VELOCITY BLOG 04

Project wordcount: 22,609 / 100,000

Let me tell you what. Having a writing session word count of 2000 has been freaking delightful. I’m just so shocked that I’m 20k right now. Seeing the book grow in leaps and bounds every week is honestly intense. I haven’t felt this kind of ravenous writing energy in years.

It’s funny spending the vast majority of my drafting phase being obsessed with word counts but knowing that at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter. In trad-publishing book size is important. Middle grade books usually have a small word limit, unless there’s a compelling reason to exceed it. In the fantasy/sci-fi genre, it’s good to avoid excessively long books, unless there’s a substantial purpose behind it. Book size can be a hard sell, but here I am frolicking in self-pub land. But I like to be consistent. I want to make sure that my books are all around the same size and for the most part, they have been. Every Kinetics book has been just above 100,000 words. I’ve figured out my pacing in such a way I kinda know how to make the moves I need to make in the space I’ve allotted to myself.

I know for Victory or Hope I’ll probably end up exceeding the 100,000 mark by leaps and bounds. Currently it sits around 103k but I have so much context to add and detail that I think I could easily add another 50k. I have to be careful though, because larger is not an indicator of quality. I also have to learn how to do more with less. That’s a writer skill that might be a bit of a challenge for current me. I tend to be a bit free with words that may be redundant or not add anything to the message. Because I want to at least attempt to trad-publish Victory or Hope so I need to be more considerate of industry standards in that respect and I do want to flex and grow my skills.

For Velocity (Book 4 of Kinetics) I’m not stuck to industry standards and I’m even thinking about letting book 4 and maybe 5 be the longer books out of the series. Basically, doing a Harry Potter and laying down enough words to bean a man.

I have my current word count goal set in Atticus for 100,000k just to keep track, but I could see myself exceeding that quickly just based on how my outlining is going. I’ve churned out a heck of a lot of scenes that now I’m actually starting to run out and it’s time to start thinking about structure again.

I feel a bit crazed jumping all over the place with this book, since I wrote VoH sequentially. But man are there some heavy hitting scenes I can’t wait for you all to read. I’m a little concerned that Velocity might be a little TOO serious that I’m trying to figure out how to inject some humor. War ain’t funny but maybe we can haz jokes?

I have a confession: I don’t know how to be funny. Like I think I’m a silly person at times, but not necessarily witty in a way that I have a lot of control over. I’m just overtaken by the ridiculousness of my own existence and absurdity that I do funny shit or say funny shit on whims that don’t always land. I’m pretty sure some of my coworkers think I’m not right in the head!

But when it comes to the characters in my books drawing humor out that isn’t stupid or makes sense is a little hard. Because the stuff that’s funny to me is the absurd and the whole damn universe is absurd but the characters in my books are dead serious about their lives and their universe. So I think something I will challenge myself with over the next few months, maybe in short story form, is trying to figure out humor writing. And humor writing that everyone can relate to, not just me. Or maybe my characters need to stop taking everything so seriously. Like, lighten up my dudes.

Other than that concern, this week has been a good writing week. I’ve got the major track of one character figured out and pretty much just need to fill in some connective tissue, the beginning and end of another character track, and a little bit from the beginning middle and end of the third. There’s a couple character subplots that I’m working on too that are starting to come through the woodwork. Heading out of scene writing into outline is probably going to slow me down a little but at the same time I’m conspiring with myself to make it so it helps me rather than hinders me. I really want to keep that 2000 words per writing session going. I’ve got enough figured out that I’m even deeply considering some stuff in book 5 (i.e. book the final). The over arching plot between 4 and 5 is more closely tied than any of the others while also factoring in my goal of keeping each book its own story. I feel like the characters know what’s coming in 5 so they’ve got to spend a not insignificant portion of 4 agonizing over what’s in 5.

Also, mini celebration time! I figured out the exact execution of the end of the book. It’s not all written but the play of it and the events are figured out. Now I head into the messy middle with my head held high! I’ll tell you all about messy middles in the next blog.

Anyway, thanks for reading! Until next time.