A New One Hour Read

It’s October, and that got me excited about witches, shifters, demons, and vampires.  As the good guys:)

I love writing novellas.  On Amazon, there’s a special section for One Hour Reads.  That got me excited.  I looked at the top one hundred, and that made me even more interested in trying to write one.  BUT, being the slow learner that I am, the requirements are stories that are 33-43 pages.  So I wrote a manuscript that on my computer came to 46 pages including the title page, blurb, etc.  I was pretty happy with myself.  I even made my own cover on canva.com using an image I found on canstock.com.  I didn’t break my arm patting myself on the back, but I was pretty happy with what I’d done.  Until I loaded it.  I’m still happy with the story, BUT for any of you reading this who might want to try the same thing, remember that Kindle pages and manuscript pages are not created equal.  My story came to 62 pages on Kindle.  Lesson learned.  Next time, I’ll write even shorter.

Stephen King once did an interview and said that he liked to write short stories and shorter pieces between books to clear his mind.  I like to do the same thing.  I’d just finished a draft of my fifth Jazzi Zanders mystery, and I had ideas for the sixth one, but I needed a break between them.  And that’s why I started writing Muddy River.

For me, the shorter the story, the harder it is to write.  And when I write things that are really short, I can’t justify (to myself) putting them on Amazon and charging money for them.  So I post them on my blog for fun.  But novellas are long enough that I feel they’re worth selling.  I used to write LOTS of them as Judith Post.  My favorites were the Babet and Prosper series.  Muddy River gives me that same satisfaction.

This is the first time I’ve written about Hester and Raven, had them fight their enemies and win, but left one tiny part of the problem unsolved.  I couldn’t get to it in 46 pages.  I’m going to have to deal with that later, but at the moment, I have no clue what that next story might be.  I already have a longer Muddy River all mapped out, and it’s not part of it.  So I guess someday, sooner rather than later, I’m going to need to tie up that loose end.  That gives the little grey cells plenty of time to come up with something:)

In the meantime, my DH’s brother is coming to stay with us from the 15-22, so I probably won’t find time to post a new blog this coming Thursday.  But I hope that doesn’t mean that when the cat’s away the mice will play.  I’m reminding you to keep writing, and may the words flow for you!  And if not, hey, hope you enjoy yourselves anyway.

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