Word count marathon, day 1
Saturday, October 2, 2010 at 2:22 AM | Writer's Cramp From earlier this evening (Friday…I realize that it’s now actually Saturday morning):
Starting word count: 251,218
Ending word count after revising Chapters 1 through 4: 248,678
# words cut: 2,540
There are 68 chapters in the book. If I can keep the same pace of cutting rougjly 2,500 words per 4 chapters (or 625 words per chapter, for the math challenged in the audience), I’ll be able to trim 42,500 words from my manuscript. I’d still need to trim another 10,000 words (roughly) to reach my goal, but this suddenly doesn’t seem as Sisyphean as it did. I’m still going to have to cut out a sizeable piece of the narrative somewhere to get that 10,000 word chunk, but that’s looking a lot more attractive than the 4 or 5 chunks I though I was going to have to get rid of before today. Or yesterday. Whatever.
I’m going to have to pick up the pace this weekend, though, if I’m going to get through this. And I’m still working on my pitch paragraph, so I have some a big task ahead of me.
book 1, process, word count in on writing, querying, revision
Reader Comments (2)
I'm impressed! I'll be very interested to talk to you at some point about how it feels--how the writing process, the novel itself, and you, emotionally--how it all feels to do this cutting. I can't help thinking that there's a resemblance to decluttering--that it must be painful and yet incredibly rewarding.
Anyway, good luck! And go team you!
Thank you!
I will of course be delighted to have that discussion with you! (Which reminds me...we need to get a date on the calendar post haste!) Decluttering is an apt analogy, since there's definitely that combination of pain and freedom. I'm quickly reaching the point where the pain will feature largely, due in part to being avoidant of it instead of just digging in and doing what (probably) needs to be done. I say "probably" because I'm having a hard time identifying just what can go, which may or may not be the same as what I can let go. I usually don't have this much trouble with ruthless revision, but this one is hard.