'Cept on My Big Ten-Inch

How long is it?

No, not THAT. This is a (mostly) family blog.

What I mean is, how long is your novel?

It's a simple question but not necessarily a simple answer. Sure, you can use the word count feature in your favorite work processing program to tell you. I think that's just part of the answer, though. The other part is genre expectations.

Let's say you want to write a sweeping epic. That's probably going to be something in the fantasy genre. Think Robert Jordan, just with things actually happening on the pages. A book like this could be 150,000 to 200,000 words, and that's OK because readers have become conditioned to expect that. 

If you're writing a mystery novel, however, and your word count is encroaching on 200,000, you'll need to do some serious editing. I'm not saying you can't write a super-long mystery; it's just exceedingly rare to see. Readers expect to enjoy a book where the protagonist gets sucked into events that unfold at an appropriate pace. 

My own current work in progress got me thinking about this. My past mysteries have checked in around 72,000-75,000 words. That's not by design. I don't see the word count odometer roll over to 72,000 and think, "whoa, I'd better wrap this up!" It just works out that way. The current WIP just went over 72,000 and I still have three chapters (and a few important events) to go. My guess is the first draft will check in around 80,000, then get trimmed in editing.

It sounds like I'm obsessed with word counts. I'm not. I'm more concerned with pacing. The word count is a sign post, a mile marker. Keep your eyes on it as you write, and understand its significance, but don't be a slave to it. Don't shorten or lengthen your story just because you think it needs to be within a certain word count range. Genre expectations are one thing. Good pacing is another.

Happy writing. Smile at the mile markers as you zoom past them.

* The title of this post is a line from "Big Ten-Inch Record," originally recorded by Bull Moose Jackson, and most popularly covered by Aerosmith.

This Dream I Had II

I write mysteries. Sometimes, I write other things, but over the past few years, it's mostly been mysteries. Recently, I've been focusing on professional development, so I haven't been writing--or blogging, as a handful of you may have noticed--as much recently. A few days ago, I started reading over some things I wrote, and I've done some more writing. I guess that served as the backdrop for a long, involved, and rather strange dream.

The dream felt like it happened in several parts, yet I somehow knew all of them were related.

I was investigating a missing child. Pretty standard fare in the mystery genre, right? I ended up talking to someone in a hospital and figured out the person had a block of time they couldn't account for. I took that info to the police (whose precinct was either connected to or right next to the hospital) who didn't seem interested in it. When I hinted someone there might be involved and may have taken the missing kid to a safehouse, I got a reaction. Then I left.

When I left, I had to wait to cross the street. I remembered thinking of interesting phrases to describe the traffic, making this kind of a meta dream.

Next, I was in the Federal Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, presumably at my client's house. I went out for something and a random ruffian tried to hold me up as I walked back. I got his gun away from him, shot him in the foot, and tossed the gun down a sewer. Pretty hard-boiled of me, eh? Well, that served to remind me that a crime boss of some sort also lived in the area, and I discovered he was two doors up from my client.

After that, an older man came into the house with what I think was a broken phone. We had three computers on the table, crunching whatever info we needed crunched about the case. Someone in the house decided to help the man with his phone and ended up connecting it to the house line. I got suspicious and unplugged one of the computers from the network. Sure enough, the man with the "broken" phone worked for the crime boss and had uploaded a rootkit to the network. The other two computers were compromised (and helpfully told us that someone else had connected). We had to shut them down.

At some point after that, I narrowed down the suspects to two brothers who owned rival juice businesses. I read billboards of info about them to a friend from grade school who had no previous involvement with the dream or the dream-case.

That was the last thing that happened. I don't know which juice czar, if either, ended up as the guilty party.

Things that may have spurred aspects of this dream:

-I've gotten back to reading and writing my own mysteries more recently.
-Those stories are set in Baltimore and feature a protagonist based in Federal Hill.
-The stories also feature the local crime boss as a minor character.
-My wife and I were talking about going into Baltimore today and lunching at a place we like in Federal Hill.
-I've been reading about information security (the professional development I mentioned earlier). Yesterday, I read a lot about trojans and rootkits.
-For the brothers and rival juicers... yeah, I got nothin'.

Maybe this all means I need to work in a way to write regularly again. Professional development is great and all, but I love writing and have to find a way to take the time and do it. So thank you, strange and rambling dream, for helping me realize that.

Now I just need a strange and rambling dream to get me back to my regular gym routine...

The Enemy of the Good

There’s an old saying out there. “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” Basically, it means that you shouldn't vainly strive for perfection when you already have something good.

I think this is very important for writers, and especially for me.

I’m a perfectionist. I don’t like to half-ass anything. If I’m passionate about something, I dive headlong into it and immerse myself in it. The thought of churning out something less than perfect is anathema, even though I know perfection is unattainable. So I revise, work on something else, revise again, start something else, revise two things, etc. Do you see the vicious circle at work?

The perfect has become the enemy of the good for me. I want to put out a book that will not only leave my readers’ mouths agape, but also satisfy my own desire to produce the best work I can. The thing is, we all have to let go at some point. After you revise a few times, you get to the point where you've made something as good as you can make it. Maybe you bring in an outside editor when that happens. Maybe you send it to your publisher and let them take their knives to it. The key is to do something with it.

