12,000 words and counting

     I have heard other writers talking about how much they have written in their books. They say things like, "Oh, I wrote 10k words on my book this week," or "I wrote about 62k words on my book, and I probably have another 10k or 15k before it is done."
     These other writers have been blogging about their writing longer than I have, so I feel like a big girl now that I can say that Bella and Gerard has over 12k words.
     Unless someone makes me, I don't write to a word count. I just write my story, and I will worry about how many words it has after I am done. After all, who knows what changes may come during the editing process? There is no point in worrying about the number of words yet.
     A novel generally seems to run 50k to 80k words (sometimes a little more or less based on the genre and the age range of the readers). I can't predict how many more words there are in Bella and Gerard, but I am still introducing characters and plot strings into the story so I imagine I have quite a ways to go. This story may be a novel yet.
     For those of you who are monitoring the progress of Bella and Gerard, I just introduced Harry and John into the book. For those of you who have no idea who Harry and John are, please read my earlier posts on those characters. I talked about Harry in November, and I introduced John to my blog on October 26.
     And now I am off to write some more...

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Goodbye and God Be With You

It's rather fitting that some things come to a close on this day -- the last day of the year. I submitted my last entry into the Rooglewood contest this morning. I can hardly believe it took me until the day of the deadline to send it in because I'm usually earlier than that. And, even with the extra time I took, I still felt a little bit like maybe I could have done better if I had more time. But there was no feeling of regret when I hit "send." Mostly it was just a prayer that Rooglewood would hear the heart of the message when they read it and that maybe, if I win, they could help me bring the full potential out of my little story. And there was also a feeling, after working on these stories for more than six months, that it felt good to close that chapter and move on to the next one. I did it. I wrote them. And I'm really proud of them. Last year, the act of hitting "send" on my contest entry catapulted me into an anticipatory state....

The Countdown: Eight Days

Eight days. Do you know what that means? Barely over a week. Tomorrow will be one week from the announcement date. Are you excited? I am. So, today, I want to talk to those who wrote something for the contest, whether or not you entered it in the end. What made you start writing your story? What was the first inkling of an idea that tickled your brain? What was it that you liked about your premise? As you wrote, did you have a favorite character or a favorite scene? And are you glad you wrote it down? Do you feel like you learned and grew in your ability as a writer as you tried out things for this contest? And, if your story isn't included in this year's Rooglewood anthology (either because you didn't submit it or because it didn't fit with the other four stories selected), what will you do with it? Will you market it elsewhere? Or will you lock it away in a drawer?

Rooglewood Countdown: 12 days

For the next 12 1/2 days, as we do our final countdown until March 31st, I'm going to do 4 posts asking about something you would like to see in the Snow White collection. There are so many ways all of us, writers and readers alike, can win in this contest. Maybe a familiar name makes it into the final five -- hurray! Maybe a story in your favorite genre ended up in the collection this year -- woohoo! Maybe you finally get to read a winning story about an evil king and his Snow White son -- how awesome! So, in celebration of all the many things we can root for, I want to know some of the things that you think would be cool to find in this year's set of winners. Without further ado, here is my question for the day: What is a point of view you would like to see in this collection? Would you like a story written from the prince's perspective? A story from Snow White's p...

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