41,000 Words in--How about you all?!? - Writers Forum

MEShammas · 07-12-2008, 06:16 PM

Well, guys--slowly but surely, my story is growing in length. I have been working, off and on, since March of 10th grade on this manuscript, with a target of 120,000 words.

The story has been fleshed out, characters have developed in ways I could only imagine a while ago, scenes have been cut--others added--and, for whatever reason or another, the whole scheme of the story has grown on me at some tangible personal level.

Now a rising senior, I realize that my manuscript has grown somewhat slowly; accomplishing this task of more than 41,000 words is a big one, though, for my schedule is packed and I only work when I feel "in the mood," since I feel that that is the time when I am at my best.

This fall--up until December, probably--with all AP classes and applications to 7 colleges, I will likely be too busy to devote much time to the manuscript. However, after December--especially if I get into the school of my choice through Early Action (Yale)--I am planning on finishing the last 30,000 or so words of my manuscript I plan to have left, and to be done by the time I set foot into a double major in Political Science and Creative Writing.

At the surface, this thread is for all you novel writers--published or unpublished--who would like to post their word count as their story develops, a place to mark your progress and receive encouragement. When you peel of the layers, though, I hope all of you remark on your own development as a writer as well.

I wish all of you the best of luck in your endeavors, and hope to get more active within the forums than I have been for the past couple weeks.

--Michael Shammas

Darkness · 07-12-2008, 10:54 PM

I have a big fat 0. Still trying to find the spark. Kudos to you for doing what I can't. Hope it works out for you!

Mike · 07-13-2008, 02:24 AM

I just deleted six chapters. Doesn't make me sad. Just makes me go, "hmm, guess that didn't work." Word count? 21, 432 That is, if I'm not in an editing mood tomorrow.

Sabsz · 07-13-2008, 02:46 AM

Hm, about 1,347 words. I'm still on Chapter One.

Loulou · 07-13-2008, 03:27 AM

51,000 words, starting on Chapter Thirteen. This has been the most exciting, difficult, stressful, satisfying, tiring, invigorating thing I've ever done, as a writer anyway.

lilacstarflower · 07-13-2008, 07:02 AM

I deleted 3 chapters, so now back at 3,000

for one

But reached 10,000 on another one

Tiamat10 · 07-13-2008, 08:04 AM

I reached about 60K a couple months ago and then decided to take a pause to enjoy the so-called summer months.

C.M.C. · 07-13-2008, 09:00 AM

I'm at 0. Now that I have something in the pipeline, I'm not writing another word until I have an idea I think is truly worthwhile.

heartistic · 07-13-2008, 10:54 PM

I'm at 31,000, but I'm taking a long coffee break so I can I recharge my tired brain, and collect some much needed research.

assassin · 07-14-2008, 12:46 AM

129,000 and on the last chapter which it'll make it ... um ... 133,000? ^_^ Have no idea how much editing will take off, right now I wouldn't care if I lost 10,000 at the moment, so it's all good.

Arin · 07-14-2008, 12:39 PM

Wow! Congrats to the OPer and to those who have also reached significant milestones in the tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands!) of words. I admire your drive very much.

Just for curiosity's sake, if everyone could post what genre they are writing in. No need to explain, just say general fiction, historical nonfiction, fantasy, etc. Thanks!

OtherWorlds · 07-14-2008, 02:46 PM

Well, my longest finished work was 240,000 words, but that was several years ago. Lol. What a distaster that was! Try shopping out such a monster to publishers. It wasn't pretty and I learned my lesson the hard way. These days I aim much lower.

I'm currently working on three novels. One is about half fininshed at around 50,000 words, one is only three chapters long and I haven't even begun it's word count. Still another is half done at 25,000 words. (I should mention these are in different genres, which accounts for the difference in lengths).

starseed · 07-14-2008, 07:40 PM

75,439 words as of today. I'm approaching the climax right now, and I'll probably add another 25-20000 before its over. But re-writing will be a major task. I'm not sure how many words I'll end up with after that. Maybe more, maybe less.

MMT · 07-14-2008, 10:58 PM

My home computer is too cool for Office so I do all my writing in Notepad, which doesn't have a wordcount

But I'm at work now so I will paste it into Word and see what we have... 725 words, wowee! This is a story that started pushing its way out of my head a few days ago, knocking aside the other thing that I was working on which wasn't going so well. I guess it would go in the post-apocalyptic genre, or subgenre, or whatever you call it.

MEShammas · 07-15-2008, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loulou

51,000 words, starting on Chapter Thirteen. This has been the most exciting, difficult, stressful, satisfying, tiring, invigorating thing I've ever done, as a writer anyway.

Good adjectives

. It is exciting for me also, especially since this is actually the first major project in writing I've taken on. I doubt it'll be published, but I do think it has a fairly good chance, especially once I reach college and can use my creative writing class to edit it and have others critique it on a more personal level than most people get.