The Dreaded Word Count

  Does it help to count? The first 1,000 words of a new book are the hardest (and the most thrilling when they are DONE!). No more blank white page. You know where the story starts (in this draft at least) and you’re off and running. The next ten thousand slip by, then you re-group. Move through with edits and the beginning is richer, more detailed (in my case, real names for minor characters in lieu of Monsieur ABC and Madame XYZ). Thousands more words. Yippee!  On the other hand, there are days when you edit and see the words disappear. 32,032 is now 27,501. Yikes. I frantically do the math: How did I cut 16%? Why? A blood-letting. Now I question my judgement: maybe I didn’t need to trim that scene, cut that chapter, edit that description. There have been darker days:  When the manuscript was complete and in the hands of the publisher and I knew deep down in my heart that I needed to cut several characters and trim trim trim (okay, surgically remove) an entire theme or two. It felt dangerous. What if I couldn’t fit it all back together again? This was major surgery, none of your outpatient stuff. In the end I learned a good lesson…. Just do it. Have a plan—this isn’t willy-nilly cutting to see what happens—and keep track of what is cut and moved, and what is now missing and will have to be redistributed to other characters and descriptions. But do it. After I cut and redistributed and in-filled I ended up with a few thousand more words. By then the word count didn’t matter, but it illustrated that if I aimed for the best book the rest would follow. I’m trying to keep this in mind….. and not care that today’s work feels like driving in reverse. 

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