The long and the short of it
This week’s topic over at web stuff 4 writers asks about the longest piece you’ve written. For me, the answer is easy. At approximately 57,000 words, Lessons to Learn is by far the longest piece I’ve written.
Of course, 57,000 words isn’t very long for a novel. It’s no Shantaram or Edward Rutherfurd epic. But for me it’s impressive. Until I finished that first draft of Lessons to Learn, I considered myself predominantly a short story writer and a some-of-the-time poet. Before then, my longest works were my failed NaNoWriMo attempt in 2004 (approximately 17,000 words) and the 12,000 word essay I wrote in my Human Communication paper in the first year of university. The required word count for the latter was only 1,000 words I think, and I was most disappointed when I only got a B+.
I’m about 25,000 words into a new project now. Will it be longer than Lessons to Learn? I’m not sure at this stage. For now, I’m just going to keep writing till I feel the story’s told. There’ll be time for editing and adding and taking out words, paragraphs, pages and whole sections, once that first draft is done.
Comment by Rebecca Laffar-Smith
November 1, 2007 @ 1:49 am
I’ve found I’m often about half way through a first draft when I know how many more words it should take to finish. I’m 43,000 into my current novel (admittedly I’m about to scratch them all and begin a rewrite) but from those word I know I’m at the half way point so another 40,000 words should wrap it up.
I’ve done the 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo in 2005 which was long but ultimately NOT a novel. I also have the first draft at about 36,000 words of a romance novel, again NOT a novel, yet but with the potential to be fleshed out into one.
In the end the first drafts word count rarely reflects the final word count. I try to avoid looking at the broader picture because having to write 50,000 or 80,000 or 100,000 words is daunting. It is much easier to approach a daily count of 2-4 thousand words.
It would be interesting to add up the wordcounts of my other projects. I probably write thousands of words of non-fiction and blog entries a month. I think I’ll start tracking those because the sense of accomplishment would be wonderful.