Chasing the Numbers

Books are all about the characters, the plots, the emotions.

And the numbers.

Every book I’ve ever written but three (In Sinful Harmony, Passion, and Suspicion) was written to a specified length. The Harlequin books (known as Silhouette Intimate Moments when I started) had an 80,000-word limit, plus or minus 5K. Of the three I got to write until I was sure they were finished, only ISH was published at that length. I had to cut 10-12,000 words from the second and about 30,000 from the third.

When Intimate Moments became Silhouette Romantic Suspense, the word count dropped to about 60,000. I never did manage to turn one in at or below the limit. Just when I thought I was getting the hang of the shorter limit, they raised it to 70 or 75,000 words. The current book is the first I’ve done at the new count. Wouldn’t it suck to find out that I’d finally mentally re-paced my stories to fit now that they’ve got to be longer?

When you start a book with a target of, say, 90,000 words, like my Tuesday Night Margarita Club series, it’s kind of disheartening at first watching the word count. A thousand words may look like a lot — until you realize there are 89,000 to go. Even 20 or 40,000 doesn’t seem like much when your goal is that far away.

But it’s like that old saying: Every journey begins with one step. Taking up walking after being sedentary, losing weight, learning any hobby — it’s all in the steps. Five pounds lost isn’t a lot when your goal is 100, but without those first 5 pounds, the goal is impossible. Without the first 1000 words on a book, you’ll never reach the 90,000-word mark.

And look at it this way: you write 1000 words a day every day, in 90 days, you’ve got that completed book. How cool is that?