Counting on you...

Oh, for goodness sake stop counting, Teresa.
 Why do we writers do this? Obsess  with the maths. 
If I write a thousand words a day, I will have a book in so many weeks… 
  If I write 500 words  by lunch, then divide by the paragraph I first thought of, I  will be re-born as Zadie Smith….
 Sometimes when I start a new book,  I set myself temporarily free of all this madness. To be frank  it  feels both exhilarating and too daunting all at the same time. In the very early days of a MS, I simply  can’t bear to check  the word count as the hill ahead is too darn steep. I keep my head down into the  wind and it’s only when I pass the quarter mark, that I can face it. 
Then the pendulum swings entirely  the other way and I become  completely obsessed with the word count– checking the numbers much too often for my own ( or anyone else’s) sanity, carefully working out precisely what
  percentage of the book I’ve written. 
It is pure, yes - madness  and I should  clearly stop doing it immediately but the truth is it is an addiction. Probably  just one of the many procrastination techniques I have developed to distract  myself from the task in hand.
 Naughty, naughty writer.
Stop doing the maths and just write,  damn you.
 But hang on a minute. While we have  the calculator and the word count button to hand, I have  just
realised something rather nice. Tap, tap.  = button.  Well, goodness gracious. Seems I have  passed  something of a milestone in my writing life.  Yup. According to my sums, I have now  officially sold a “book’s worth” of fiction. And if “A book’s worth” sounds a strange turn of phrase...
Oh, all right. All right.  What I have actually done is sold a book’s length…but  in terms of short stories. Dozens of  ‘em. And while we’re pressing buttons –  tap, tap, tap – according to my calculations, I have earned from short fiction  more or less the sort of sum I would have earned from the advance from one of  the major publishers for a first novel (that is; according to my spies. Modest  first advance, please note. I am not  Cecelia Ahern, more’s the  pity).

 Anyway. Experienced authors may smile. Even mock. But for me this is significant.  For though I have earned a jolly fair living from words as a journalist for decades, I have yet to nail that elusive book deal in the fiction field –
despite  having a super  enthusiastic literary agent and more near misses than air traffic control. 
  So this word count milestone, then?
Smile you may but I reckon I might just savour it.  Yes, indeedy. Makes me feel as if I am at least on the  right track. Especially as an email has just pinged into my inbox confirming the  sale of another 2,000-word short story to a leading mag which ups the word count and the dosh yet again. ( Pause while she taps number into calculator).
So.  A “book’s worth” – ahem- of fiction   sold,  eh?
 As a man might say to a  pig…
 That’ll do.
 
 PS If you live in Devon and fancy  picking up some tips on your short story writing, do check out my next workshop.  Details by clicking here : WORKSHOP JULY 20

 (PPS Word count of this blog = 500+ . Sorry.  Just saying)

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