I knew this wouldn’t be easy…

….but I didn’t expect it to be this hard, either.

Last night I finished putting all my word cuts into the computer. I was feeling pretty good about it. I could see that I had cut down almost 20 pages and figured I should probably be in the ballpark. So, with terrified anticipation, I clicked on that ‘word count’ button……

……

…..

106,366.

Are you fucking kidding me. I almost cried. Seriously?? I knew I probably wouldn’t get to that golden 80,000 but I thought FOR SURE  I’d at least be below 95,000. I thought I’d done so good about cutting things that weren’t necessary. Jiminy Cricket.

Sooo, that means a long day of going back through it and making any changes I can today. I know it’s not the end of the world if I don’t get to that goal, but damn it, I at least wanted to be closer than that. I want to show my editor that I can do what she wants me to do  and I’m not going to be a complete waste of her time. But this is hard. Way harder than I thought it would be. Aside from cutting out entire chapters, which is not an option because it screws with the entire linear order of the book, I have no idea where to come up with that many words. And it does not make me feel very good about leaving myself room to add in new character details and plot points, which was the point of getting it down to 80,000 words in the first place. I know that’s what my editor is for, and she will help me get there, but this is very frustrating. 

My count after about an hour of extra cutting before I finally went to bed.

Remember all those years doing NaNoWriMo when you word padded ALL NIGHT LONG to get to that 100,000? Don’t do it. Just don’t. (This project is not a product of NaNoWriMo, I should point out, but the warning is the same.) Shorter is better. You can always add things in later. Cutting them out is way harder. Lesson learned.

Well, I’m off to Starbucks for a caffeine IV. We are having a new roof put on at home and I expect the guys to show up about any time now, which means I’ll get no work done here. I still have one scene I want to re-write (which I do not anticipate will lower the word count any) and then I need to find several thousand more words to get rid of. Sorry, words. Don’t take it personal.

Till then.

Transitioning to November

A day late, but Happy Halloween! And a blessed Samhain/Happy New Year to those friends of mine out there in the world who share such an inclination. I didn’t do much for Halloween yesterday except hand out candy at Starbucks for a couple hours. Nobody really trick-or-treats in the neighborhoods here because they’re so spread out (and we don’t need to entice any bears to come down and go after little kids with lots of sweets), but all the businesses on the main street hand out candy and other goodies. It’s a lot of fun.

got brains?

I went as a zombie chef….I had the uniform in my closet from when I was in culinary school so I figured I might as well use it. I got a lot of compliments on it and a couple kids were too scared to come over.

Anyway, now we move into November! Which, among other things, is National Novel Writing Month! (Or NaNoWriMo.) I’ve participated in the last two years but haven’t ever actually completed the 50,000 word goal. But, I am about to publish a novel twice that length, so it doesn’t really bother me haha. Anyway, I figure I’ll give it a go again this year if only to help get my brain in gear. I spoke to my agents yesterday and they are on Long Island so they’re a bit wet at the moment from the hurricane. As a result of that I am not sure how long it will take them to get back up and running, so I figure in the meantime if I’m not revising I might as well use it as an excuse to get some words on the page. (In any event, if you are a NaNo participant and wish to add me to your friends list, my handle is chatnoir06.)

I’m also working on remodeling the guest bathroom this weekend. Well not really remodeling, but making it more functional. It’s a small space and there’s not a lot of room to store things or add a stand-up cabinet, so armed with some ideas from Pinterest (god I love Pinterest), I’m going to be putting up some shelving to get things organized a little better. I’m kind of moving room by room through the house to get things in tip top shape. So after a new coat of paint and some shelving and finally hanging the mirror in the bathroom, it should look pretty darn nice. I am hoping to have it completed by Sunday so that it’ll be ready to go when my parents come up to visit. I will throw some before/after photos on here when I’m done!