And I Thought I Was Doing So Well

Over on SOF-The People I posted about how cool it would be if my Swords of Fire Saga were to be published and successful, inspiring other writers to write stories from The Great Sea. Hey, I can dream, can't I?

There are so many stories I want to write. I can't keep up.

Back some time in the 1980s I drove to Wheaton College, near Chicago, IL, for a Christian Writers' Conference. It was the first time I had ever traveled so far from home on my own. One of the classes I took was by Myrna Grant, an established Christian author. (I couldn't find a Myrna Grant website, but here is a link to her credentials.) I liked her from the first. (Probably because she liked what I wrote.) One of the things she taught was that writers need to "find their place". Hers happened to be in Russia. She wrote a book, Vanya, about a young Russian soldier's experiences after becoming a Christian during a time of religious suppression.

Since she said that I have often thought about "my place". This is not the same as one's Happy Place, which I posted about before. This is about the place where one's stories are set. Myrna Grant wrote about Russia. Others write about city living. Some write about the hills of Appalachia. Others may write about the tundra, or deep in the ocean's depths.

My place is in medieval fantasy worlds. I guess that's why I made The Great Sea. I made it before hearing Myrna Grant's words. But it is my place. I can write most of my stories from The Great Sea and they do not have to relate to each other. All of those worlds mean independent stories. It's comforting to know I have a place for so many stories.

It is wearying to know virtually none of those stories are started, much less finished.

Speaking of that, I completed Chapter Fourteen (Judgement) today. Once again, Khirsha is in trouble. Serious trouble. The kind of trouble which is contagious to those around him. He may have just provided his grandfather's adversaries with what they need to remove him from being Head-of-Family. Not only that, but Sayla is involved, too. Oh, Khirsha. When will you learn?

The chapter came in significantly over word budget, despite my reducing its size by nearly 1,000-words. So once again I am about 2,500-words over budget. The good news is there are only a few chapters remaining. The bad news is I goofed on the chapter count. For some reason I was thinking there were only nineteen. There are twenty-two. This means my goal of 6,000-word chapters is too high. To achieve a word total of under 130,000-words I have to reduce the goal for the remaining eight chapters to 5,000-words. Quite a goal when I look and see only one of the remaining eight comes anywhere near that. No wonder I thought I was doing so well regarding story size. I had neglected to count about 20,000-words. Sigh.

I really do not want to have to go through this thing and tear apart more words. I hate it that so many assumptions are made regarding first books. I hate it that second and third books can violate all of those rules, and fourth books and beyond don't even have to be good. How many authors have I read who's works became less and less interesting as they added books? I won't name names, because someone is bound to get p*ssed off because I named one of their favorite authors.

But finding I have three more chapters than I thought was really bad news for me. I'm at 90,000-words. The book is supposed to be almost finished.

Ahhhhhhh!