It was a good first week of Camp NaNo. I am slightly over halfway through my goal for this April: 25K. I wrote about 1.9K words today. Will be doing some more writing in the evening. By the end of the weekend I expect to have at least 75% of the goal done. Besides, I am having a really good time in the Camp. We are a bunch of pretty active people: I love to log in to the NaNo website and see how have the word counts changed for my fellow campers. It a very fulfilling experience. Besides, we have some very good conversations going on, which I find very educating.
The book I am currently writing is about a two women: a mother and a daughter. There will be two different POVs set in two different time frames. The daughter’s POV is based on present times. When I set out to writing this for this NaNo, I did not intend to go beyond 25-30K. I have faced difficulties writing too long books with my last two books as well – and for me anything to write beyond 20K sounds too long.
However, today I was researching popular word counts and it appears that for a novel, 80K is the commercial standard. I am a little uncomfortable with that because I don’t know if I have enough to say in a book to make it 80K words long. At best, I am targeting 60K words. Would publishers even consider me? Haha.
Thing is if I at all complete this book, I will have completed 3 books in total. And for this 3rd book, I am actually considering being published traditionally. I have published two books directly through Amazon KDP program. I have realized that as a writer, at the moment I want to focus on bettering my writing skills. I require more time to understand my own writing: identify strengths and weaknesses and work accordingly. Besides, being accepted at a major publishing house is a validation of sorts. It is less about the money I make than the fact that somebody considers my writing good enough to put into publishing.
When I started outlining the book in the last week of March, I was thinking of going the self-publishing way only. But as I progress into the story and the word counts pile, I feel like if I am able to manage a decent word count and finish a story which feels complete when read, why shouldn’t I really go to a traditional publisher and try out my luck?
Well, wish me luck! Will keep you posted on whatever happens.
Scribbles@Arpita 