All My Characters are Fictional . . .

. . . or are they?

As I write, I try not to pattern my characters after anyone I know. This helps me avoid nasty lawsuits later on (I hope.) I do find, though, that after the book is published or is well underway, that a character bears a strong resemblance to someone else.

*In "Strength to Endure," when Claude and Liesl are taking walks together, this is a memory I had of my husband taking my baby daughter for walks.

*Emilie in "Strength to Endure" is the spitting image of Nina Shelton, a dear friend of mine who owned the floral shop where I worked just before I got married. She later passed away, but I feel somehow connected to her through the character of Emilie.

*In my WIP, the character of Nora matches the physical description of Candace Salima, LDS author and good friend of mine.

*In "Nothing to Regret," Colonel Beaumont is based on General Waverly from the movie "White Christmas."

I didn't do any of this intentionally. In fact, it wasn't until watching "White Christmas" during the holiday season after "Nothing to Regret" came out that I made that connection. But sometimes, we'll have a picture in our heads of what a certain character should look like, and we can't help it if that picture just happens to look like someone we already know, now, can we?

As a side note: When Dieter Uchtdorf was called to be a General Authority, I took one look at him and said, "That's what Kurt would have looked like, if he had survived."

Mass Murder at the Circle T Corral

I think I'm going to throw up.

I just took out 8,000 words of my very best writing out of my WIP.

I did save it into another file. Hopefully I'll get to use it someday. But not in this book.

As we've discussed, my character couldn't have been held in the Hanoi Hilton because he was a foot soldier in the south, and therefore would have been held in a South Vietnamese POW camp. I want to be historically accurate, so I'm changing the location where I'm holding him hostage. (Well, I'm not holding him hostage, but you get the drift.)

But as I'm copying and pasting and deleting and rearranging, I'm also reading over these Hanoi Hilton scenes I wrote. And they're good. I mean, they're really, really good. (I'm allowed to think so, aren't I?) And they all have to be yanked. Every single one of them. I have to find ways to create that kind of power as I write about the camps in the south. I'm sure I can do it as I research and put myself in the place of my character, but I still feel sick. 8,000 words. Where's the bathroom?

The Pinewood Derby

I'm the Wolf Scout Leader in my ward. It's a lot of fun and a lot of work. For the last month, we've been preparing for the Pinewood Derby, an annual event which causes stress (for the parents) and anticipation (for the Scouts.) I didn't have brothers, so this is a whole new world for me, having sons and going to Scouts, much less being the Scout leader, which, we've already established, I am.

I'm sorry to say, my husband and I exchanged a few words about the car. I didn't think it was heavy enough, he thought it was too heavy, or something like that -- it was such a silly argument and I can't even remember who was right and who was wrong. We were probably both wrong -- who could be right when they are choosing to argue over something so innocuous? At any rate, the car got made, and tonight was The Big Night.

Some of those poor little cars could barely even make it down the track. They limped along, just making it over the finish line, looking like they could really use a walker. Other cars just zoomed down the track like greased lightning. My son's did okay -- well, he came in last the first three races, but by the last race, he was coming in 4th. I turned that into a positive and said, "Wow! Your car is getting faster with every race!" Each boy got a certificate and a trophy. That was cool. What's even cooler is that three of my six Wolf Scouts won a race. I was really proud of them.

And now we get to take what we learned and apply it to next year. That's right -- a derby race a year, for three years, per boy. I have three sons. That means that we'll be making nine derby cars in the Pinkston family. Maybe by the time Benjamin is a Scout, we'll have learned all the tricks.

Oh, and the picture on this post is not my son's car. No, this picture is to motivate us and give us something to shoot for. We can dream, right?

The LDStorymakers Conference

I'm exhausted. I'm also exhilarated. We pulled off another fabulous, fantastic conference this year and I'm already looking forward to next year. There's just something about joining together with like-minded people in a spirit of cooperation and friendship to talk about something we all love to do and to learn how to do it better. I got to see old friends and to make new ones. Sheesh, I wish we could do this once a month.

My hat is definitely off to Josi Kilpack and Julie Wright, who headed up the event this year. And, as always, our intrepid business manager, BJ Rowley, without whom there would be no . . . well, anything. He's just that good.

