society blog, runs a yearly contest for its members called the "The Derringers". From the name of the group, the purpose is to promote the short story writer, so anything considered a novel won't be targeted in the contest submission guidelines.
FLASH FICTION = up to 1000 words
SHORT STORY = up to 5000 words
NOVELETTE = up to 17,500 words
NOVELLA = up to 40,000 words
NOVEL = 40,000 and up -
Flash Fiction, what is it? For all intents and purposes, this is a super short story. I've seen places running contests for flash fiction of 100 words or less and others of 500 words or less, even still others saying 1000 words or less. I've even attempted to enter a flash fiction contest in a former life (before I decided to enter real contests and start writing for real) and the story had to be 100 words or less. If we base this on the previous guidelines on yesterday's posting of 250 words = 1 page, then technically, this very short story isn't even half a page in length. If you can write a full story in two or three very short paragraphs (for the 100-word or less flash fiction), then I say more power to you.
If you compare book lengths, a children's board book would fall into this category, but most picture books don't have a full story as they are teaching type books. For the purposes of the Derringers, the length for flash is up to 1000 words. Even 1000 words is low for the type of writing I do, as I consider myself a short story writer.
Short Stories: As noted above, flash fiction are very short stories and contain a beginning, middle and ending in such a concise manner that when reading these very short flash pieces, one walks away with a sense of awe. You wonder how the author could write a story that played on all the senses and had such an impact that it left you in a state of awe.
Short stories do the same thing as flash fiction in a few more words. Most short story writers find it harder to write longer lengths because they know their story and write it and usually don't need a lot of fluff to get the story out. I consider short stories to be under 10,000 words, and most everything I've written has been under 10,000 and a good many under 5000 words. Again, there isn't any one source with exact standard numbers for the different classifications of stories.
A novelette will be longer than a short story and shorter than a novella. Again, the word lengths vary but 17,500 seems to be a pretty standard number from several sources to classify a novelette. Again, if you are entering a contest or writing for a specific publication, follow their guidelines as to the acceptable word length.
That brings us to the novella. This is almost to the point of novel writing but not quite. As a short story writer and not really a novel writer, I would consider writing something of novella length or up to 40,000 words if the story warranted such. I think transitioning from being a short story writer to a novella writer is probably easier than from short story to complete full-length novel. It's a mindset thing.
As far as novels go, pretty much 50,000 words on up is considered the standard for novels. If going a traditional publishing route, I've heard most publishers won't accept anything less than 65,000 or 75,000 for novels. So again, it all depends what reason you are writing the story. If it is to be published traditionally, then the publisher's guidelines trump everything else.
When participating in National NOvel Writing Month in November (NaNo), 50,000 words in 30 days is considered a novel, although most people participating consider that the beginning of a novel. A good many people write well over the 50,000 word limit in the 30 days. When I wrote Finally Home I struggled to get to 50,000 words but I managed to come in at just over 56,000 words, which is a tremendous feat for someone who considers herself a short story writer.
You will find when reading my stories, even my state stories, that word-wise they all fall in the short story category, falling between 2500 and maybe 8500 words. I'm comfortable with writing short stories and do well with them, having placed 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and runner up in various contests, all asking for short stories. I've heard some novelists state that they find it hard to write short stories and that's okay because we all have a place in the writing world. There are those of us who can write short stories and those who write novels and epics who do quite well.
When writing stories of short lengths and writing for contests, pay attention to the guidelines. If the folks running the contest or accepting short stories for anthologies or other publications that carry multiple stories at one time say they want stories up to a certain word count, and no more, then do your best to not go over those stated word counts. Some folks are more flexible and will make statements like "accepting short stories up to 4000 words, but will consider some slightly longer if the story merits being longer." It's all in the perspective of who is seeking the submission and for what purpose.
Another source definiing story lengths can be found here. There are many other sources for defining the length of stories, so remember not to rely on just one source for your answer.
Question for the giveaway blitz: If you are a writer, which do you prefer to write - the short story or the novel? Why? Remember to leave a comment to be entered for the 50-day giveaway extravaganza celebrating my 50 years. Today's giveaway is a free ebook of my first place winning story, "The Tulip Kiss". Don't forget to leave an email in the comment so I can contact you if you are the winner. See you all the postings - E :)
Most of the shorter categories are usually for contests and not publication per se. As with yesterday's post, the lengths for the different categories of stories will vary from site to site. One site, The Short Mystery Fiction Society blog, runs a yearly contest for its members called the "The Derringers". From the name of the group, the purpose is to promote the short story writer, so anything considered a novel won't be targeted in the contest submission guidelines.
