Yes, it’s true, I’m a writer. And I’m a published writer. Each time I add a post here on WordPress, I press a “Publish” button. In fact, I have also been published in a few newsletters. But that was long, long ago in a life far, far away.

I hope to publish a novel soon. It consists of 64,000 words. I think it’s great and some close friends agree. But my writing mentor (whom you will meet in the next post) stopped reading on page 22. She offered a number of suggestions that I have taken to heart. I suspect the version that does get published (please???) will have under 50,000 words.

So what’s with the number of words? Different story lengths are referred to by different names. For example:

• Short Stories: 1,000 – 10,000 words
• Novella: 25,000 – 40,000 words
• Novel: 60,000 – 90,000 words

There was a contest once to write a story in the 140 word limit of Twitter. In my genre of Contemporary Romance, I should be in the 40,000 to 100,000 word range. So, great, I’m in the right range. Why should I feel I need to shorten my story?

Ultimately it’s the publishers that determine the length of what they publish. Go figure! And I have no idea who may consider publishing my story. So why am I concerned? Because my mentor’s books are generally shorter, and she’s been very successful.

But, I won’t toss my 64,000 words into the fire. (That would require setting fire to the cloud somehow.) I have a plan should the end result be shorter. Removed content will be posted here. Yes, that’s right, folks, you want to stay tuned. Of course, there will be a lot of content not in my stories that will be in my blog. And I intend to share the ups and downs of the writing craft as I learn them. And you will get to read snippets of what I’m writing along the way.

I look forward to hearing from you. (I just have to figure out how to let you comment below…)