I sit here having just passed the 10,000 word mark and I’m feeling pretty good.  When I first began this enterprise, I wasn’t sure how difficult I would find it to write the number of words necessary to fill an entire novel.  I worried that I would finish the story and discover I didn’t have much more than a short story.

In college, one of my biggest challenges was being able to write enough to satisfy the page requirements of papers I had been assigned.  I had to use all the formatting tricks available to fill the five or ten or twenty pages demanded by the professor.  I’d increase the margins, increase the spacing between the letters, use slightly more than double spacing, and of course use the Courier New font.  How I loved that font.

Photo by robotographyWhen I read what other authors have to say about their writing process, most of them write much more than they are planning to keep in the final version.  Then they slice and dice to get to their desired word count.  I hope I don’t have the opposite problem.

10,000 words has gotten me through four chapters and I’ve I still got a bit to go before my first major plot point.  I’d like to have another 10,000 words or more before I get there.  There’s a chance I’ll struggle doing that.  I might have to go back and add more detail to a few of the scenes.  I tried to avoid having too much detail—maybe too well.  Books describing every tree in the forest in exacting detail annoy me and I often end up putting them down—usually for good.

One of the most encouraging aspects of the writing I’ve done is how the words have come more easily the more I’ve written.  I had read that writing improves with practice and I believe I’m finding that to be true.  Here’s to hoping the improvement continues.

Aloha.

Tags: reflections, WIP, Writing