This week has been last week’s antithesis. As those of you who read last week’s update might recall, the week of January 6-12 was not the most productive for me. Thanks to travel hassles, and then both packing and just wanting to appreciate the remaining time with my family as much as possible, I barely did any writing during that time. Maybe a couple thousand words, tops.
The week of January 13-19, though, was much better. Much better. In fact, this was one of my most productive weeks in recent memory: I almost hit 20,000 words in a single week (it’s been a while since I wrote that much in one week), and currently have a four-day 3000+ word streak going. If I can keep that 3000+ word/day pace going even semi-consistently, I’ll be able to rip through the projects on my list like no tomorrow.
Unless, of course, they keep growing in the telling.
Like The Ravage has.
That’s right, folks: I’m still not done this beast. I’m getting close to the 40,000-word mark now, and could easily pass 50,000 by the time it’s all said and done. Over these past few weeks, I’ve speculated over whether The Ravage might end up being a novel, rather than a mere novella. It’s still not a slam-dunk guarantee, but I’m now about 75% certain The Ravage will be expanded into a novel during the editing process…if it doesn’t hit the minimum word requirement on the first draft. And with the way things are going, who knows? When I started this thing, I thought the story would fit beneath a 7,500-word limit. That assumption looks hilarious now.
But I guess that’s just the way things go sometimes. Sometimes, the tale grows in the telling. And sometimes, a story you thought would take 6,000 words to tell properly ends up taking ten times that many, if not more. And in the case of The Ravage, I’ve been writing pretty succinctly: it won’t be difficult to add 10-20,000 words in the next draft.
So…yeah. Add The Ravage to the list of projects you guys won’t get to read for quite a while, if ever. Along with all my other novels. Sorry about that.
Not that you’ll necessarily get to read any of my shorter works sooner. I submitted Endure, a science fiction short story, to a magazine back in November, and haven’t heard back yet. I’m assuming it’ll be a rejection, but taking a little while to hear back is actually a positive sign. I’m not going to get my hopes up just yet, but often when something takes longer to get back to you, it’s because it made it past the first readers and got into the hands of the magazine editor themselves.
But I’m still guessing that’ll end up rejected. And if it is, I’ll have to submit it again to another magazine, and then if it gets rejected again I’ll repeat the process, and so on, and so forth. Truth be told, it could be quite some time before any of you read one of those short stories, either. It could even take longer to get a short story accepted than to get a novel out. When it comes to the wacky world of publishing, you never really know. Anyway, that’s about all I’ve got for you this week. As always, have fun, stay safe and keep reading.