One of the best moments of the conference was getting to meet Lisa Mangum, the head of acquisitions at Deseret Book, and to hear her say how much she enjoyed the event. In fact, she gave us this quote to use in our advertising and I'm so full of the love of the moment, I'm going to put it right here:

"I have been to many writer's conferences during my ten years as Acquisitions Editor for Deseret Book Company and I can say without hesitation that the LDS Storymaker's Conference is one of the best I've ever attended. I was impressed by so many things about the Conference: the classes were exceptional, the presenters were stellar, the speakers were inspirational, the attendees were enthusiastic. I left the Conference thinking to myself, ‘Here are the writers who are devoted to their craft, who are willing to work hard and be persistent, who understand the business of writing and of publishing. Here are the writers who are going to revolutionize the LDS writing world.’ I was so happy to have met so many great people who are involved in such a thriving, active writer's community. I look forward to reading the work that will come as a direct result of the Conference. It truly was a privilege to attend the 2007 LDS Storymaker's Conference.”

Isn't that just beautiful?

If you have any yen at all for writing, I encourage you strongly to attend next year's conference. We haven't selected the date for it yet, but I'll let you know as soon as we do.

And, just for fun, here are some other blogs on this topic (If you don't see a blog about the conference at the top of the pages, scroll down -- I'm still learning how to direct this blog thingy to just the right blog.)

Robison Wells on Six LDS Writers and a Frog

Marsha Ward at Writer in the Pines

Julie Wright at . . . well, JulieWright.com

Darvell Hunt at LDS Writers Blogck (he wrote this one about my class --I wasn't expecting that. Thanks, Darvell!)

Anyway, it was a really cool conference and I'm not the only one who thinks so!

Don't Believe Everything You Read/Hear/Have E-Mailed to You

I get a lot of e-mail persuading me to believe this hoax or that scam, often passed on to me by concerned, well-meaning friends. Because of this, I have become a frequent frequenter of Snopes, a website dedicated to educating us about urban legends (definition: stories about unusual happenings that turn out to be false but are widely believed anyway.) It's fun to scroll through the list and see which of these old wives' tales are true and which are false.

All my life I've heard the story of the long list of failures Abraham Lincoln had before he made it to the Presidency. Well, guess what -- most of the things on that list were either exaggerated or plain made up. You can check out the truth of the matter here.

I encourage you, when you get an e-mail cautioning you against the dangers of lip balm or saying that the entire state of Maine has just fallen off the continental United States and was swallowed by a giant, state-eating whale, check it out on Snopes before you believe it.

And as far as that whale goes, he's not hungry anymore. I guess you could say he's state-tiated.

In case that pun didn't translate well in the written word, that's a play on "satiated."

A Writer's Bum's Best Friend

I'm probably about to impart too much information, but my tail bone was broken eight years ago. A tail bone is supposed to have a natural curve, but mine healed straight, which makes sitting for any length of time uncomfortable. With all the time I spend at the computer, I sometimes go through periods of time where I've crippled myself with all the sitting. Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

But behold! The Gaiam balance ball chair! Josi Kilpack has one of these in her office, and I had the chance to try it out. Upon sitting, I knew immediately I had to have one, and I ordered it from Amazon. It arrived a week ago and it has made all the difference in my sitting experience.

Why is it so wonderful? First, you can adjust it to your own firmness needs. If you need a squishier chair today than you needed yesterday, you just let out a little air, or pump it up a little, if that sounds better. Second, it arranges your body ergonomically, so your spine, thighs, and knees are all where they are supposed to be. Third, the back rest is in just the right place.

So if you're having "sitting-at-the-computer-and-my-back-and-behind-hurt" blues, this just may be a solution for you. I know I'll never be without mine.

In the Home Stretch

I can see the end of my Work in Progress like a little spark of light way up there on the horizon. This book has been a long process for me. I wasn't even going to write it, originally; I felt I had written a stand-alone novel with "Nothing to Regret." But more and more readers wanted to know what happened to Sunny, and I realized that I did have more of a story to tell. So much so, in fact, that this is going to end up as a trilogy. Who woulda thunk it?