I need to get better at that, and I know it.

Other things at which I need to get better: updating this blog more regularly, and allowing myself to end introductory phrases with prepositions.

Happy writing. Happy good writing.

Where Did November Go?

Another November is in the books.

Did you remember, remember the fifth of November?

Did you remember to write a lot? I did! I hope you did, too. For those of you who push a rock off yourselves in the morning, November is National Novel Writing Month. Each November, trillions of writers write decadozillions of words, post about it on Facebook, and anguish over things their characters do and say.

Doesn't that sound like fun? Well, it is. I've done it for the last eight years. The goal is write 50,000 words in 30 days, which works out to about 1667 per day. This is the fourth year I've win but I count last November (2011) as an unofficial win. You see, I was getting married that month. My now-wife and I were planning our wedding (read: my wife was doing a lot of wedding planning), and between all the prep we did, the wedding itself, and the honeymoon... well, I ran a bit short of free time. In the days leading up to the wedding, I couldn't sit down and work on non-wedding-related things for more than a couple minutes without getting the hairy eyeball from my wife. To keep her from divorcing me the morning after we married, I set a modified goal of 30,000 words and managed to hit it.

This year, I went over 50K on the last day. A win is a win, right? The Ravens win ugly; I can too.

If you participated in NaNoWriMo, regardless whether you won, congratulations. You engaged in a creative exercise for 30 days. That's something good right there. If you didn't participate, what's stopping you? Write-ins are a great way to meet your fellow writers and get some quality time with your characters.

November is in the books. Don't let it pass without adding one of your books to the ledger.

Happy writing.

Good Problems?

The baseball playoffs are over for the Orioles, so I get to reclaim the evenings I spent in front of the TV. It was a great run, watching the team duke it out for AL East title, then lose a tough series to the Yankees. While I’m sure I’ll still put on some playoff games here and there, I’m getting a swath of time back.

November is around the corner. I’ll be putting that time to good use.

I’m still editing a previous work (baseball distracted me) and I need to figure out what I’m going to do for NaNoWriMo once November is here. I have a few ideas to kick around and flesh out. It’s always good to have choices, right?

Right?

Here’s the problem: I can (and almost always do) read multiple books at a time without a problem. I’m positive I can’t do that with writing. One of these ideas has to emerge as the best. Do I continue with the same character in the mystery series I favor? Do I go back to my world-traveling secret agent and chronicle his third grand adventure? Do I develop the YA idea that I had and try a genre I’ve never written and have only infrequently read? (Does the Harry Potter series count as YA?)

November looms, and a decision looms. But this is a good problem to have. Right?

(For the record, I think it is a good problem to have. And if the Orioles were still playing and complicating my writing schedule, that would be a good problem, too.)

Happy writing.

Writers' Muscle Confusion

Writers write. We know that. Hopefully, we all do it.

At some point, though, you can't keep writing. Your story comes to an end. At that point, you have to transition to another part of the process (usually editing or plotting/outlining).

I am here to admit that I don't always make that transition smoothly.

The writing part is easy enough. At the risk of sounding immodest, I think I'm pretty good at it. However, between the times I write "The End" for one story and "Chapter 1" for another, I think I use my time inefficiently.

Usually, when I finish writing a book, I put it aside for about a month. That way, when I come back to edit it, it's not fresh in my mind and I have a better perspective on what needs to be cut. During that month of downtime, however, I need to get better at doing more things that help me improve as a writer. I've come up with a list of things I could (should) be doing during that time:

• gathering ideas (including my rough version of outlining) for a future book
• writing a short story
• looking at an older story and seeing how I could update/revise it today
• editing something else I had consigned to the e-dustbin
• continuing work on a project I had put aside
•  reading a book (or books) on the craft of writing

I'm sure this isn't an exhaustive list. The key, I think, is to keep doing something that engages me as a writer so that those "muscles" stay strong. It's like a real workout routine in that you have to change it up every now and again so that your body keeps responding well. Trainers call it "muscle confusion." Maybe we as writers need our own version of that, and what better time than the downtime between projects?

Is there anything else I could add to my list? Do you have a writing downtime activity that works for you? Let me know.

Happy writing.

Walk That Walk

Maybe you'll do some more editing on that novel tomorrow.

Maybe you'll tackle e-reader formatting after a long weekend.

Maybe you'll sit down and finish your book outline after the Bond movie marathon.

Maybe you're just procrastinating.

There's a maxim out there that goes, "if you do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten." While it obviously applies to writing, this also applies to life. If you want to lose weight and/or get in better shape, for example, eat better and work out. Thinking and hoping don't get you anywhere. If you want to develop better social skills, go out and talk to people.

And if you want to be a writer, you have to write.

I'm not trying to pull off a Knute Rockne speech here. You don't need to win one for the Gipper; you just need to win one for yourself. In this age of global connectivity, instant gratification, and a zillion entertainment options, it's easy to get sidetracked and distracted. Carve out some time for writing, editing, plotting, or whatever it is you need to do. Use a calendar (or a day planner, if you're still living in the Jurassic Era) to mark it down and remind you. Your characters and your readers (current or future) will thank you for it.

Years ago, I came across another maxim: "Writers write. Everyone else just talks about it."

Let's not just talk about it.

Happy writing.