Hey Readers. I do still have readers, right?
I do still have readers?
Well Jamie, if you’d give us something to read, maybe we’d stop by more often.
Oh yeah. Sorry about that.
But I have been writing. On that first draft of that first novel. We won’t call the 50,000 words I worked on about five years ago a novel. Nope.
My daily writing goal is 500 words per day hopefully stretching it to 1000+ words like I did a few days last week. *Fist bump* Those days make up for the days I can’t write at all.
My revised deadline for first draft is Labor Day. Right now Scrivener says I have 86,257 words.
The perfect length for a novel. Only problem is those are 86, 257 first draft words.
Words I will slash, wring my hands and shake my head at how bad some of those 86,257 words are. Some of those 86,257 — big clumps and clusters — will be removed because they don’t fit how the story ended up.
Plan is to add another 40,000 to 50,000 words by September 5th and have a complete and utterly riveting first draft.
Can of corn.
I’ll have completed the first step. Of how many, only the Lord knows.
Like this tweet, I retweeted . . .
Average time to publish a first novel – 12 years. So relax, find a mentor and keep writing. Good advice. #writing https://t.co/P4rcT4d9tU
— Kirstan Hawkins (@KirstanHawkins) June 17, 2016
Twelve years?
Is that like 12 in dog years? Or 12 human years that seem to last as long as whatever 12 x 7 is?
It does happen though.
The published novel. <insert angelic choir voices>
It’s happened to many of my friends.
Like author Deborah Mantella. My next post features an interview on her writing journey and debut novel My Sweet Vidalia. She’s racking up well-deserved literary praise for her story of Vidalia Lee Kandal’s becoming. Her awakening into a woman who refused to accept a life of abuse and poverty in 1955 rural Georgia.
An exert of Mantella’s words from my question: You’ve lived so many places and been exposed to lots, how did you decide on writing this story? And in the Southern gothic style?
This story, or a version of this story, has been with me for some time. I’ve always been fascinated by the intense nature of mother-daughter relationships, be they good or bad. Water rarely runs lukewarm when it comes to anything parent-child, particularly of the mother-daughter variety. Most folks don’t seem to notice how often the child is called upon to raise the parent. This was the scenario I’d wanted to examine from an omniscient and otherworldly point of view.
Good stuff, right?
So check back later in the week and I’ll have the complete interview.
Yes. Deborah did it. Woo! Her way with words comes by divine gift —
that and while in her mama’s womb, her dang chromosomes for readin’ and writin’ must have linked up darn near straight perfect.
Deborah applied that talent and worked hard. For years. Turning each sentence, each phrase, twice maybe three times, (and knowing her a fourth and a fifth twist) to find the best expression of what she wanted to say.
I’m not there yet. Not where her talent is . . . cause all us writing birds are cloaked in different feathers.
But most importantly, I’m not to the second edit. Or the third or the fourth revision. Just please not 12 years worth of revisons.
Oy.
So ta ta for now. Hope head out to the porch and peck out a few words in on the WIP.
I do miss chatting with you regular like.
How are things in your neck of the nape?
