I'll be checking email everyday. Taking the laptop. I'll need something to read when everybody's asleep, and some grown-up work to focus on. And I can email you, too.

Short version: yes, please.

They've dumped about three pages.

They definitely need to hire a proofreader!

I have a very pretty girly-love vampire story for the pornanthology, and will send when you're ready.

Got your email. Will read as soon as... um... if I print it out and take it to work, my chances of reading it will improve.

Have fallen in love with the updated The Joy of Writing Sex which is, for me, much more interesting and useful than How to Write a Dirty Story was.

Updated? Drat, and I was just in the bookstore this morning... I found it more useful than How to Write a Dirty Story, too. Reminding me that I don't have to impress the reader with sexual acrobatics was much more useful than recommending that I videotape myself masturbating.

My two cents: Fresh blood is crimson. Tomatoes (homegrown, left on the vine until perfectly ripe, washed, diced and crushed) are scarlet.

2. Everyone there is struck by the transformation, in their own separate ways--the hero, his sister, the heroine's doting aunt, her bitchy girl-cousin, the boy-cousin she has a crush on who's just gotten engaged to the hero's sister, etc.

This sounds more realistic to me. Sure everybody's going to see her transformation differently - it means different things to different people. To some, she's growing up. To some, she's becoming the competition. To some, she's a rosebud starting to bloom. Or whatever analogy works.

Anne, I like input just fine. This is a very specific use of feng shui, though, remember: it's essentially a perversion of cosmic breath, which is why they missed it in the first place.

Lordy lordy lordy, I am soooooo damned tired.

I just did a fresh word count. 65,000 words now, 206 pages of doublespaced Times New Roman. I feel like I've finally got some serious momentum going on this puppy. Three or four more big scenes (and by big, I mean at least 10K words, lots going on), and then all the little linky bits to tie it all together, and I'll have Actually. Written. A. Novel.

Wow.

Rock ON, Susan! Go you! I'm staring at my just-started project and I have 1,700 words written. 48,300 to go before I can call it a novel.

I heard about an aquaintance yesterday who'd written a 50,000 word fantasy novel. She's got an agent and it sounds like it'll sell but -- and this kills me -- the agent says it's too short. She needs another 30,000 words. So she's taking the first six chapters of the sequel and revising them and adding it in.

Oy. I don't know what I think about that. Because a story has a natural flow, a natural ending, and I don't think I like the idea that a fantasy novel has to be a certain width on the shelf to be worth buying. Wizard of the Pigeons, anyone?

I don't like it, either, but there are definitely standard length expectations out there.

And I really should've figured this out before now, but about how long is a 100,000 word novel in terms of standard paperback pages in a standard font? Stupid of me, but I have no idea whether I'm writing a longer or shorter than typical book.

there are definitely standard length expectations out there.

I think that the minimum length thing is partially to blame on production costs. The publisher can get more "bang for the buck" when books are over a certain number of pages, and under yet another number.

Ah, length.

According to Ruth, the standard average length (she bases this on mystery) is 80K. Fantasy tends to run longer, hard scifi can run shorter. Romance can run as short as 60K, depending on the pacing and the writer.

The writer, if established, is the final deciding factor. Example: I tend to write short, concise books with a tight flow. Fire Queen, for me, was a damned epic, at 94K. Plainsong came in at just about 70K. Good Buddy Tad, OTOH, writes boat anchors, in terms of length; he's happy at 800 pages. The third book of his TGAT series (To Green Angel Tower had to be delayed because when the UK publishers bound the hardback, it wouldn't stay bound. It was so thick, it cracked the bindings. had to be split into two. The sucker was something like 1100 pages.

Weaver is extremely short by modern publishing standards - it's about 68K and will be just under 200 pages hardback - but the flow is unbroken anywhere, and Ruth didn't want one word added. Famous Flower of Serving Men was longer, denser: 78K and Ruth says she thinks it could actually be tightened in a few places, to make it shorter. So I'm bucking the trend by not writing nine billion words epic. And Still Life is about 83K, and for me, it's long.

Romance can run as short as 60K, depending on the pacing and the writer.

I hope it can also be as long as 100-120K, because I just don't see any way to make this puppy much shorter, even if I trim fat ruthlessly. Which would mean cutting out all the description I've been adding in at my writing group's behest. ("More visual details, Susan! I'm sure you can see it all in your head, but help us out a little.")

Susan, I've seen them that long, especially historical romance; it's the modern ones that are generally shorter, sometimes because they start at as paperback and never see hardback publication.

I expect you're fine. Other thing is, if an editor did want you trim it, he or she would say precisely what they thought wanted trimming, and where, and would likely suggest how.

My experience, anyway.