How Long?

There are a lot of factors that determine how long it takes to write a novel. How fast do you write, how long or short is the book going to be, how strong is your coffee, do you have any toddlers at home?

According to my research, most novels fall anywhere between 80,000 and 120,000 words, probably a good average being around 90,000. That makes about a 350 page book, depending on font size, margins, etc.

Remember back in grade school when you had to write a two-hundred word paper? Yikes!

My mom teaches fourth grade at a little private school. I've gone into her class a couple times to talk about writing. One time I brought in a printed draft of my second novel. I pulled out this huge ream of paper (485 printed sheets, double spaced, one sided). The book was just over 100,000 words.

"Whoa! That's huge!"

"So," I said, hefting the pages, "how many words do you think are in this book?"

Hands flew up. "Three thousand! One thousand and twelve. Ten thousand!" The kids laughed. Who is this dork who thinks it's ten thousand words? Nobody could ever write ten thousand words.

I wrote the guesses on the board then wrote the actual amount beneath them and circled all those zeros.

The dork smiled.

Writing a novel is something that only insane people should attempt. If you are not insane and you do attempt to write a novel, you should be warned that should you finish the novel, you will become insane.

So let's say you are a fast writer. You can type forty words a minute. Hey, how hard can this be? I'll be done writing this thing in under fifty hours. That's like one work week. No big deal.

If you think this, then at least you have the first requirement to writing a novel: You are insane.

Forty words a minute quickly diminishes to twelve a minute when you write that first page and then . . . uh . . . then something big and important happened here and, uh, and I think maybe I need to do some more outlining or something.

Second requirement to writing a novel: Ridiculous imagination.

I'm not talking about simple daydreaming. That might get you fifty pages through a novel, a cool 10,000 words. But you have to be insane, and full of ridiculous ideas to go all the way. You have to be willing to take your characters way off the deep end, into the uncharted and then beyond.

Can you imaging flying? Is it easy to envision man-eating aliens roaming your city? Do you create weird/humorous back stories about random people you see on the street? Good. You might have what it takes.

Third requirement: Ruthlessness.

You have to be brutal. If you manage to create strong, likable characters, you have to be able to put them through the worst possible scenario imaginable.

"But I like Sally too much to do that to her."

"Too bad. The story will be much stronger if her dog is run over by a truck."

"But she loves that dog!"

"Exactly. That's why it needs to be run over."

"You're sick."

And Sally had a dog and she loved that dog and nothing ever happened and she lived happily ever after with her dog and nobody cared.

There are more requirements to writing a novel, but we'll stick with these three for now.

You're insane, you have a ridiculous imagination, you are ruthless, and you've read half a dozen books about how to write a novel, and you've subscribed to Writer's Digest, and you've read thirty bestselling novels in the genre you want to write, and you are willing to close your door to the rest of the world and take a long, lonely journey of heartache and joy, and pour out all of your blood and your tears and risk carpal tunnel to tell a story that might never get published.

Good.

So . . . how long will it take you?

Let's suppose that you are like me. You have been thinking about a book idea for months, maybe years. Over that time, you have tweaked the plot in your head, you have added and taken away characters, you have a good idea how it will start, the half way twist, and the big ending. You sit down and write a three to five page synopsis of the story. This will take you about a week, considering that you also have a life and a job and a family and you have to sleep.

With synopsis in hand, you will start a schedule of going to bed at 10:30 PM and waking up at 6:00 AM. While the rest of the house sleeps, you will sneak away to your office and begin the journey. After a week or two, you will fall into the groove of the story and start pounding out about 1000 words an hour. Your goal will be 2000 words a day. Some days you will get more, some days less.

By 9:00 AM your writing time is finished and the house is awake and you are needed elsewhere.

If all goes well, you will have a completed first draft in your hands in three or four months. It will look huge. Almost 500 pages of copy paper. You will have written that. You will smile and feel like a king.

You will then let your spouse or your trusted "First-Reader" look at the book. This is the first time you have shared it with anyone. You will be tempted to watch them read every page. They will mark it with a red pen. You will ask them what they thought about certain scenes. You will go crazy waiting for them to get to the end.

