A Change in Policy
I began this long, slow war of words in May. In that time, I've made some important progress. I nailed the introduction, and the acknowledgements. I wrote the dedication and the Table of Contents. Some look past those accomplishments, but we must not lose sight of these important footholds in the writing of a manuscript.
About 50,000 words have been cycled in and then out of the theatre of the book -- they now reside stateside in the "First Draft" and "Second Draft" files. Some expect to be rotated back into the manuscript soon.
We (the words and I) keep slogging away -- this book won't be done in a day -- but some words are deleted every day. Other words have lost a prefix or a suffix. It's an unfortunate but unavoidable aspect of writing. I've visited many of the words in the recycle bin, told the rest of their sentences that I'm sorry for their loss.
So, we've been hovering at around 45,000 words. That's not acceptable! The contract clearly calls for 70,000 words! And, it was due on January 8 -- I had really hoped that this manuscript would be done by that deadline, but we've gotten bogged down in circumstances that we didn't foresee.
So, I have no choice. I'm sending in a surge of 20,000 words in the next two weeks.
We will finish this manuscript! We will not back down!
Failure is not an option!
About 50,000 words have been cycled in and then out of the theatre of the book -- they now reside stateside in the "First Draft" and "Second Draft" files. Some expect to be rotated back into the manuscript soon.
We (the words and I) keep slogging away -- this book won't be done in a day -- but some words are deleted every day. Other words have lost a prefix or a suffix. It's an unfortunate but unavoidable aspect of writing. I've visited many of the words in the recycle bin, told the rest of their sentences that I'm sorry for their loss.
So, we've been hovering at around 45,000 words. That's not acceptable! The contract clearly calls for 70,000 words! And, it was due on January 8 -- I had really hoped that this manuscript would be done by that deadline, but we've gotten bogged down in circumstances that we didn't foresee.
So, I have no choice. I'm sending in a surge of 20,000 words in the next two weeks.
We will finish this manuscript! We will not back down!
Failure is not an option!
posted by tony at 10:57 AM
8 Comments:
don't let those words get the best of you. remember, they can smell fear.
Stay the course, Tony!
Don't cut and run.
Just put up your ideas and let everyone else fill in the words, you might end up with 20,000... may not be quite what you expected but hey... who knows?
As a great man said once in Waterboy, "You can do it!"
I protest your escalation of words.
hey Tony,
you just wasted about 50 words writing this post!
just kidding, go for it.
vapor
just let one of the kids pound away at the keyboard, and call it a spiritual gift, i don't think they could refute that one...
"Emerging booksellers" like myself are holding our breath, waiting to profit from your victory with the words..
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