Right now I'm hovering at just under 90,000 words, and I've never written that much before. The closest I've come is 80,000 words in my forthcoming novel "Season of Sacrifice," and I thought I'd never be able to top that. (Well, I did!)

I've been pulled off track by a lot of things on this novel. When I first wrote it, I made it character-driven instead of history-driven, and it wasn't flying at all. Good friend Josi Kilpack read it for me, told me it stunk, and I have thanked her many times for her honesty since then. When I looked at it from a historical point of view, then I was able to take it and create something so much stronger, but it stayed in the back of my closet for about a year before I came to that conclusion.

Then I prepared the rough draft and felt pretty dang good about it. I sent it to Gordon Ryan, who is my historical consultant. He told me that I had placed my character in the wrong place. (I'm not gonna tell you where because I want you to read the book.) Now, I had done a whole heapin' helping of research and really loved the segment I had written, but after smacking my head against a brick wall for several hours, realized that Gordon was right. (I should have just known that and saved myself the concussion.) So I started looking for other information, only to find that there isn't very much at all.

Okay, this secrecy I'm trying to adopt isn't working, so I'll just tell you. I had placed my character in the Hanoi Hilton, but because he was taken prisoner as a foot soldier in the south, he would have been held in a South Vietnamese camp. Precious little has been written about the South Vietnamese camps, and I spent hours online trying to find articles, books, anything, about the topic. Nothing. Finally I e-mailed the POW organization and asked them, and they referred me to two fabulous books that I promptly bought. Now my task is to rewrite and turn my character's Hilton experience into a South Vietnamese jungle camp experience. That is the "rewrite" mentioned in my tally sheet to the right, if you've been following my "Work in Progress" report at all.

So after a long tedious journey, I'm tickled to say that I'm nearly done. I'm glad that the journey wasn't any less tedious -- I've learned so much through this process. I'll be so very glad to get it done, but I truly feel that I'll have a book to be proud of when I'm finished.

LDS Books I've Read Meme

Inspired by the national bestselling books meme I found over on Framed and Booked, my friend Josi Kilpack asked several of us to contribute to a list of favorite LDS books. The rules are simple:

Bold=I read it

Highlighted=I’ve never heard of it (I still can't figure out how to highlight, so I'm going to capitalize.)

Italics= A favorite that stayed with me a long time

And I'm going to add another rule. If you've heard of it, and mean to read it, but haven't yet, then put an asterisk after it.


Feel free to copy onto your own blog or to leave your answers in the comment trail.