Since they love you, they will read the book in less than a week. They will tell you that it is great, wonderful, amazing . . . but there are some things that need to be changed.

"What!? But it's perfect! I edited it! I wrote it!"

Then you will come back to reality, see that they are right, and dive into the second draft. There is no way to say how long this draft will take you. You may have to do like I did for my third novel and rewrite nearly 50,000 words of the 100,000 word book. That will hurt.

Or it may be that you actually did do a fine job and the second draft edits will only take you two weeks. Who knows. It's always different.

After that, you will send it to your agent. She will read it as soon as she can. She is very busy and you aren't her only client. In the meantime, you should start writing something else.

Your agent will send you some notes when she is done. "It's great, it's wonderful, it's amazing . . . but there are some things that need to be changed."

You will come back to reality, you will take her suggestions, you will rework it again.

When you are happy with it, when your spouse is happy with it, when your agent is happy with it, she will start to shop it around.

Yes! Finally! The world will see your genius!

In the meantime, you should start writing something else.

By this time, you will have invested approximately six months of your life into this project. You will be exhausted, exhilarated, and likely a little shaky from too much coffee and not enough sleep.

You will check your email and phone messages every day to see if you agent tried to contact you to tell you about the big book deal she's landed for you.

In the meantime, you should start writing something else.

Then, one day, FINALLY, your agent will call, and you will almost drop the phone in excitement, and your agent will say--

I'm not sure what she'll say. I let you know when that happens.

In the meantime . . . well, you know.

BoxWorld

Contrary to popular belief, the world is actually square. It is a box. There are six sides and you live on one of them.

Most people live on the top side. They are right side up. They have their head in the clouds. Everything is held down by gravity. Nobody gets too close to the edge because you might fall.

There are a large number of people who live on the sides of BoxWorld. They have built platforms that extend outward and can be seen from above. It is a dangerous life, there on the side. They are exploring territory that isn't safe, protected, guarded, or easy to navigate. They are creating art.

On the bottom of the box, there a few people trying to hold on. The people up top think the bottom dwellers have lost their minds, living down there. But the bottom dwellers are dreamers. They don't see the fact that at any moment they could fall into space as a problem. You see, the bottom of BoxWorld is the only place where you can create magic.

The bottom dwellers are writing, singing, painting, touching something eternal. Yes, they might fall. At any moment, all of their heavy ideas could dislodge them from the box and send them out into the unknown. But they refuse to return to safer ground. They hold on, they inspire the people on the sides, they confuse the people above, they make everybody wonder--if only for a moment--about the Beyond.

Let go. . . .

Drift. . . .

In space. Floating. Outside of the box. Do you see them? There are so few. They aren't weighed down by gravity. They aren't busy building platforms. They aren't holding on with one hand. They are free. They are weightless. They create beauty that we cannot describe. It comes to us, as if from the heavens. There are only a few out here. They are the truly daring. The timeless. There is Tolkien, there is Lewis, there is Mozart, there is Rembrandt.

But they are dead, you say.

They are alive. We see them every day. We marvel at their art. We try to emulate it. We call it classic. We call it Masterpiece.

Dwell here for a moment. . . .

Bravery

Sacrifice

Passion

Brilliance

They are the drifters. They are Beyond. They are free.

Where are you?

The Future!

"Welcome to the library of the future. This is where you will be in ten years. And here we are--"

"Where are the books?"

"Books? Oh, don't you know? Kids became uninterested in books five years ago. To keep them coming to the library, we installed these virtual reality gaming stations in place of bookshelves."

"What are they drinking?"

"It's the latest thing. All natural, sugar free, environmentally friendly NEVERSLEEP energy drink."

"They never sleep?"

"They don't have to! NEVERSLEEP supplies the body with all the nutrients it needs to function without ever sleeping."

"That doesn't sound very safe."

"Scientists have confirmed that there are no traceable side effects to the continual use of NEVERSLEEP."

"These kids don't look very happy."

