According to SFWA guidelines, the fantasy novella has been a novel for the last eight thousand words.
Huh.
That means I’m working on two novels and two novellas this fall.
Eeep.
***
Update, September 26, 2014: the provisionally-titled Singer in Rhunshan is finished at 53,200 words. I’m not going to pretend there are no typos, tense errors, or other gaffes in it, but it’s fairly clean (one benefit of editing-as-you-go, it weeds out a lot of problems.)
I glanced back at my worklogs, for this project’s history.
Started in March 1996; 5.5K short story finished and pitched to three fantasy magazines in fall 1996. Obviously, no sales. Story trunked until 2003, when I noodled on it a bit and brought it up to 6.5K. Approached another two markets to no avail. Trunked again. Reworked yet again in 2010 for several writing contests and magazines – leading to a 12K version, personal rejections, and the same critical points: not enough description and emotion, characters’ motivations so subtle as to be opaque. Placed on hold while I played with the erotic romance concepts that eventually became my debut novel.
Story reworked again in early 2013, with an eye toward self-publishing. Pulled before release of a 17.7K version. In early 2014, I enlisted three beta readers, my long-suffering agent, and a NY editor to at least glance at the damn thing.
In the meantime, I built this cover:
More critiques followed: finding logic errors, lack of worldbuilding, lack of vivid character description and interaction. I plunged back in, and this time I think I got it right.
It was certainly as wrenching to write as the erotic romance novel, so I’m fairly sure I have the emotional quotient in place.
As I’ve said in other posts, it will be a stronger book for the extra work, whether I self-pub it or send it to a commercial publisher.
What a long, strange trip.
***
Update: September 27, 2014. For those of you who have never mailed a paper manuscript before, this is what they look like.
This one’s a lightweight at only 215 pages, counting mms, synopsis, and cover letter. Just shipped it out to the agent. She’ll use a digital file as well, but she likes a hardcopy for that first, brutal read-through.
Let the red ink bloodbath commence!
Singer?
Yep. ‘Singer in Rhunshan’ is now around 52K (an actual novel!) as I add depth to some scenes and trim others – based on beta notes from you, two other readers, and my agent. I’m doing a final run-through now, will print and ship this weekend. And then it’s up to the agent to decide to sub it or revise again.
I’m fully expecting another round of edits once she gets her hands on the hardcopy.
‘Final edit’ is a moving target in this business.