Have I mentioned that I really hate word counts? Pretty sure I have. I could probably get that tattooed in hot pink on my face and still totally stand by it.
Please do not get “I hate word counts” tattooed on your face. There are better poor life decisions to make.
Seriously though, I have a story I want to share. Sure, since I first started writing it the story has shifted from being romantic to being the story of a female character who also happens to be a paranormal sex worker. It’s shifted the theme and the meaning, but it is still relatively the same. The outline doubled and it all got sorta mushed around.
So I decided to use the story as my NaNoWriMo project. My problem is that I’m pretty sure it’s not going to be 50,000 words. I think I’ll be lucky to hit 30,000 or so.
The problem that I have is that a lot of publishers demand those word counts because that size of book is what looks good on a shelf. It’s a ‘standard’. I’m not sure that I like that…at all.
Yes, I know that a story CAN be shorter, that it just makes it a novella, of a novelette. Don’t make me dig up the statistics on how many of those get published by first time authors every year.
A book should be exactly how long it needs to be to tell the story that you want to tell. I hope that if my story is only 30,000 words they are the best 30k that I can give Claire and her antics. That each and every word says everything that it needs to in order to create the world I need it to.
Update: 5,327 words
blacksbookishbabbles 