When will Book #3 be Ready?
One of the questions I regularly get is; ‘When is the next book coming?’ So far the answer has been; ‘Sometime this this fall.’
The fact is that I really don’t know when Parley (Privateer Tales #3) will be ready to go. What I do know is that progress is being made.
In anticipation of the next obvious question; ‘how much progress, and are you ahead of or behind schedule?’ let me provide a quick outline of where we’re at.
Highlighted Items are Complete
- Outline the story
- Start writing making sure to ignore outline
- Review outline… :sigh:
- Create a new outline, hoping I’ll follow it
- Finish writing
- Hire artist for cover art
- First pass editing
- Beta Readers
- Final editing pass
- Format/release
Word Count is an Indication
Most fiction novels fall between 60,000 words and top out around 90,000 words. If you translate that to a paperback book page, divide by 250. Most people agree that a novel less than 60,000 words is a short and novels that are greater than 90,000 words are getting a bit too long.
Rookie Privateer started at 102,000 words before I started cutting it down. The final word count was about 92,000 words. Right in the sweet spot, but on the edge of being considered a little long.
Fool Me Once, my novella, came in at 32,000 words.
My goal for Parley is 80,000 unreviewed, unedited words. I would expect to fine-tune this back to 75,000 words or greater. The obvious problem is that while writing the story is done when it’s done. Word counts are targets and can’t be pressured. When writing Rookie Privateer, I turned the corner from mid-story to end-story at about 60,000 words and just couldn’t finish for another 40,000 words. As an inexperienced writer I can only guess this is common.
As of last night, Parley is at 36,063 words (palindrome). I’m not ready to switch to the end story but I’d bet I’ll get there in then next 10,000 words. Moreover I have the second draft of my outline. In both Rookie Privateer and Fool Me Once, my first outline was discarded at the mid-story. The characters had developed much differently than I’d expected and the story had to take a different arc. I’ve had the same experience with Parley and with my newly loaded outline I am ready to start hitting it hard again.
So, now that you know everything I know, when do you think we’ll be done?
