Eeeeeeeeeeeevil…

Man, this just says it all…

My Word Account Tally

I just checked and realized that of the 100, 000 words I’m allowed to “spend,” I’ve already used up 21, 000+. Bah, only 79,000 left.

Must.

Be.

Stingier…

Oh, That 80′s Fever…

In the name of the new novel, it was time for me to get in touch with my childhood and make sure I had my facts straight about which music groups were in existence at the time, and whether they wore clothes like this, or that. It’s one of the weirder aspects of writing a story when you find that you want to plunder your childhood realize that while the imagery is there, the proper chronology and historical perspective isn’t. Like at first I wanted to have some kind of reference to The Cure and possibly a mention of Lovesong only to realize that it wouldn’t be written until 1989, and this particular bit of plot takes place in the year 1983, though that means I still get to mention Lovecats or something. It also means Duran Duran is still in full swing, so maybe I can find a way to stick that in there as well.

The internet is truly frightening in moments like this when I realize that in one afternoon I’ve waded hip deep into subjects like the English countryside, ley lines, crop circles and fairy rings (I settled on fairy rings) and I never had to once go to a filing cabinet and consult the Dewey Decimal system. Having this amount of knowledge just a few keystrokes away is something we all take for granted now, but I’m still amazed at how quickly I came to rely on the ‘net once it exploded. It used to be just hanging out on forums and BBSes, but once the “web” aspect really got going and people had a few years to put… well, whatever they wanted on it, the Internet really became the first and fastest way to find out just about anything about anything.

I think anyone that had a childhood in the 70′s is more or less trapped in the same transitional period I am; old enough to remember the analog era when TVs had dials and knowledge was at the library, but still young enough to have had exposure to the new digital information structure in school. It’s a clean line of demarcation between the previous generation and the new ones that will always take unlimited knowledge and instant access for granted. And it’ll probably warp more than a few minds as the years pass. I mean, the way internet access is getting more and more portable, pretty soon you won’t have ANY excuse not to know something, since it’ll be a Google away and you can get at least passing familiarity with just about any subject on Earth.

My mind boggles at the thought of it.

Damn. I’m old.

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.