Category Archives for Writing Blogs

How Many Words Must a Writer Write Down To Know He or She Has Written a Novel?

Word Count

Word Count

I once read somewhere Mark Twain kept a running word count in the margins of his manuscripts. Word counts are probably a weird obsession held largely by writers. We survive by them. Sometimes we’re paid by the number of words we write. Sometimes we use the count to measure a good day’s work, whether those words add up to a few sentences or several pages.

Word counts also tell us—somewhat arbitrarily—what sort of work we have written. Is it a Tweet (which actually is even more micro, down to the character)? Is it an essay? A short story? A novella? A novel?

A few months ago, a writer friend of mine Gerald Warfield and I shoptalked about just such things. We couldn’t come up with a solid answer. But a blog post from Writer’s Digest gives some novel advice at least, breaking down some average word counts for novels of different lengths.

The link is here. Of course, it’s not the end-all declaration of authority, but it must count for something.

—Todd

None but a blockhead

One of my new favorite writers is John Scalzi. Besides writing some good SF, he also writes a blog—Whatever—in which he writes, well, whatever he wants. Often his posts, to my delight, are a look inside another writer’s life; it’s the sort of site that’s often encouraging and inspirational, but grounded in the realities of writing for a living. And it helps me feel not quite so alone in my ambitions and worries and even my small triumphs as a writer.

One of today’s posts addressed an issue most writers have to struggle with—money. Specifically saying it’s OK and good to actually make money from writing. It doesn’t make you a hack or sell-out. Upbringing (“money is the root of all evil”) combined with university English courses and professors and fellow students that romanticized the suffering, always struggling pauper writer/artist, it’s hard to break free of such a negative mindset toward money. So, I wanted to share Scalzi’s post below for those, like me, who have struggled constantly with this issue:

 A Moment of Financial Clarification

The Workshop

By an overwhelming majority 2-1 vote, loyal readers have elected that I keep up with my writing workshop blog.

Because the people have spoken, I will try to keep that blog running.

As an experiment I have posted two stories of my own — one fiction, one nonfiction — for my loyal readers. Please feel free to drop by the workshop, have a look at the stories and critique them if you’d like (at this point critiques will have to be done through comments, until I can further experiment with the site).

Also, feel free to give me comments about how you might improve the site. I need all the suggestions I can get.

Writing Blogs: Narrative

A few days ago I received a comment from writer/blogger Richard Gilbert, and followed  his link (as I usually do unless you’re an obvious spammer) to his blog Narrative. It’s an informative blog on creative nonfiction, and he’s recently published a piece in Brevity and has commented on that piece on the Brevity blog.  Go check it out.

Endings, Beginnings and Something in Between

Writer Lisa Romeo has a nice post on beginnings and endings, and then a nice piece at Tiny Lights on the same subject.

For me, beginnings tend to come easier (by easier I mean pulling less hair out) than endings, especially personal pieces. When I write feature stories,  I’m usually able to find something that either ties back to the beginning, or something to open up the story.

A lot of times, though, I seem to get stuck with a beginning and a lot of middle.

A Poll: A Question of Subtitles

This will be my first attempt at using the polling function, and it’s an idea borrowed from Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness, who writes about going to a seminar on blogging and learning about the importance of subtitles. She put up a poll, asking readers for input about a subtitle. So, I’m going to try a poll as well.

I’ve only come up with two subtitles, so the poll will be small. As you can see, my ideas reference one of my favorite books, Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I’m open to suggestions. I’m trying to keep to the theme of exile, or feeling a little out of place and far from literary culture.

And thanks for playing.

The Knickerbocker Rule

One of my favorite books about writing is Richard Rhodes’s How to Write, a resource I recommend any writer: Reassuring like an oasis’ pool, it also readily supplies you for the laden march when the wasteland crunches under your feet.

Of late I’ve been having trouble writing. Not so much writer’s block, but writer’s blah, a Bill-the-Cat-Ack blah (now that’s an obscure reference for some of you). Finding something to write about. A subject. A topic. A sentence. A word. A story.

