Getting into it

Three days into Bringing Stella Home 1.1 and I’m really getting into it.  I’ve reworked the first and second chapters a ton.  It’s coming along surprisingly well, considering I was just about ready to throw in the towel a month ago.

So far I’m over 12,000 words into the story, which shows up on the progress bar as 10% because I upped my estimated ending wordcount to 120k.  I’ve heard that 90k per novel is what you really should be shooting for in science fiction, but then again, some of my favorite sf novels are well over 90k.  Publishers make exceptions, I suppose–as long as the story and the writing is good.

I’ve been spending several hours writing every day, and I’ve noticed that I’m starting to produce more.  Despite the fact that I’ve been doing some fairly substantial revisions to this piece, I’m clocking in at around 5k or 6k every day.  Last week, I felt like I was stretching myself if I did more than 3k.  If I keep this up, maybe by the end of the spring term I’ll be doing 10k or 12k words every day.  Maybe.

That reminds me–I got an email back from the agency in  New York.  Turns out they haven’t yet chosen the person to fill their intern position…and they were wondering if I was in New York so I could interview with Joshua personally.  Well, I’m not in New York, but they told me that was okay and it wouldn’t hurt my chances at getting this thing.

So…maybe I will be going to New York. :p Who knows?  They told me they’d let me know one way or the other, and I haven’t heard back from them, so there is a chance that I’ll be catching a flight back east sometime next week.

The cool thing about this, though, is that whatever happens, it’s a win-win situation for me.  If I stay, I’ll go ahead with the plans I’ve already set, and have an awesome summer working on my writing.  If I go, I’ll have an awesome time in New York getting to know the publishing world a little better.  I can’t go wrong with either option–my happiness and satisfaction doesn’t depend on other people.  That’s the best position to be in.

One final thing: while rummaging around some old posts in my blog aggregator, I came across a link to Shannon Hale’s blog.  She’s a young YA writer with some impressive accomplishments (such as a Newberry award) and some even more awesome things to say about writing, reading, and literature.  One of the really cool things is this collection of essays on writing.  She’s got some advice in there that’s simultaneously sobering and encouraging, which is probably the best kind that’s out there.