"Why do you say that?"

"They aren't smiling."

"Their brains are plugged into the virtual reality systems. They're smiling in the virtual world, I can assure you of that."

"What exactly are they playing?"

"WORLD OF WONDER."

"What do they do in there?"

"Anything they want! They can fly, ride dragons, fight monsters, build cities. And the best thing of all, there is no reading required to play the game."

"I thought this was the library. Isn't that what the library is all about? Reading?"

"The library is a place where we encourage the exploration of the world."

"But these kids aren't in the world. They're in Wonderland."

"They are learning social interaction."

"Are there any books here?"

"Right this way. And here we are."

"But this is only one bookshelf."

"We actually have more books here at this library than most around the nation."

"Doesn't anybody read in the future?"

"As you can see, there are many people at our digital book reader stations."

"Ah, I see that. Wait a minute! They aren't reading books. They're browsing the internet."

"Our digital book reader stations are state of the art and come with full internet browsing capabilities."

"Why aren't there any words on the internet?"

"The national No Illiterate Person Left Behind Act required all websites to remove any unecessary words from their sites to better serve the whole of mankind."

"This is unbeliveable."

"Yes, we pride ourselves on being with the times."

"Can I check out one of these books?"

"Uh, well, nobody is allowed to actually take any of these books from the library."

"What?"

"These are actually the property of the government."

"Can I look at one of them?"

"They are incased in an airtight container."

"Do you have the key."

"No."

"So why are they here?"

"They serve as a reminder of how far we have evolved."

"Can you take me back now, please?"

"Oh, of course. And as a complimentary gift for visiting the future, I would like to offer you this sample can of NEVERSLEEP. It's the new flavor: Insomniberry."

"Uh."

"Thank you. Have a nice day. See you in ten years."

Gettin' Better!

Working through the second draft of my fourth novel, I've noticed some things about my writing. I'm not dead yet. I'm getting better.

The dialogue is better, the pacing is tighter, the characters are deeper. I've actually come across a few lines that really seemed good. Did I write that? Oh, yeah. I did. Aren't I the greatest?

I also notice some things I need to work on. I need to work on my dialogue, my pacing, my characterization. I've come across a few lines that really didn't seem good. Did I write that? Oh. Yeah. Ew.

Writing is like anything in life: You can always get better. I think the first step to realizing how to get better is to realize that you can get better. I never want to become the author who thinks he has it all figured out. I've written eighty bestsellers now and whatever I write should be published instantly because readers everywhere will love it and they should love it because I am Me and Me is amazing and no I will not remove those adverbs.

The day I think I've got it all figured out as a writer is the day I become stale. I don't like stale things. They're not yummy. I don't want to be un-yummy.

So I pull out the soap and the washcloth and scrub away at my manuscript. I'll get it cleaned up. I'll make it the best I can. I'll give it everything I've got. And when all is said and done and the book is published and readers are using it as kindling, I will have learned how to become a better writer because I will never think I know it all.

Because I don't.

I know that.

Are We Losing It?

Look at the wall. Do you see that? Do you see that thing hanging there? That is your brain.

How's it looking today? Shriveled? Lively? Needing some exercise?

Sudoku and brain games are all over the place these days. What is your brain age? In a society where we are so eager for entertainment that helps to turn off our brains, isn't it ironic that we would be so concerned about getting those little gray cells in shape?

The Tube. I'm talking about that big old, 55" thing hanging on the wall. Do you see that? Do you see that thing hanging there? That is your brain.

James is a TV hater! James hates television!

When you come home, you turn on the TV and go take a shower. The living room couch enjoys the late afternoon filler shows. The poor couch has been lonely without it's soap operas and gossip gabfests.

James hates soap operas! Gossip gabfest hater!

After your shower, you get a bowl of ice cream. It is chocolate mint. It is your favorite. You only put in three scoops because you noticed your profile in the mirror.

Profiler!

Ah, it is good to be home. You have spent all day dealing with people you don't like. You deserve some time to unwind. Life is hard, and you should know, you live life everyday. You get up and have a bowl of Fruit Loops and go to work and pretend to be happy and then you come home and are too exhausted to do anything but watch TV.

