Comments on: How long should a book be?

By: hrugaar

hrugaar — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 09:04:00 +0000

Wise, moi? :oD To me it's just kind of instinctive. As with doing a painting or sculpture, you get all the layout and big shapes done first, then you can do reshuffling and work on the finer details.

And yes, well impressed with all the work you're managing to get done while on holiday and grandson-sitting!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 04:29:00 +0000

Fantastic progress. Go you!!!!

By: Glenda Larke

Glenda Larke — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 03:58:00 +0000

Hrugaar – yes, I think that’s wise. It is a trap that new authors fall into though – going back to revise and revise because they are sure it’s no good.

Patty – I shall talk about this in my next post…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:32:00 +0000

I’m rather baffled at the length of 180K. I’m sure that for first-time authors it’s more like 90-120K

By: hrugaar

hrugaar — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 17:27:00 +0000

Interesting post. Yes, certainly I write through to the end of first draft before revising. In fact, even when I do my section read-throughs (the equivalent of your third and two-thirds re-reads) I tend to just make notes on places that need revision, unless they’re very minor tidy-ups. I need to have the whole body of the first draft completed to get a sense of perspective, so I can see how and where it needs to be knocked into shape.