ACK.

So I wrote back to my agent and told him “By the way, I’m working on a new book,” and told him about the basic story with the caveat “And this time I’m going to try to make it short.”

I figured that an acceptable “short” would be 450+ pages since in my past two novels, I have missed that mark by miles and miles. I blame this entirely on the characters who never do what I tell them and always go off having adventures of their own which I try to keep up with (Something that, unsurprisingly, is happening with Novel #3 which has the Oh-So-Sucky title Bloodwood at the moment). My agent, who has been tirelessly representing me the last few years (My theory is his professional pride is wounded that it’s taking so long to get these things sold and so for him it’s turned into something of a personal crusade) has written back telling me that even that’s a bit optimistic and what would probably be a much “healthier” size is 400 or less. Or, 100, 000 words.

This nearly put me into cardiac arrest.

Some of my short stories have run 30,000+ words.

A quick opening of the file at the current novel (Now sitting at Chapter 4 and pushing 60 pages) shows it to weigh in at just a few words shy of 18,000.

Now the math and mortal terror come in…

So if we do some quick arithmatic and say that 100, 000 – 18, 000 = 82, 000…

This means I should run around the room right now screaming with the kind of agony comparative to having one’s hair set on fire while the Barry Manilow CD in the background skips repeatedly.

EIGHTY TWO THOUSAND FREAKIN’ WORDS LEFT?!?! THAT’S IT?!?!

In my head, someone Scottish is already screaming, “I’m givin’ it all she’s got, but it’s noo good, Captain! Th’ engines… they canna’ take th’ strain!”

It’s an incredibly intimidating number to me at the moment because it’s one of those things that I always felt, for me, anyway, that it simply could NOT be done. I’m probably going to have to meditate on this (Translation: Panic, weep and hug a doll like a little girl) and seriously contemplate pushing the book to two parts, or else drastically revise just how many plot points I was meaning to hit (Or more accurately, how many plot points the characters were starting to pursue once they’d found them).

I suppose now I could also start dragging in the ruthless editor skills I picked up writing scripts for television where you were fixed to exactly a one hour or half hour episode and could NOT under any circumstances, exceed that. You MADE it fit, and there simply was no alternative, except dismissal.

But holy crap, that’s not a lot of room to manuever…

I at this rate, I’ll have the novel finished in no freakin’ time at all and then spend months cutting it down…

Bleah. The cold fear of thinking I had a thousand feet before I hit the cliff and now see the precipice only a hundred feet away just hit me.