You know. You know that life is hard.

The ice cream helps.

On the TV, someone is cheating on someone and there is a goldfish involved. On another channel, someone is getting a new house because the sewer backed up and they didn't have money to fix it and they cried a lot and you noticed that they were wearing designer jeans and your daughter wanted a pair of those but you said no because they cost $139.99 and that's just outrageous.

Designer jeans Nazi!

Your favorite show is on tonight. It comes on at nine. It is five-thirty. What are you going to do until then?

Maybe you will take a nap. Life is hard.

The ice cream is good. You almost get some more, but remember your profile in the mirror. You resist. Your spouse will be happy about that. Once upon a time, you were as thin as the person on the TV. That person on the TV can't be real. They must have used special effects or something. People aren't really that good-looking.

There are over 300 channels on your TV. Aren't you something? Not everybody has 300 channels and a 55" TV, and can sit on their microfiber couch and eat chocolate mint ice cream. But you can. Because you know. You know that life is hard. And you get up every day and go to work and you deserve this time. You deserve it. Oh yeah. Totally.

Zealot! Hater! Hypocrite!

Okay. So I watch the thing too. I don't have cable or satellite, but most evenings my wife and I sit down and enjoy a movie or a TV show on DVD. It's relaxing. It's usually enjoyable. I look forward to it.

Why the rag on TV?

Here's the thing. TV has become our go-to for entertainment. It has also become the most-hired babysister in America. This is cause for concern. Have you looked at some of the cartoons kids are watching? Oh boy. They are mindless, gross, rude, negative. If this is what our children are going to become, then Houston, we have a serious problem.

I mean, look. This is the dude who is baby-sitting your kids. Would you trust this guy with your cat, much less your offspring?

I have two kids of my own. We limit their TV time. Some people would say we are teaching them that TV is evil. They get to watch about three or four hours worth of TV a week.

TV Hater! Fun Hater!

Yesterday, my three-year-old son spent about four hours playing with Legos. Most of the time by himself. His imagination was soaring.

Imagination.

How much imagination does it take to watch TV?

Imagination is beautiful. It changes the world. It brings us art, it brings us new inventions, it builds bridges, it makes us believe in fantasy.

I don't want to lose that. I don't want my kids to lose that.

See the world in ten years. See the world without imagination. Do you see it? Do you see it hanging there on the wall? Deflated, flat, colorless, dull, meaningless.

Today, use your imagination. Don't turn on the TV. Draw a picture. Read a book. Play a board game. Run through the house with your kids. Hide from dinosaurs. Be who you wish you were.

Imagine that.

AMAZING 3D!

My dad and I went to see Alice In Wonderland yesterday in AMAZING 3D! If you haven't seen Avatar or Alice and experienced the wonder that is RealD, then you're missing out. This isn't the red/blue, queasy 3D of the past. This is the future of moviemaking, a future in which movie-goers leave the cinemas with red marks on their noses and huge Cheshire Cat smiles on their faces.

The new technology got me thinking about the longevity of movie formats. From VHS to DVD to BluRay and now to RealD, it seems impossible to keep up with the ultimate way to enjoy film. Before we know it, those BluRay discs we're buying for twenty bucks will be in the five dollar bin because everybody will be buying the thirty dollar RealD movies.

Movies and movie-making techniques are constantly evolving. They have to. We get used to bigger-than-life special effects, we get used to High Definition, we want more. I think 3D is the future of movies, but I don't think it will last long. Something new will come out. Give it five years and we'll all be putting on glasses that allow us to look all the way around at a 360 degree movie. And it won't stop there.

Books are different. You don't need the new HD bookshelf or the goofy glasses or the three thousand dollar surround sound system to get the complete experience of the latest bestselling novel. In ten years, that book will still be full color, high-def, 3D, 360 degree, and full of smells, emotions, feelings, and wonders that will never require you to spend all of your tax return at Best Buy to enjoy.

Long live the book!