FLASH FICTION = up to 1000 words
SHORT STORY = up to 5000 words
NOVELETTE = up to 17,500 words
NOVELLA = up to 40,000 words
NOVEL = 40,000 and up -
Flash Fiction, what is it? For all intents and purposes, this is a super short story. I've seen places running contests for flash fiction of 100 words or less and others of 500 words or less, even still others saying 1000 words or less. I've even attempted to enter a flash fiction contest in a former life (before I decided to enter real contests and start writing for real) and the story had to be 100 words or less. If we base this on the previous guidelines on yesterday's posting of 250 words = 1 page, then technically, this very short story isn't even half a page in length. If you can write a full story in two or three very short paragraphs (for the 100-word or less flash fiction), then I say more power to you.
If you compare book lengths, a children's board book would fall into this category, but most picture books don't have a full story as they are teaching type books. For the purposes of the Derringers, the length for flash is up to 1000 words. Even 1000 words is low for the type of writing I do, as I consider myself a short story writer.
Short Stories: As noted above, flash fiction are very short stories and contain a beginning, middle and ending in such a concise manner that when reading these very short flash pieces, one walks away with a sense of awe. You wonder how the author could write a story that played on all the senses and had such an impact that it left you in a state of awe.
Short stories do the same thing as flash fiction in a few more words. Most short story writers find it harder to write longer lengths because they know their story and write it and usually don't need a lot of fluff to get the story out. I consider short stories to be under 10,000 words, and most everything I've written has been under 10,000 and a good many under 5000 words. Again, there isn't any one source with exact standard numbers for the different classifications of stories.
A novelette will be longer than a short story and shorter than a novella. Again, the word lengths vary but 17,500 seems to be a pretty standard number from several sources to classify a novelette. Again, if you are entering a contest or writing for a specific publication, follow their guidelines as to the acceptable word length.
That brings us to the novella. This is almost to the point of novel writing but not quite. As a short story writer and not really a novel writer, I would consider writing something of novella length or up to 40,000 words if the story warranted such. I think transitioning from being a short story writer to a novella writer is probably easier than from short story to complete full-length novel. It's a mindset thing.
As far as novels go, pretty much 50,000 words on up is considered the standard for novels. If going a traditional publishing route, I've heard most publishers won't accept anything less than 65,000 or 75,000 for novels. So again, it all depends what reason you are writing the story. If it is to be published traditionally, then the publisher's guidelines trump everything else.
When participating in National NOvel Writing Month in November (NaNo), 50,000 words in 30 days is considered a novel, although most people participating consider that the beginning of a novel. A good many people write well over the 50,000 word limit in the 30 days. When I wrote Finally Home I struggled to get to 50,000 words but I managed to come in at just over 56,000 words, which is a tremendous feat for someone who considers herself a short story writer.
You will find when reading my stories, even my state stories, that word-wise they all fall in the short story category, falling between 2500 and maybe 8500 words. I'm comfortable with writing short stories and do well with them, having placed 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and runner up in various contests, all asking for short stories. I've heard some novelists state that they find it hard to write short stories and that's okay because we all have a place in the writing world. There are those of us who can write short stories and those who write novels and epics who do quite well.
When writing stories of short lengths and writing for contests, pay attention to the guidelines. If the folks running the contest or accepting short stories for anthologies or other publications that carry multiple stories at one time say they want stories up to a certain word count, and no more, then do your best to not go over those stated word counts. Some folks are more flexible and will make statements like "accepting short stories up to 4000 words, but will consider some slightly longer if the story merits being longer." It's all in the perspective of who is seeking the submission and for what purpose.
Another source definiing story lengths can be found here. There are many other sources for defining the length of stories, so remember not to rely on just one source for your answer.
Question for the giveaway blitz: If you are a writer, which do you prefer to write - the short story or the novel? Why? Remember to leave a comment to be entered for the 50-day giveaway extravaganza celebrating my 50 years. Today's giveaway is a free ebook of my first place winning story, "The Tulip Kiss". Don't forget to leave an email in the comment so I can contact you if you are the winner. See you all the postings - E :)
Sunday, June 03, 2012
This and That
This week is the start of my 50-day giveaway which will run through August 2. I've got a few postings up starting Tuesday. The giveaways will be from bookworms to crocheted kindle or nook covers, crocheted tablet covers, signed books, ebooks and many other items. So please tell everyone you know to keep checking back every day to see what I'll be giving away in celebration of my half century.
