Hello, friends and fans!
Welcome to a “Peek Into My Week”! Here’s a look at some of my latest news: May 01, 2023! Here are some things that happened this past week.
News About Writing & Publishing: This Is The Current State Of Things
Let’s take a look at the current status quo on various ongoing issues affecting my writing or publishing:
- Writing: During the past week, I continued working on the present story arc in the Quantum Series. Book 8, “Xanadu” is now complete at the first draft stage, and “The Last Hurrah” (book 9) is now also at the first draft stage! There have been daily increases in their wordcount and there will be more as I start the copy-editing process! You can keep track of daily wordcount increases by following me on Facebook. Three weeks back, I finished the draft-edit of “Underground Movement“, book 7 in Quantum, with a wordcount of 60,740 words. Book 8 is at the first draft phase at 52,583 words and I will come back to it soon for copy-editing. Book 9 is at 52,563 words. This is the culmination of the past seven years work! This story arc takes the quirky characters and residents of the planet Deanna through their darkest, most uncertain times yet – and provided quite a challenge to me as a writer! The completion of these books is a milestone for me, and yes, I’m really excited about it!Meanwhile here are the new covers for the three new books, coming soon!
- What Readers Say: I’m not sure, I know I can’t please everybody – so drop me a line and let me know how I’m doing? Meanwhile, you can read my reviews and fan mail here. On Thursday, a good friend in writing and activism who is also an English professor hit me right in the blusher…
Other Stuff:
Here’s a few of the other things that happened this past week:
Helen Zille Is A TERF
This past week I was shocked to discover that Helen Zille, former leader of the Democratic Alliance and SA liberal darling, espoused TERF talking points in social media. The auntie’s gone mad, I heard local LGBT peeps saying as they spluttered through their coffee and vetkoek.
Wordcount – Why aren’t my books longer?
My longest novel is 84,000 words long, and the shortest, 46,000. Mostly they average around 50 or 60,000.I’ve heard some people say “why so short”. Indeed, even my audiobook publisher views anything less than 100,000 words “too short” for him to bother with – in terms of recording himself.
So what’s the big deal anyway?
In answering that question, I can only speak for myself and give my own personal view on the subject.
Yes, it would be nice to write longer stories, but let’s just say that when I plot out and write my stories, I don’t waffle. I don’t put in unnecessary wordsiness that I feel doesn’t contribute real value to the story itself. I don’t pad it with cotton wool.
If the story comes to 46,000 words and I’ve told it the way I wanted to – and it meets the definition of a novel (minimum of 40,000 words) and it satisfies me as the author, then it’s done.
Some stories just work out longer. You can’t just start planning and writing a novel and decide at the beginning “this one is going to hit 60,000 words!” or, “this one’s going to be a 100,000 word monster!” Writing doesn’t work out that way – at least, not in my experience. The story writes itself – it materializes and coalesces on the screen as I type it out. It – and the characters decide how it goes – and when one or both say “that’s enough”, then I as the humble author must pay heed.
As far as I’m concerned, some people may say they prefer stories of 100,000 plus words, but that’s their preference, their opinion, and their taste.
As far as I’m concerned, I like them at an average of 50,000 words – less waffle, less cotton wool and less padding. If there’s any more to be added, I’ll add it.
If it was good enough for greats like Terry Pratchett, then that’s good enough for me.
That’s all for this week!
As always, I’ll keep you posted about any further developments. And remember:
In spite of some of my books having been on Amazon since 2005, not one of them has yet reached 10 reviews on any platform, let alone 50! I would really appreciate your help on this! Come on, leave a review – it’s free!
I wish you all a pleasant week until next time!