Word Counts. (Are You Normal?)
As part of our peering over writers' shoulders to see whether we are in any way 'normal' please find here the calibrations.
It's a little like the old shoe-sizer which we put our tootsies onto at 'back to school' time. I don't know about you but it gave me a funny little thrill. I hope this gives you a funny little thrill...
As for me? I'm deviant as often as I can be. Last Saturday it was 7,500 but when I'm on the first draft, I'll write about 1000 (rather poor words.) Some days it will be a cryptic misspelt-by-Siri note in my iphone notes programme, supposedly revelatory of a major insight (see last blog.)
I wwrite hundreds of thousands of words to reduce down to the 80k or so for a novel. This is a fool's economy of course, but then as Dolly might have said 'it takes a lot of money to look this cheap'.
During the first draft, please don't worry about word count, you will find your way, just be regular.
If you need to get your novel done in 90 days, then aim for 1000 when I tell you 'GO!" which is after we have got your concept nice and tight and made sure you're well prepared. Otherwise Graham Greene found he could knock out a novel every 9 months this way. Aim for 1000, but if things go stale, counter-intuitively reduce your target to release pressure and it will get you straight again.
For the second draft, you can go hell for leather because you'll be ending the Novel in 90 Plan with all the material you need and a one page (yummy) simple entirely virtuous structure for your novel which will make perfect sense and guide you through to sure-footed victory. (Sorry.)