Sales this week have been slow but there have been a couple - 1 copy of "The Proposal" and 1 copy of "The Tulip Kiss", but there haven't been any online sales since the week ending the 12th of May so I'm happy with it.
I received a preview cover for "Butterfly Halves" yesterday and hopefully will be able to release it to the public soon. I can't share the cover yet because there were a couple of problems that I need fixed before accepting it as complete. Heather is doing an awesome job as usual.
I also need to review "Train of Clues" one last time before re-releasing it. I think we caught all the doubled pages/paragraphs this go round and we have made a few changes in the placement of the illustrations and made the book length a bit longer by putting more white space per page - the story is basically unchanged. So be on the look out for that to make its reappearance.
I've got all but one tablet cover completed and I'm not really liking the Old Glory yarn for the cases/covers because the yarn is softer than the Red Heart brand (I've only been able to find the red/white/blue varigated at Hobby Lobby and it's their brand "I Love This Yarn" which seems to be a very soft and not as stiff as the Red Heart brand). Once I finish the tablet cover, I'll post pictures of all the kindle/nook covers and the tablet covers. I hope to find some yarn at the "All About Fabric" plant this week to make more of the cases. I've got all summer to build up my supply until my next big event, Decatur Book Festival, Labor Day weekend. In October I have a librarian's conference and then a local event where I know my afghans will do well. The price of the kindle/nook covers is $8 and the tablet covers $10 (these are a bit bigger and take a little more time). Afghans are $75 in person and $85 shipped which includes shipping and tax.
Chances for the red/white/blue granny square afghan are still available either by purchasing from my website or the JGDS website under the gift tab or by purchasing any print book from me or from amazon.com or other place. If you make a purchase that isn't directly from me, all you need to do is email me (eeldering@gmail.com) with proof of purchase (attached receipt or electronic receipt) so I can send your chance to you. The more you enter, the better your chances. This drawing will be done December 1, so you have six months left to get all your chances in.
Come celebrate my birthday with me starting Tuesday and see you all in the postings
Sales this week have been slow but there have been a couple - 1 copy of "The Proposal" and 1 copy of "The Tulip Kiss", but there haven't been any online sales since the week ending the 12th of May so I'm happy with it.
I received a preview cover for "Butterfly Halves" yesterday and hopefully will be able to release it to the public soon. I can't share the cover yet because there were a couple of problems that I need fixed before accepting it as complete. Heather is doing an awesome job as usual.
I also need to review "Train of Clues" one last time before re-releasing it. I think we caught all the doubled pages/paragraphs this go round and we have made a few changes in the placement of the illustrations and made the book length a bit longer by putting more white space per page - the story is basically unchanged. So be on the look out for that to make its reappearance.
I've got all but one tablet cover completed and I'm not really liking the Old Glory yarn for the cases/covers because the yarn is softer than the Red Heart brand (I've only been able to find the red/white/blue varigated at Hobby Lobby and it's their brand "I Love This Yarn" which seems to be a very soft and not as stiff as the Red Heart brand). Once I finish the tablet cover, I'll post pictures of all the kindle/nook covers and the tablet covers. I hope to find some yarn at the "All About Fabric" plant this week to make more of the cases. I've got all summer to build up my supply until my next big event, Decatur Book Festival, Labor Day weekend. In October I have a librarian's conference and then a local event where I know my afghans will do well. The price of the kindle/nook covers is $8 and the tablet covers $10 (these are a bit bigger and take a little more time). Afghans are $75 in person and $85 shipped which includes shipping and tax.
Chances for the red/white/blue granny square afghan are still available either by purchasing from my website or the JGDS website under the gift tab or by purchasing any print book from me or from amazon.com or other place. If you make a purchase that isn't directly from me, all you need to do is email me (eeldering@gmail.com) with proof of purchase (attached receipt or electronic receipt) so I can send your chance to you. The more you enter, the better your chances. This drawing will be done December 1, so you have six months left to get all your chances in.
Come celebrate my birthday with me starting Tuesday and see you all in the postings
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
CONGRATULATIONS
First, I want to congratulate Mariah Tighe from Columbia, SC for having her name drawn for the baby kindle from the SC Author Connection at last weekend's event. I hope the kindle has arrived safe and sound.
Next, I only had two comments on my Kindle/Nook covers pricing question, so I decided that both would be winners. So, Susanne and Faye, thank you very much for weighing in on the pricing issue, but I'm still no closer to nailing down a price - lol. I hope to have buttons next week and to get your kindle covers to you by the end of the week.