Braindead

When was the last time that you were impressed with the number of movies your friend has watched?

"I can't believe it! You've actually seen every single one of these movies? That's incredible! You are incredible."

Anyone can watch a movie. It takes two hours (four if it's directed by Peter Jackson) and all you have to do is turn off you brain and keep your eyes open.

My three-year-old is a pro. When he gets to watch a movie, you can literally see his brain go into hibernate mode. Glazed eyes. Rigor mortis. He's in the zone.

"Josiah. Josiah. Hello?"

When was the last time you were impressed with the number of books your friend has read?

"You went on vacation for a week and read twelve books? What'd you do, sit in the hotel the whole time?"

Reading is entertainment. It is enjoyable, engaging, suspenseful, transportational ( if it's not a word, it should be), and good for your brain.

That last one is the clincher.

I'm not bashing TV or movies. I'm really not. But tell me, how much brain power does it require to watch the old Tube? Seriously?

When reading, we have to recognize words, sentences, punctuation, paragraphs, and then process it all in our brain before we can conjure up a visual image of what is happening. Sure, this takes milliseconds, but our brain is still spinning and working to create those scenes.

Reading is hard work. We feel a sense of accomplishment when we finish a book because we had to think to keep track of all the characters, the plot twists, the setting. And it took us almost ten hours to finish the thing. We put it back on the shelf and smile a little.

"I read this whole book."

It feels good.

Reading is also a solitary act. You don't usually invite your friends over to read a book together. Yeah, it happens, but reading out loud is even more tiring than reading to yourself.

So finishing a book means that you have worked to process the words, you have used your brain to create visual scenes, and you have shunned the rest of the world in order to commit the necessary time to get through the pages.

Is it worth it? Why not just watch movies? I mean, when I get to the end of the day, I want to relax. I don't want to bother my synapses. They need some good R and R, know what I'm saying?

This all comes down to the question: Is it a good book?

Who wants to go to all the work and family-shunning required to get through a tome when said tome is BORING? Readers today just don't have time for it. I don't blame them. I have two kids and a lovely wife who I'd much rather spend time with than ten pages of description without even a hiccup of dialogue.

Some would cry foul. You just aren't patient enough, James. Give it a try.

Yeah. You're right. Okay, Moby Dick, let's tell the kids to go play without Daddy so I can read about the details of whale blubber.

I just mocked Moby Dick. Now I'm going to get it.

Writers today must write for today's readers. I'm writing for people like me. People in their twenties and thirties who probably have kids, or at least are attending college, or holding a job, or they are lazy bums still living with their mom, but whatever the case, they just don't have the time or energy to read a boring book.

I'm competing with Spider-Man 4, Batman 3, Avatar 2, Saw 66. If I expect to have a chance, then my books have to be engaging to the point that you forget that you are exercising your brain and ignoring your family.

You know, I could have picked an easier career to pursue. Something like a spinal surgeon, perhaps.

Fuzzy Bats

There have been a lot of books published in the last decade. There have been a lot of good books published. There have been some great ones too.

From time to time on this blog, I want to highlight some of the books published in the last decade that I've enjoyed and try to explain why I think they're better than good.

Great Read: Black by Ted Dekker

It was a daring premise that could have fallen flat on its face. I'm not talking about a guy who goes back and forth between worlds when he falls asleep; that's a sound idea in my mind. I'm talking about talking bats. The fluffy, fuzzy type.

BLACK: THE BIRTH OF EVIL: A book about cute little animals.

How did Dekker make this work? Why did it work so well that he not only wrote two more books in this universe, but later went on to write over ten books linked to this story?

Black was different. It was fantasy, but there were no elves or dwarves in sight. We saw the story through a modern day guy who was a bit of a smart aleck. He thought the fuzzy white bats were crazy, and so did we, and so it was okay. I think what made this book work so well for me wasn't the concept (which was awesome), wasn't the unique fantasy elements (which were fantastic), wasn't the political intrigue (which was intense)--no, in the end, it was Thomas Hunter.

