I slept last night, so no reading or writing. It's been hot, and I just can't do weather-changes, work-and-commute-and-kids, and writing all in one day. Most of the year east of San Francisco is just fine, but we finally got some summer, and it's killing my writing.
Just to throw what remains of my writing goals (I'm suppressing a "Ha!") into further disarray, this interesting piece by Colleen Lindsey about length of fiction manuscripts. The long and the short of it is that my (see the writing page - go on, click the link at the right) writing goal of 100,000 words by year's end might be either WAAAAAY off, or dead-on. I was planning to revise, but I decided on 100k words because that's the approximate length of the first Harry Potter book, and I thought I would be hard-pressed to find a better model for the breakout YA fantasy novel than Janet Rowling's.
Makes sense, right?
Colleen's piece shows why it doesn't, but leaves wiggle room for me to keep striving.
Maybe some iced coffee tonight after the school open house will get me back on track.
About Me
- Steve Shea
- A 40-ish publisher (editor, project manager, etc.), husband, and father of an even number of offspring, I grew up, or failed to, reading fantasy and sci-fi. I still enjoy reading, and now am trying to write. My favorite books include YA fantasy, manga, biography, and advice to authors. I'm also a former history major/grad student/high school teacher and assessment writer. Now I work for a school supplement publisher, specializing in high-low chapter books. I spend a lot of my time controlling reading levels. At night, I cut loose and use long words. W00t!
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