Congrats to all the recent winners. Stay tuned for more giveaways on this blog coming up. Watch the postings daily and leave a comment or answer the daily question and you may be that day's winner. There will be 50 chances to win something throughout the summer months starting on June 5 and running through August 2 (no postings on Sundays or Holidays, although I think I may do a special one for the 4th of July since I'm all about the states). Kindle covers, bookworms, ebooks, print books and many other items will be given away this summer. See you all in the postings.
Next, I only had two comments on my Kindle/Nook covers pricing question, so I decided that both would be winners. So, Susanne and Faye, thank you very much for weighing in on the pricing issue, but I'm still no closer to nailing down a price - lol. I hope to have buttons next week and to get your kindle covers to you by the end of the week.
Congrats to all the recent winners. Stay tuned for more giveaways on this blog coming up. Watch the postings daily and leave a comment or answer the daily question and you may be that day's winner. There will be 50 chances to win something throughout the summer months starting on June 5 and running through August 2 (no postings on Sundays or Holidays, although I think I may do a special one for the 4th of July since I'm all about the states). Kindle covers, bookworms, ebooks, print books and many other items will be given away this summer. See you all in the postings.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
This and That
Updates for the week include no sales of any of the ebooks this past week. A teacher on my friends' list on plurk contacted me after I left a response on her posting regarding some ideas to get a student reading and setting commitments for his IEP (individualized education program). I made several suggestions including my state books; she has requested an order form, so now it is a matter of waiting to see what she does. I also sent her the file of one of the books so she can decide whether or not the class would benfit from the books or not. I hope she does as this might be incentive for me start working on the state stories again. I really need to concentrate on those for a bit, with the hopes of getting three written and whenever Heather is ready to work on them she can just do her thing and they will be ready for her. Of course, once they are written, I also have to get my editor back on track with editing as she has pretty much given up on her writing career and has been busy with other things. But it will happen.
One of my son's friends who is basically homeless but staying here for the most part (he stays at other friends' houses on the weekends and sometimes during the week but they all have school so hard to stay elsewhere) is in debt to me, so I told him he could work off his debt by doing some research for my wip - Imogene: Innocense Lost. Maybe he will have that research done by the end of May or middle of June so I can get back to writing that story as I really would like to get it published sometime the first of next year. I know, I know, we've all been told get the story written fist and then do research but there is a problem with writing this story that way. It is a dated story. By that I mean that there are key dates in the story and I have to make sure I don't write something that didn't exist or wouldn't be realistic for that time period (i.e., the story starts in June of 1980, the real story starts in 1970 and the backstory starts in June of 1945/September 1945). Obviously in 1980, I can't talk about booking flights to China via online methods (we were still typing on Selectric typewriters in 1980 and word processors were the new wave of technology then; cell phones were big and bulky and kept in cars mostly because they were too heavy to carry around, not like today's cell phones that fit in your pocket; computers existed but not in the form of laptops, netbooks, et cetera; Sony Walkmans were the thing of the day back then not iPods or MP3 players or whatever is out there today; we still listened to cassettes and even a few 8-track tapes still existed in 1980 as well as soem reel-to-reel tapes. In other words, a lot has changed from 1980 to 2012 and I want this story to have as realistic feel to it as possible.) I have several scenes or parts of scenes written as well as the first three pages. Once I have the research notes, I think I will have to sit down and do an outline and then start writing the story, which is something I've not done before with my writing simply because I write short stories. Most of time the stories were written for contests and there wasn't time to outline anything. When I wrote Finally Home, it was actually a total rewrite of a story and was written as a NaNo challenge for me (National Novel Writing Month which is from November 1 through November 30 with the object being to write 50,000 words of a novel, or a complete novel, in 30 days. These days, 50,000 words is considered a novella or a good start to a novel. Finally Home topped out at 56,000 words, and really wasn't written during the November 1 to November 30 timeframe; rather, I started about November 14 or 15 and ended December 14 or 15, so I did write it during a 30-day period and hit the goal of 50,000 words in 30 days, it didn't count for NaNo officially. I have a feeling that Immogene's story will end up being much longer than that and thus will need the outlining. I'll probably challenge myself to write it in 30 days again and shoot for about 75,000 to 90,000 words on that story, so we will see what comes of it once the research is done.