I liked the guy. He wasn't a super hero, but neither was he a wimp. He didn't spend pages and pages gawking at this amazing new world he found himself in. He believed it. He loved it. He wanted to live it because it was real to him.

Black remains my favorite book by Ted Dekker, and holds a solid spot in my top ten favorite novels. If you haven't read it, don't let the fuzzy white bats scare you. There's plenty of not-so-fuzzy black bats to even things out.

So let's hear it: What is one of your favorite novels from the last decade?

Fear

My current work-in-progress falls into the horror genre. In the past, this has been something of a niche market--the dark little corner in the back of the bookstore where the shelves are sagging under the weight of Stephen King and Dean Koontz (who, by the way, does not belong here).

Recently however, horror as a genre seems to be disappearing. Not that horror books aren't being written--they just aren't getting stuck back in that corner. Some bookstores don't even have a horror section anymore.

Why?

I think it's because horror nowadays requires more than a scary monster and a desperate woman running for her life through the woods only to take refuge in a house that has been abandoned for a hundred years. I mean, come on. Who would ever make a horror movie with that kind of plot?

So why do people like to watch and read horror?

Simple. People like to be scared. But not just scared--they like to be safe and scared.

James, you obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

It's a theory, okay. I'm not an expert on why people like to freak themselves out. People confuse me. As my dad says: "People are some of the dumbest humans on earth."

The theory: Readers and viewers flock to horror stories because it gives them a chance to face their own fears in a safe environment where if they fail or are overcome, it won't matter. We want to be brave. We want to be strong and overcome the things that make us quiver in our flip-flops.

The thing we fear the most probably isn't that dead girl standing at the end of the hall. More likely it is the thought of revealing a secret we've kept hidden, or giving up something we know is wrong, or the fear that we will fail and lose it all.

In my opinion, good horror is much more than a haunted house and an ambling ghoul looking for revenge. Good horror pokes and prods at the deepest psychological issues that we all face. It asks questions about anger, commitment, bravery, love and faith.

Too deep? Maybe. Maybe people enjoy horror stories simply because they are suspenseful and you MUST KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

Maybe.

Do you read or watch horror stories? Why? What's your favorite?

Turning Pages

So I started Hold Tight last night, a novel by Harlan Coben. The man knows how to write.

I'm intrigued as to what makes a book a page-turner. I suppose it is different for everyone; what makes me stay up late at night reading might be just the thing to help you get some sleep.

I like it when my eyes can move down the page quickly. If I start to feel like Lawrence of Arabia crossing the desert just to get to the next page, I'm apt to be closing that book much sooner than later.

I'm not saying that every sentence and paragraph should be short, or that every scene should have action and high stakes, but I like things to go somewhere. More than two or three pages of character contemplation and I start to get uncomfortable. I'm moving around the couch, thinking about getting something to eat, thinking about the upcoming episode of Lost, thinking about thinking about something else besides this book.

Okay, okay, I know that characters need to have times of contemplation. There's plenty of cardboard characters out there moving from one car explosion to the next. I get it. But is it too much to ask to at least have the character doing something while he is traveling down memory lane?

James picked his nose. Yeah, that about summed up his life. Always digging for something out of reach, always getting his fingers into someplace where they didn't belong. And what had it got him? Nothing. He still had to jam that saline rinse up his nostrils and tickle his eyeballs with the spray.

If only he could go down to RiteAid and buy a saline rinse for his stinking life. Wash out some of these boogers. Some of the big nasties like Filbert Dilbert, his boss who was skating on over to his desk to tell him once again just how worthless he was.

Gross, I know. But look, this James character is thinking about how rotten his life is, but he's not just a brain in a chair. He's a dude with his finger up his nose. Nose-pickers are so much more interesting than people who pause everything to think about their life for five hundred words.

Yawn.

Harlan Coben has this figured out. His characters are always doing something, even if it's just walking across the room. I can see them thinking, talking, whatever it is. And he's good enough that he doesn't have to resort to nose picking to make his characters come alive.

Harlan Coben has me turning pages. Who has you turning pages?