It’s official — Imminent Danger and How to Fly Straight into It is now under 100,000 words. I believe it’s sitting nicely at 99,300-ish, and we’re not even done editing yet.
We’re on chapter 32 of 44, so I’m guessing the final word count will be somewhere around 95k. That’s still a very decent length for a YA novel, and the writing is getting much better and tighter as a result, so I’m really happy that we decided to do this final round of editing.
At the current editing pace, we (my editor/mother and I) should be done the shortening/revisions by the end of September. Then I’ll send out the new and improved book to a handful of select readers (aka people who can promise to read the book in a week), fix whatever (hopefully!) minor issues they find, and then send it off for copy-editing.
The other upside of getting the book under 100k words is that the copy editing will cost less. 100k words = $2200. 95k words = $2090. That’s about a hundred dollars in savings, which is good by me! I’m all for saving money. Then again, who isn’t?
In other news, I have a stack of self-published novels on my hard drive that I need to read and review. I keep meaning to get started on them, but I always seem to get distracted. Last week I had a legitimate excuse — I was temping for a telecommunications company — but now I don’t really have any reason not to get started on the reading/reviewing.
My next hurdle will be to decide which book to read first. Should I go by the date each book was sent to me, or by how much I want to read the book? Hmm …
In other, other news, I’m headed to Washington with my mother this week for a mini-vacation before winter starts. That’s the nice thing about having a flex-time job — vacation is very easy to book, since I don’t have to request time off or reschedule shifts. On the downside, I’m really bad at flex-time work, because I procrastinate like nobody’s business. Ah well. Anyway, I’m really excited for Washington. I’ve been once before, when I was about twelve or thirteen, and I remember that it was really awesome. I’m probably going to hit up the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, etc.
I’ll try to take pictures, but no promises.
Random picture of the day:
True love, Japan style
source: http://i.imgur.com/yA7Up.jpg
Michelle Proulx - Author 
Congrats Michelle! Have a great vacation.
Thanks! I’ll do my best, lol — the drive is 10 hours each direction, so hopefully I won’t be too exhausted from that to enjoy Washington.
I didn’t know marriage had a weight limit. Or is it different in Asia?
Oh, and congrats!
I think the marriage weight thing was a joke, lol. And thanks 😀
Good job on the editing, Michelle! Have a good trip with your mother. What will brother do without you?
Thanks 😀 Well, university has started up again, so I imagine my brother will manage without me. He lives with 3 other engineers, so they’ll probably be busy drinking, building potato cannons, etc.
LOL! Good for brother. Have fun on your trip!
Congrats! I’m working on the third draft of a novel, and my goal is to keep it under 100,000 words. My previous draft was close to 350,000 words, so I decided to build from the ground up. It’s going a lot better. Good luck!
Thanks! Good luck to you too 😀 350k words? Eek! That’s a lot. I mean, depending on the genre, that could be a completely legitimate word count — high fantasy, for example. Although for YA, the publishers would probably take one look at the manuscript and faint, lol.
Glad you’ve got that beast under control! Whenever I’m revising I find these phrases where I’ve used six words instead to two. Sometimes I catch myself doing it while writing my draft, but the I twist my arm and tell myself to focus on writing.
I suggest review by how much it appeals to you, otherwise you’ll get burnt out and might end up hating. Also, if you’re overwhelmed, tell people you’re not accepting books. You’re providing self-published authors a valuable service, and it’s in our interest that you keep doing it.
Yeah, after my extensive pruning, I’ve found myself second-guessing myself when I write new content. And that makes writing difficult, so I have to blare my music really loudly to distract myself from my own thoughts. Except loud music usually gets me worked up, and then I get angry, and then my characters have an unfortunate tendency to either do very stupid things, or die. Usually both.
I think I’ll go by appeal, otherwise I’ll never get any of the reviews done. Another option is to wait for the authors to start writing me back, going, “… where’s my review, dawg?” And then I’ll calmly explain that I’m a human, not a dog, and then review their book. Thoughts?
I just tell myself: I can revise it later.
I don’t know if you want to wait for people to email you as much as maybe just offer to review stuff that interests you instead of everything. Then again, sometimes I feel like that dude from Office Space, in that a lot of what I try to do is not get hassled. I’ve got like an Emily Dickinson thing going over here (sans amazing talent, 100% of the squirreliness).
That is awesome! it’s amazing how much tighter work gets when you do significant editing. It really forces you to look at the work differently. I always used to dread editing, but I realized it’s almost like unearthing a whole new story so it’s kind of fun for me now. Good luck to you! Excited for the finished product!
I still dread editing, lol — perhaps because it’s a never ending process. Or feels like, anyway. Although it really is, isn’t it? It started in school, with essays and reports, and now it’s extended to my writing career (and my job is even as a technical writer, so I get to edit there as well). Sigh. Although it will all be worth it when my slimmer, more digestible book hits stores 😀
Editing does seem to be a never-ending process. Wish they had mentioned that in school because I would have made friends with it a long time ago.
Now that’s true love.
Good luck with the editing. I shudder when I think of it. I love to write, but I do hate to edit.
Thanks 🙂
Good luck with your edits! 95k is a decent word count indeed and makes all the difference when it comes to your editing bill!
I would suggest going by chronological order, but that’s only me. I’m highly indecisive when it comes to books, so that order would be a clear-cut thing, haha.
Thanks! Chronological order, eh? Hmm … an excellent suggestion, although that would require me figuring out in what order I received all the requests, lol.
Sweet! I’ll send you a copy once we finish. Our current end date is October 1st, so ideally I would send it to you then. Did you see my post about the Harper Voyager contest?
I thought the marriage/weight thing, was quite endearing…Have a great time on your vacation…hope you post some pics., as I have never been there and have always wanted to go…go figure, I lived on the east coast for years and never had the opportunity to go.
Thanks 🙂 I’ll post some pics eventually, once I figure out how my camera works, haha.
I will look forward to them…Have fun!