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

[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.