1) A Heartbeat Away—Rachel Ann Nunes
2) Almost Sisters—Nancy Anderson, Lael J. Littke
and Carroll H. Morris*
3) Angels Don't Knock—Dan Yates
4) AN OLD FASHIONED ROMANCE—Marcia Lynn McClure
5) A Question of consequence—Gordon Ryan
6) Ariana: The Making of a Queen—Rachel Ann Nunes
7) As the Ward Turns—Joni Hilton
8) At the Journey’s End—Annette Lyon
9) Baptists at Our Barbecue—Robert Farrell Smith
10) Charlie—Jack Weyland
11) Charley’s Monument—Blaine M. Yorgason)
12) Chickens in the Headlights—Matthew Buckley
13) Children of the Promise, Vol 1: Rumors of War—
Dean Hughes
14) Children of the Promise, Vol 2: Since You Were Gone—
Dean Hughes
15) COME ARMAGEDDON-- Anne Perry
16) Daughter of a King—Rachel Ann Nunes (picture book)
17) Dead on Arrival--Jeffrey Savage
18) Double Cross--Betsy Brannon Green*
19) Dusty Britches—Marcia Lynn McClure
20) Emeralds and Espionage—Lynn Gardner
21) Escaping the Shadows—Lisa J. Peck*
22) Fablehaven—Brandon Mull
23) False Pretenses—Carole Thayne
24) Faraway Child—Amy Maida Wadsworth
25) Fire of the Covenant—Gerald Lund
26) First Love and Forever—Anita Stansfield
27) FLOWERS OF THE WINDS --Dorothy Keddington
28) Ghost of a Chance—Kerry Blair
29) Gustavia Browne—Alene Roberts
30) Jimmy Fincher Saga Vol. 4: War of the Black Curtain—
James Dashner
31) House on the Hill—Annette Lyon
32) House of Secrets—Jeff Savage
33) House on the Sound—Marilyn Brown
34) In a Dry Land—Elizabeth Petty Bentley*
35) Lifted Up—Guy Morgan Galli
36) Love Beyond Time—Nancy Campbell Allen
37) Mary & Elisabeth—S. Kent Brown (Non-fiction)*
38) MaCady—Jennie Hansen
39) Molly Mormon—Tamara Norton
40) Mummy's the Word—Kerry Blair
41) My Body Fell Off—BJ Rowley
42) My Not So Fairy Tale Life—Julie Wright*
43) No Longer Strangers—Rachel Nunes
44) Nothing to Regret—Tristi Pinkston (Well, it's my book! Of course I'm going to recommend it to you!)
45) On a Whim—Lisa McKendrick
46) On Second Thought—Robison Wells
47) On the Edge--Julie Coulter Bellon
48) One in Thine Hand—Gerald Lund*
49) One Tattered Angel—Blaine M. Yorgason
50) Out of Jerusalem 1 (Of Goodly Parents)—H.B. Moore
51) Out of Jerusalem 2 (A Light in the Wilderness) —H. B. Moore
52) Out of Jerusalem 3 (Towards the Promised Land)—
H. B. Moore
53) The Peacegiver—James L. Ferrell
54) Pillar of Fire—David Woolley
55) Poison—Betsy Brannon Green *
56) Prodigal Journey—Linda Paulson Adams
57) Pursuit of Justice—Willard Boyd Gardner
58) Return to Red Castle—Dorothy Keddington
59) Race Against Time—Willard Boyd Gardner
60) Sarah—Orson Scott Card
61) Saints—Orson Scott Card
62) Sixteen in no time—BJ Rowley*
63) Spies, Lies and a Pair of Ties—Sheralyn Pratt
64) Standing on the Promises Vol 1: One More River to Cross
--Margaret Young and Darius Gray
65) Strength to Endure—Tristi Pinkston (Yep, me again)
66) Surprising Marcus—Donald S. Smurthwaite
67) Tathea—Anne Perry
68) Tempest Tossed—Josi S. Kilpack
69) Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites—Chris Heimerdinger
70) The Alliance—Gerald Lund
71) The Book of Mormon—Nephi thru Moroni
72) The Believer—Stephanie Black
73) The Coming of Elijiah—Arianne Cope *
74) The Counterfiet—Robison Wells
75) The Emerald Bracelet --Jennie Hansen*
76) The First year—Crystal Liechty*
77) The Fragrance of Her Name—Marcia Lynn McClure
78) The Killing of Greybird—Eric Swedin*
79) The Last Days, Vol. 1: The Gathering Storm—
Kenneth R. Tarr
80) The Last Promise—Richard Paul Evans
81) The Looking Glass—Richard Paul Evans
82) The Miracle of Miss Willie—Alma J. Yates
83) The Single Heart—Melinda Jennings
84) The Visions of Ransom Lake—Marcia Lynn McClure
85) The Work and the Glory Vol 1—Gerald Lund
86) The Work and the Glory Vol 2—Gerald Lund
87) The Work and the Glory Vol 3—Gerald Lund
88) The Work and the Glory Vol 4—Gerald Lund
89) The Work and the Glory Vol 5—Gerald Lund
90) The Work and the Glory Vol 6—Gerald Lund
91) The Work and the Glory Vol 7—Gerald Lund
92) The Work and the Glory Vol 8—Gerald Lund
93) This Just In—Kerry Blair
94) Time Riders—Sierra St. James*
95) Time Will Tell by Julie Coulter Bellon*
96) To Echo the Past—Marcia Lynn McClure
97) To Have or To Hold—Josi S. Kilpack
98) Towers of Brierley, Anita Stansfield
99) TWELVE SISTERS —Leslie Hedley
100) Unsung Lullaby—Josi S. Kilpack
101) Wake Me When it’s over—Robison Wells
102) Winter Fire—Rachel Ann Nunes*



Contributing authors: Tristi Pinkston, Julie Wright, Jeff Savage, Rachel Ann Nunes, Jewel Adams, Annette Lyon, Heather Moore, Stephanie Black,, Julie Bellon and Josi S. Kilpack

If you'd like to play, copy this onto your blog or into the comment section of this post. Be sure to tell me where you blog it so I can take a peek.