I’ve written in my journal. But that only sort of feels like writing. I don’t have any freelance articles to write: I haven’t really pursued freelance in some time. (My last published piece was in December. You can read it here.) There’s an essay I want to shape up, or should take a look at again. I started an essay last Monday, but set it aside: a late-week emotional uncoiling and the words kerplunked.

As for fiction … don’t ask. Fiction seems remote at the moment.

And until this moment, blog posts have been sparse.

One of the things I do when I’ve hit the blahs like this is surf my favorite blogs, and hope I can steal an idea and make it my own (we’ll steal from our own grandmother, eh Mr. Faulkner?). At the very least, I’ll comment on a post. (Are comments writing?) Anyhow, today I was reading a new favorite, Sophisticated Dorkiness, and was reminded of Rhodes’s Knickerbocker Rule.

Rhodes, a Pulitzer Prize winner, once wrote for the Hallmark PR department and he relates an anecdote (I almost wrote “little anecdote” but that would be redundant) about approaching his boss, Conrad Knickerbocker, who had begun to have some successes writing, publishing book reviews and fiction. Rhodes asked Knickerbocker how to become a writer. Knickerbocker said, “‘Rhodes, you apply ass to chair.’”

Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness mentions Sunday Salon, which she wants to participate in as an impetus to blog more.

And to blog more means to write more. Which is a good thing. Because I need to write more. I read the Sunday Salon introduction and it sounds like it may very well be worth participating in, if only to get myself writing something on Sunday (especially tough this time of year since football season has started), and thus apply the Knickerbocker Rule.

Sentenced

This is a little game/writing exercise proposed by Helen Ginger of Straight From Hel, one I’m going to expand on:

“So, here’s my task,” Helen writes, “— share your favorite opening TWO sentences of something you’ve written, published or unpublished. In other words, the first two lines in a book or manuscript of yours.”

I’m modifying this exercise: I am going to present three sets of two lead sentences, all published, all nonfiction, but none from a book or manuscript. All are from features I wrote at the paper.

Often the men passing by wear tuxedos — some with tails, some with flashy ties — the women passing by wear full ball gowns — some are sequined and glitter under the spangle of lights emanating from the mirrored ball hanging from the ceiling; occasionally eccentricities such as feather boas float into the scene. The image is that of a Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers film, or even the set of the Lawrence Welk Show (who incidentally visited Temple once and supposedly had to borrow money to leave).

Those two sentences are from a feature on ballroom dancing. At the moment they fill me with sadness and regret; I don’t, however, have a sentimental attachment to ballroom dance. Instead, that feature was written at the beginning of  2006, the year I left the paper. I regret leaving the paper, though when I left I didn’t regret it; in fact, I was happy to get out of a place that was increasingly becoming a difficult hell for me (I don’t miss the hellish parts of the experience. What I miss is writing, and trying to challenge myself continually as a writer. Leaving the paper seems to be a big mistake these days, especially since I didn’t leave to go to a bigger paper, or better writing experience; I changed careers: I went into teaching, and later publishing. That switch of careers seems to have put an insurmountable wall between me and the newspaper world, and journalism in general. I long to get back in, but the wall won’t budge.)

Imogene Newman’s house stands on a lot surrounded by pasture land thriving with dandelions. The gray brick house dispels any image of Appalachian shacks where pompadoured preachers might wander, and for a price, might lay hands on a sick child.

He likes to get his motor running, but Larry Northmore isn’t seeking adventure when he heads out on the highway. When he saddles up on his 1997 Honda Ace, he has only one purpose: to try to bring people to the Lord Jesus Christ.

These two sets of sentences are from religion features. Though I’m a devout unbudging agnostic, covering religion, in particular the varieties of personal religious experience, was fascinating. These leads, though, have an almost religious significance to me: both increased my faith in my writing, especially after both went across the wire. It was the first time my writing went beyond the local audience.

Anyhow, these are some favorite sentences.