Heather M. Gardner
http://hmgardner.blogspot.com/
Christine Rains http://christinerains-writer.blogspot.com/
Dolorah at Book Lover
donnahole@gmail.com
Julie Flanders http://julieflanders.blogspot.com/
Murees Dupé
http://www.mureesdupe.com/
When I finished the first draft of Chaos Season back in July, I planned to work on various short stories for a few weeks. I have a couple of projects that have been on the back burner for a while, and I'd like to get them finished. However, although I did work on "The Unnumbered World," the Young Seasons collection, and "Plant Manager," I didn't finish a single one of them. On the other hand, I wound up starting the next book in the Season Avatars series, and I'm making good progress with it (nearly 20,000 words.) I think my writing style may be better suited for novels than for short stories. With novels, it's easier to pants my way through. Perhaps I spread my attention among too many projects, or perhaps I've done more prewriting for the novels than I have for the short stories. What I plan to do this month is focus on three goals: outlining Chaos Season and revising three-four chapters, reaching 30,000 word with Fifth Season, and finishing the two short stories I need for the Young Seasons collection. We'll see next month how well I met those goals.
Do you have a preferred story length? How many projects do you work on at once? Feel free to share in the comments. I have a very long day ahead of me at work and probably won't get a chance to look at the comments or visit other blogs until tonight. Hopefully I have enough energy left for that by the end of the day.
7 comments:
Most of my recent ones are a lot shorter. I recently saw someone had a book that was only 92 pages and yet they're selling it at $5.99 and it's actually doing pretty well, so I guess longer doesn't mean more profitable.
Wow, that's a lot of money for such a short book. The highest I've priced one of my novels so far is $4.99. I guess if there's a market for it, though...
I guess I do best with short novels. I have written a couple short stories for publication and might write more. I'm all right with fewer words.
Hey, working on the next book in your series and making progress is good.
I've never written a short, but one day I may give it a try. You have great goals for the month.
I do best with door-stopping sagas, though my Atlantic City books tend to be extremely short, under 70,000 words. Oddly enough, my most overwritten books in most dire need of rewriting and restructuring are all under 100K, while I wrote my sagas much more carefully and deliberately. I have a very hard time writing short stories, unless I'm using pre-existing characters.
I always preferred shorter books...somehow I'm able to adjust to whatever story length I'm given...but anything over 50,000 words is tough for me. Even when I wrote books for adults, I preferred writing category romances because they had imprints that were only 50,000 words!
My sci-fi romances run about 100k, my mysteries shorter. I just finished a cozy mystery that ended up at 68k. I know there will be additions once my editor gets done with it, but the story felt right.
I usually have 2 or 3 projects in the works--one off for editing, one that needs finishing, one that's perking in the back of my mind.
Best wishes,
Diane IWSG #95
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