More of the Virtual Editing Workshop

Here are some more examples from my edit of my WIP.

Was: Four months had gone by since Neil left, and with him and Benjiro both gone,

Now is: Four months had passed since Neil left, and with him and Benjiro both gone,

See how we got rid of the word repetition by rephrasing?


Was: Ken pulled a stack of papers off the kitchen counter and moved them to the table where he could spread them out and look at them.

Okay, this one's a little more subtle. A stack of papers is singular. Papers is plural, but when you put them in a stack, it becomes singular. So Ken didn't move them, he moved it.

Now is: Ken pulled a stack of papers off the kitchen counter and moved it to the table where he could spread everything out and look at it.

Some Stuff About Me

This is another bloggy thing to do, found on Tonja's Gatherings. I've seen it on a few other sites as well and thought I'd play along.


1. If you could build a house anywhere, where would it be?

I really like the Orem area. However, given that we're smack dab on top of an earthquake fault, I'd have to give that some serious thought.

2.What is your favorite article of clothing?

I like sweatpants to hang around the house in. But if I'm going somewhere and want to look nice, either my blue shoes or my brown shoes. Do shoes count as clothes?

3. Last C.D. you bought?

Josh Groban's "Closer."

4. Where is your favorite place to be?

At home with my family when everyone is cooperating and we're just spending time together.

5. Least favorite place to be?

At home with my family when everyone is grumpy and the house is a mess and we're all fighting.


6. Are you strongest in mind or body?

My mind is by far stronger.


7. What time do you wake up?

Around nine a.m. This is because I'm usually up until around 3 a.m. But why am I making excuses? I can be in bed 'til nine if I want!


8. Favorite kitchen appliance?

Dishwasher. Definitely.


9. What instrument would you like to play?

I have always wanted to learn how to play the piano.

10. Favorite color?

Now, this is going to sound ultra-girly of me, but I've always enjoyed various shades of pink. Burgundy, mauve, maroon, baby pink -- you name it. Then I ended up marrying a man by the last name of Pinkston. This wasn't intentional -- I actually liked him before I knew his last name. But now when I tell people I like pink, they think that's so corny. And, to make it worse, all the styles of house I really like are pink stone. I can just see it now: "George, take this flyer over the Pinkston's house. Theirs is the pink stone house."

I also like forest green, sage green, navy, country blue, gray, lavender, and plum.

11. Sports car or SUV?

Neither! Give me practicality, any day.


12. Favorite children's book?

"But Not the Hippopotamus" by Sandra Boynton.


13. Favorite season?

I love spring and I love fall. I hate being too hot and I hate being forced to wear a jacket.

14. Least favorite chore?

Taking out the trash and helping my children clean their rooms, which is essentially also taking out the trash.


15. Favorite day?

Monday. And I'm not teasing. On Sunday, I make my goals and think about what I need to accomplish, and by the time Monday morning hits, I'm raring to go.


16. Favorite food?

I really like fast food Mexican, and I'm quite partial to the new Wendy's chicken bacon swiss that they are offering right now. But I like it without the sauce. Let's see -- pizza, of course, and I really do enjoy chocolate.


17. Favorite drink?

I like water (no, I really do) and I like cream soda.

18. Favorite word?

That changes. Right now it's "Mama." My two-year-old has been calling me, and everyone else, "Daddy" for a really long time and he just started calling me "Mama." It's music to my ears.

19. Favorite inspirational book?

Oh, wow. That's a hard one. Let's say "The Cedar Post" by Rose.

20. Who would you like to play you in the movie of your life?

Meg Ryan.

Adventures in Blogland -- a Map

I've spent quite a bit of time wandering around in Blogland lately. Not only do I maintain this site, but I write media and movie reviews on Families.com. I've observed several things that I'd like to mention to you here.

