Dreaming of Being an Author

Posted April 13, 2009 by shooting in Uncategorized / 21 Comments

Yes, you get three posts in one day from me. Either see it as me being very bored or a my Easter gift to you! LOL

Anyway, I wanted to talk about writing and publishing books. I love to write, though recently I’ve been able to get more into it and not stop in the middle of something. That’s really exciting for me, since I’ve always wanted to publish a book and being able to call myself an author.

Seriously, I went to Barnes and Noble the other day and found exactly where my book would go on the shelves in the YA section if I had written one. Yeah, yeah, I’m a bit dorky. I never denied it. 🙂

Right now I’m working on a new story that I’m really excited about. I find myself thinking about the story and what is going to come next while I’m out with my family or at night trying to go to sleep (which doesn’t really help with the sleeping bit). At the moment, I have written 11,118 words in a Word Document. I’m not sure what the basic average is for a YA book, but right now I’d love to get it at 30,00o words, maybe a little big longer if needed. So authors out there: how long are your books? What’s the average?

For everyone else, do you dream of becoming an author or simply publishing any of your writing whether fiction or non-fiction? As I said, I definitely do, and it would be amazing if it happened sooner rather than later, but I suppose good things are worth waiting for, regardless, huh?

21 responses to “Dreaming of Being an Author

  1. lol. and i didn’t answer the question. I’m with you. i dream of publishing young adult noves. i have a whole bunch outlined but i get so distracted and i read when i should be writing…

  2. Kathleen: I know, right? It really is a time consuming job and it’s hard work! I’m just glad that the ideas I’ve been getting are fun enough for me to stay focused on, and I guess that’s really the main thing…no matter how long it takes or how tiring it can be.

    Thanks for the tip about 50,000 being the average. Is that for any kind of novel though or specifically YA?

  3. I have always wanted to call myself an author. A published author. Hmm…has a real nice ring to it.

    I am currently working on my 3rd book about vampires and werewolves. Two of my favorite monsters.

  4. I think if I ever were to publish a book, oh wait scratch that – if I ever were to actually finish one of my wannabe novels, I would be an extremely camper.

    Now if I were to publish a novel, well rainbows would be shooting out from my eyes! Good luck on your story and don’t feel like a dork at all! I’ve done about the same thing and all those snazzy books in the window? I would faint!

    –Amber

  5. Lauren- According to Meg Cabot, her books are 50,000-55,000 words long. That’s the norm for YA novels but as I’m sure you know in reviewing, there are books that exceed that number and those that aren’t that long.

    Adult novels are usually longer. I feel like Meg said hers are usually 70,000 words, but I might be wrong.

    And I agree with you on the author thing. I totally want to be one and am in the middle of several stories at the moment, though it’s been a while since I’ve written new content on any of them. By the way, I also have found where I would go in the YA section too, hehe.

  6. James: Very true, some are definitely longer and shorter, but thanks for letting me know how long Meg’s are. I tried looking it up once and some people said around there, while others said lower.

    70,000 sounds about right for adults. That and up, I mean.

    That’s awesome! And I know, I’m just excited because I’ve been writing a lot more then I have in the past lately, so it’s just fun.

    haha that’s awesome! at least I’m not the only one! 🙂

    Amber: Thank you, and I know! It would pretty much be a dream come true. If I was able to publish a novel, I’d have to work on my next big goal as this has been a pretty big one for a long time, since I love reading. And hey, if we’re dorks, we’re dorks together!

  7. Let me give you five cos I dream of being a YA author too : ) Sometimes I just sit down and imagine how the covers of the my books will be. It’s really fun.

    I wrote a lot of fanfics but never got down to write a real book. Maybe it’s time now. I wish you the best with your book okay ^^ oh and I guess the average number words of a book is 50.000. Like the NaNoWriMo thing you know.

  8. Diana: That’s great, and I hope you do get too in the future.

    Thao: Thanks for the tip, and yay for imagining book covers. It’s such fun. 🙂
    I used to write fan fiction when I was younger. I do think it helps you at least start writing something. Thanks for the luck and I hope you have success in writing your own stories too!

    Kathleen: Very true, thanks!! I appreciate all the advice from everyone.

  9. Reading this post, I want to tell you: I’m trying to organize a bunch of bloggers to create a kind of online writing group. Email me if you’d be interested! =)

  10. 50,000 is about the minimum for a YA novel nowadays, but most of them are longer. Dull Boy is about … 72,000 words? And plenty of YAs clock in at around 90k–which is probably the highest you’d want to go.

    So there’s a pretty wide range.

    If you’re looking for any books about writing, my favorite is Write Away by Elizabeth George.

    Good luck!! The first 7000 words are the hardest, IMO, so you are in a good place with 11k+. 🙂

  11. I definitely agree with you on this. I love writing though I haven’t been doing much of it lately. I tend to give up in the middle but I did finish one very, very rough draft about a vampire before.

    Hopefully I’ll be able to finish some others in the near future.

  12. Sophie: Thanks for the information. I just emailed you.

    Sarah: Well, I’m glad that I made it past the hard 7000 then, and I can see how that would be tough to write. I’m hoping that as I continue it will be easier and I think it will, as I know a lot of what’s happening now.

    Thanks for all of the information and advice though. Looks like once I hit 30,000 my next goal will be 50,0000 and I’ll just have to see from there! 🙂

    -Lauren

  13. H

    I understand about the B&N thing. I was in Borders a few days ago and I realised I never look at the bottom on the far right of the shelves past the 'w' authors and thought, well at least my surname doesn't start with a letter from the end of the alphabet … I'd be in the good section lol.

  14. H: I know, right? I used to notice that all the time without really figuring out where I’d go…just that I’d be in the section most people notice. My sister said once at Borders that she felt bad for some of the last names that are like H and on because the YA section turns a corner and sometimes you don’t notice the other side. I didn’t at first, I know that!

    -Lauren

  15. H

    I’d hate to be on the bottom shelf too. It’s funny how at the end of the day, the number of people picking up your book is determined on something as random as your surname!

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