Monday

[ksmith]

Could get snow tomorrow. First predictions were 6-8" for my area. Now it's down to 3-5". Not enough to make me stay home. Will be enough to compel me to spend part of my evening shoveling the drive. I spent part of today divesting said drive of the 3" of powder we got overnight. Sick of shoveling the damned drive. Sick of Kuro the Forester looking like a bar snack. Spring, please?

To give my brain a rest, and because I'd have to do it anyway, I spent part of the afternoon pulling all the ENDGAME chapters into One Big File, as per the new guidelines. I still need to add wordage, but the current specs vs old specs are:

New: 123,899 words
Old: 152,119 words

New: 639 pages
Old: 752 pages

No. of pages is deceptive. My old margins were set at 1" top and bottom, 1.25" right and left. The guidelines ask for 1.25" all around. When I initially formatted the new ms at 1" all around, I wound up with about 570 pages. Those quarter-inches make a difference.

Comments

[hittite.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's a LOT of cutting! Hey, too bad they are not paying by the PAGE though ;) (Just kidding)

Snow sucks... We're supposed to get some up in the Great White North later in the week, can you guys please keep those snow laden clouds in the midwest? Pretty please? Of course, now all we have is really cold weather with the horrible windchill... I wouldn't mind seeing some spring myself, global warming, what global warming? ;)

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

If novels paid by the word:

125K@0.06=$7500, a not-unusual magazine rate, giving one a little bit more than beginner money

125K@0.25=$31,250, which would be a very nice advance

I have a word limit in my contract, which is why I was really bent on cutting. 125K, +/- about 10-15%.

Snow does indeed suck.

[hittite.livejournal.com]

Wow, a word limit. So restrictive! Although, I always find it easier to cut than to pad, not that I would presume to anything like your level of professionalism :) It is amazing how much c/r/a/p/ unnecessary stuff you can put in your writing that can be got rid of once you bring out the red-pen-to-printout type of ammunition.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Wow, a word limit. So restrictive!

Well, more a guideline. It was based on the word count for CODE, which was the tightest book of the series--the manuscript was less than 500 pages. The only time I managed to fit a book in less than a ream of paper. Actually, if I'd had it to do over, I might have added more detail to that one.

ENDGAME contained a number of scenes that I needed to get out of my system, but that didn't belong in the final book. I also tossed an entire POV. Of such things are shorter books made.