1. If you're trying to promote anything, having a blog is a great way to go, but particularly if you are an author. On a blog, people have the chance to become familiar with your writing style and to get to know you a little bit, and this will make them curious about your books. The same works for if you're promoting, say, bowling shoes. By reading your blog, your customers see that you know a lot about bowling shoes and they feel like they're making an informed decision.

2. Once your blog is up, start visiting other blogs and leaving comments. When you do that, your information is encoded into that site, and that blogger can click on your name and learn more about you. Not only is this great for promotion, but I've made some pretty good friends with other bloggers in this way. It's a win-win.

3. As you visit other blog sites, check out the links they have down the sides. They have linked to sites they enjoy or blogs that are similiar to theirs, and you can find wealths of blogs to visit by clicking on those links.

On the side of my blog, you'll see the list of all the sites I visit. I spend about fifteen minutes a day flipping to my favorite blogs.

4. One thing that I'd really like to emphasize here is that you should be adding a new post regularly. Each reader has their favorite blogs. If they like your content, they will check back frequently. Even if you just share whatever thoughts you've been having that day, it counts. The more fresh you keep your content, the more your readers will return, and they'll recommend your site to other people.

On the flip side, if you only post, say, once a month, your readers will soon forget about you. After trying the site for a few days in a row, they'll lose interest. One of the most important things I have learned as a blogger is the importance of fresh, current content.

I know that for myself, if I don't see new content regularly, I tend not to waste my time checking. I like to go to sites where I know I'll see something new.




The Internet is going to become the way we do almost everything in the future. Establish your name as a presence on the Internet. Leave comments on Amazon. Join Yahoo groups. Start a blog and leave comments on other blogs. Whatever your reason is for being on the Internet, make your name easy to find. Do a Google search for your own name and see where it turns up, and then keep it up. Name recognition is very important, and it's in your own control.

Authors -- The Next Generation

My ten-year-old daughter has taken up song writing, and in fact, sang one of her compositions at our ward Primary talent show. It was pretty dang cute, if I'm allowed to brag. But hey, it's my blog, so I'll brag if I want to. It was pretty dang cute!

Her latest piece is about a girl who flies up into the sky and is rescued by a boy riding a shooting star. There are a couple of things that impress me about this song.

First, she wrote it in first person. That's pretty good for a ten-year-old.

Second, one of the lines is, "The boy who changed my life." Okay, I'm not sure but I don't think she's been sneaking out at night to meet anyone -- so she's got a pretty good imagination.

But it's the last sentence of the song that absolutely floored me. After she gets rescued and is back down on earth, we get the line: "Future wedding bells ring in my head." Wow. That's beautiful. I don't care if you're ten or one hundred -- that's a really good line. I wish I'd thought of it.

When Do I Find Time?

The other day, Framed asked me how I find time to read and write as much as I do. I replied that in order to answer her, I'd have to write a whole blog about it. So here I am, doing just that.

First off, reading is life's blood to me. If I don't have a book in progress, I feel like I don't have anything to look forward to. I'm dragging myself from mundane task to more mundane task. But when I know there's a book waiting for me when I'm done, I can zoom through those silly little chores in record time.

Additionally, I homeschool, and so I don't have a rigid "get-up-and-get-out-the-door" schedule. I can get up, get on the computer and write until the kids get up. Or I can write while they're eating lunch, or making their beds, or whatever. The only time I don't sneak in computer time is while they're working on school. The rest of the time is fair game, though. I have the computer right here in the living room (that's new, though, and it's taking me a while to get used to it) so I'm present while they're watching tv or playing or whatever. The computer is on for several hours a day and I pop on and eeeek out a sentence whenever I can.

Another thing I do a lot is stay up late to read and write. I'd like to point out that this blog is being posted at just before 2 a.m. That's not necessarily a healthy habit I'm nurturing (I'm a walking zombie, most of the time) but it's what works for me as far as getting it all done.

So for me, it's not a matter of finding time; it's a matter of squeezing it out of whatever other time I already have. (Generally balancing a sandwich in one hand while typing with the other -- or forgetting to eat altogether.)

How Many Words Does a Publisher Want?

LDSPublisher posted this on her blog this morning, and with permission I have pasted it here.


