Monday, April 19, 2010

1000 words or less

I have come to realize that I am incapable of writing a short story. That is, a story that is less than 1000 words or less than say six pages, single spaced, size 12 font.

Does this bother me? Not really. Well, a bit. I know I tend to ramble, but I seem to lack that certain something that other authors have enabling them to be vague with descriptions and create an entire story in less than 1000 words. I do have one story that's 1,600 words but I haven't edited it to actually make it 'flow' properly. So, it will probably end up being about 3,000 words when all is said and done. Or more.

Is that a problem? Maybe. I guess it means I can't ever write a book full of short fiction. Well, technically I could, it would just only have maybe 5 stories instead of the regular 10+. But, then again, I'm not a regular type of author who is bound by word limits.

I'll reiterate, this doesn't really bother me per se. There are a few mini-contests and such going on in different writing communities that I would love to participate in. But, the work has to be 1000 words or less. So, I really can't enter any contest. Not that I have time to write work on the side.

With five novels I'm writing consecutively and 23 ideas on the back burner, I really don't have the time to write something 1000 words or less. Actually with the way I write, I probably could. Book One was written in about seven months. Would have been much less had I not been hit with a work rush and writer's block. For curious people, that's about 260 pages. Size 12 font. Single spaced. Turned out to be approximately 430 pages in novel form.

Not bad considering I was only able to write once a week if I was lucky. I can usually pull off 14 pages (single spaced in size 12 font ;) ) a week if I can really put my mind to it. The most I've done in a week is 4 chapters (4 X 14 = 56, for those curious people). It doesn't sound like much, but, I ask that someone try at least once to write 56 pages of work in a week. Well, technically two days.

I am by no means bragging. Other authors have done much more then that. Other have done less. I'm merely stating that no matter what, I can not write under 1000 words. I'm going to make that my goal. Once I get to a point where I have more than one free day a week, I'm going to try and write something that is only 1,000 words.

And, for those curious people, final word count (which doesn't count towards the above goal): 477

No comments:

Post a Comment