COUNTING WORDS

THE LAIRS — my second book after THE GALLANT — is now in the hands of my agent, Christopher. He read the first 10 chapters a few months back, made some great suggestions on direction, and then I spent the next few months finishing it. (More on that later.)

THE LAIRS is a definite turn in tone from THE GALLANT … it’s an easier and quicker read with a linear timeline, short chapters, and more humor. It’s set in the theatre world of 19th century London. No pirates, sea kelpies, or magic senses, but there is a ghost who plays a central role in the narrative.

I found THE LAIRS to be a much easier writing experience … maybe because it was my second book? And the story is much less complex than the first book, with no lengthy flashbacks to juggle. I mapped out highly detailed outlines of both books before I started writing, which makes the process so much easier for me.

THE GALLANT took 6 months to write and about 5 months to revise before I started querying — so almost a year. THE LAIRS took about 6 months to write and about 2 months to revise.

Christopher says he loves a prolific client, and that’s what I hope to be. If I can keep up this pace, I believe I can write a book a year.

The typical novel in my genre (literary historical) is between 80,000 and 100,000 words. My comfort zone is to write about 1,000 words a day — which translates to 80-100 days, but I sometimes take days off or just feel lazy and write about half my goal. I use wordcount software (Pacemaker Press) to keep track of where I am in the process. With both books, I estimated writing would take about 6 months, so the software calculates how many words I need to write each day to make my goal by the endpoint. Every morning I get an email with that day’s wordcount goal, which gives me that fun push to strive for.

If 80,000 words in 6 months sounds difficult, consider:

6 months = 180 days (roughly)

That’s about 128 weekdays (roughly)

If you write only Monday-Friday, taking weekends off, you’ll have an 80,000-word manuscript in six months by just writing 625 words a day!

Or heck … take a whole year to write your novel. That’s just over 400 words a day. (Considering that most emails are at least 100 words, that’s nothing.)

You’ll also find that the more regularly you sit down to write, the higher your wordcount will be. When I started writing THE GALLANT, a good day for me was about 750 words. (Keep in mind that I edit as I go.) Now, a couple years later, I find I can easily hit 1,250-1,500 a day.

My point is, writing a novel sounds daunting. But if you take it seriously, and if you put in the time, you can do it.