For my earth day bookworm giveaways, I sent 2 to Australia, 1 to England, 2 to Kuwait via Germany (these were purchases), and 12 out across the United States with 1 person refusing to accept her bookworm and 1 person winning 3 different times so in lieu of sending her 2 more of the same bookworms and the fact that she was purchasing 5 total, she got her choice of 3 bookworms and purchased 2 for Christmas presents (she had one a previous time for a different bookworm giveaway and had refused saying she was going to buy some anyway, so that is where the 3 of her choice came in). Overall, I think the giveaways worked because I wasn't just giving bookworms to commenters of this blog but on the Writers on the Move blog also. My birthday is coming up in just over a month and there will many giveaways during the 50 days from June 5 (my birthday) and August 2 (no giveaways on Sundays or holidays, although I may do a special one for the 4th of July but haven't decided yet since that date falls on a Wednesday this year) to include bookworms, chances for the red, white, blue afghan drawing to be held December 1, and maybe even books and other prizes. Watch for the announcement May 31 with the first giveaway occurring on June 5.
Coming up tomorrow is a posting on self-imposed deadlines (probably why I talked about writing Imogene on today's posting) and WWYWWQ. I haven't planned out Thursday's posting yet so not sure what the topic will be. See you all in the postings - E :)
One of my son's friends who is basically homeless but staying here for the most part (he stays at other friends' houses on the weekends and sometimes during the week but they all have school so hard to stay elsewhere) is in debt to me, so I told him he could work off his debt by doing some research for my wip - Imogene: Innocense Lost. Maybe he will have that research done by the end of May or middle of June so I can get back to writing that story as I really would like to get it published sometime the first of next year. I know, I know, we've all been told get the story written fist and then do research but there is a problem with writing this story that way. It is a dated story. By that I mean that there are key dates in the story and I have to make sure I don't write something that didn't exist or wouldn't be realistic for that time period (i.e., the story starts in June of 1980, the real story starts in 1970 and the backstory starts in June of 1945/September 1945). Obviously in 1980, I can't talk about booking flights to China via online methods (we were still typing on Selectric typewriters in 1980 and word processors were the new wave of technology then; cell phones were big and bulky and kept in cars mostly because they were too heavy to carry around, not like today's cell phones that fit in your pocket; computers existed but not in the form of laptops, netbooks, et cetera; Sony Walkmans were the thing of the day back then not iPods or MP3 players or whatever is out there today; we still listened to cassettes and even a few 8-track tapes still existed in 1980 as well as soem reel-to-reel tapes. In other words, a lot has changed from 1980 to 2012 and I want this story to have as realistic feel to it as possible.) I have several scenes or parts of scenes written as well as the first three pages. Once I have the research notes, I think I will have to sit down and do an outline and then start writing the story, which is something I've not done before with my writing simply because I write short stories. Most of time the stories were written for contests and there wasn't time to outline anything. When I wrote Finally Home, it was actually a total rewrite of a story and was written as a NaNo challenge for me (National Novel Writing Month which is from November 1 through November 30 with the object being to write 50,000 words of a novel, or a complete novel, in 30 days. These days, 50,000 words is considered a novella or a good start to a novel. Finally Home topped out at 56,000 words, and really wasn't written during the November 1 to November 30 timeframe; rather, I started about November 14 or 15 and ended December 14 or 15, so I did write it during a 30-day period and hit the goal of 50,000 words in 30 days, it didn't count for NaNo officially. I have a feeling that Immogene's story will end up being much longer than that and thus will need the outlining. I'll probably challenge myself to write it in 30 days again and shoot for about 75,000 to 90,000 words on that story, so we will see what comes of it once the research is done.
For my earth day bookworm giveaways, I sent 2 to Australia, 1 to England, 2 to Kuwait via Germany (these were purchases), and 12 out across the United States with 1 person refusing to accept her bookworm and 1 person winning 3 different times so in lieu of sending her 2 more of the same bookworms and the fact that she was purchasing 5 total, she got her choice of 3 bookworms and purchased 2 for Christmas presents (she had one a previous time for a different bookworm giveaway and had refused saying she was going to buy some anyway, so that is where the 3 of her choice came in). Overall, I think the giveaways worked because I wasn't just giving bookworms to commenters of this blog but on the Writers on the Move blog also. My birthday is coming up in just over a month and there will many giveaways during the 50 days from June 5 (my birthday) and August 2 (no giveaways on Sundays or holidays, although I may do a special one for the 4th of July but haven't decided yet since that date falls on a Wednesday this year) to include bookworms, chances for the red, white, blue afghan drawing to be held December 1, and maybe even books and other prizes. Watch for the announcement May 31 with the first giveaway occurring on June 5.
Coming up tomorrow is a posting on self-imposed deadlines (probably why I talked about writing Imogene on today's posting) and WWYWWQ. I haven't planned out Thursday's posting yet so not sure what the topic will be. See you all in the postings - E :)
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