First let me say, the word count on a book is less important than tight, good writing. You need as many words in your book as it takes to tell a good story. Of course, you can go overboard with this. A 200,000 word romance is going to have a hard time finding a publisher, as is a 7,000 word historical fiction. With that in mind, here are a few thoughts.

There is no hard and fast rule on word count. It will differ between publishers and between authors. For example, books for children and teens usually top out around 40,000-50,000 words. But how long was JK Rowling’s last book? It also depends on the font size your publisher uses and whether they average 250 or 300 words per page.

Here are a few basic guidelines:
Short novel is 15,000 to 40,000
Adult novel is 50,000 to 110,000
Literary novel can be 125,000

As for differences in genres, go to the library or bookstore and take the average number of pages in books for that genre. Subtract about 6 pages for title page, acknowledgments, blurbs, etc. Then divide that by 250 and you’ll be in the ballpark.

Here are some approximates based on page count:
40,000 = 160 pages
62,500 = 250 pages*
75,000 = 300 pages*
90,000 = 360 pages
100,000 = 400 pages
125,000 = 500 pages**

As you can see, this is NOT an exact science.

*Best range for new authors
**Need to be an experienced author or really, really good to publish a novel that’s over 125,000 words.

Now, I've only written historical fiction, and so far I've hit 72,000, 76,000, 80,000, and my WIP looks like I may hit 85,000, but I'm not getting my hopes up too much. I'm starting to feel like I need to do some editing and thinning. This pretty much falls into the averages that LDSPublisher gave.

My favorite part of this post is the sentence, "You need as many words in your book as it takes to tell a good story." This is so very true. If all your characters are fleshed out as they ought to be, and your plot is well-developed, you can pretty much assume you have enough words. You don't want to be throwing useless words in there just to get your word count higher -- chances are your editor will see that they are useless and just have you edit them right back out again.

And, I'll admit that at times my writing is a little sparse. I'm kind of a "get in there, tell the story, and get out" kind of author. I also like to give the reader just enough information to let them imagine the rest, when it comes to descriptions, and so forth. I'm working on adding a little more depth and color. But that's to enrich the story, not just to get my word count up.

TGIM -- Thank Goodness It's March!!!

I feel like I've just clawed my way through an arid desert, my fingernails digging into the sand as I dragged my lifeless body toward the oasis. Why is that? I had to live through February!

Not such a big deal, you say. We all had to do that. Well, smartypants, just for saying that, let me give you a rundown of my February:

1. Toward the beginning of the month, I had a sebaceous cyst removed from my shoulder. You can learn more about that here. There were eight stitches involved, three underneath the surface and five across the top. It was sore for a long time and still is, a little bit.

2. Then my husband's grandfather died. This was a welcome passing; he'd been lonely since the death of his wife some years ago, but it was still a sad event.

(Side note -- at the funeral, people kept coming up to me and squeezing my shoulder. Yes, the one that was sore. Never mind the fact that I have two shoulders -- they headed for the sore one every time.)

3. Right after Grandpa Pinky died, my mother's husband died. This was also a welcome passing, as he had been in a lot of pain for several years. But there are always the attending emotions, regardless of how welcome the release was. I gave the eulogy (my first.)

4. Then I threw my back really really out sitting at the computer so much.

5. And then I reinjured my already injured tailbone, sitting at the computer so much.

6. Then I hurt my foot. They haven't decided whether I did or did not break the bone, so I've had it up and am only doing the very minimums right now. It hurt like the dickens for the first several days, but I'm feeling much better now.

In the midst of all this, I've had two major crises to either deal with myself or help others deal with that are too personal to share.

It's been a month.

On the other hand, however, there have been some beautiful moments. I'm the Wolf Scout leader in my ward, and our den, my son included, did a great flag ceremony at Pack meeting the other night. I felt so proud of them.

I got several pages in my WIP edited, and have reached the point where I now need to start rewriting.

My two-year-old finally started calling me "Mama," after over a year of calling me, and everyone else, "Daddy."

Yes, we did see some blessings this month as well as the drama. But may I just say, I am so glad February is over!

And may I also say, I sure hope my foot is better by the writers conference or I'm going to be severely curtailed!