At the moment, my attention has been focused on two books, A Groom’s Promise and The Earl’s Stolen Bride. I was writing in four books at 500 words a day, but the momentum picked up in A Groom’s Promise and The Earl’s Stolen Bride so I decided to go with it and let the ideas come as long as they’re willing to.
A Groom’s Promise is longer than I expected.
It was supposed to be 35,000 words. Now, I’m almost at 40,000 words, and there’s still more to do. So I am estimating 50,000 words.
One perk to being in full control of my content is that if I need to make a book longer, I can. Likewise, I can make it shorter if it needs to be. There’s nothing worse than a book loaded with fillers that end up being boring. Second to this is a book that feels rushed to get to the end. It’s why I’ve learned to be flexible on deadlines or a certain word count. Whenever I filled up a story or rushed it, I ended up regretting it, and after writing 48 romances, I’ve finally learned the very important lesson of letting each story be as long or as short as it needs to be in order to tell it.
I guess this begs the question, “How does an author know when the story is done?” My rule of thumb is when I am satisfied with it. I’m not sure if other authors have the same answer, but it’s mine.
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For the first part of The Earl’s Stolen Bride, I had a limited idea on how I was going to proceed with it.
Thankfully, I now know what’s going to happen. The breakthrough came a couple weeks ago, but it didn’t gain momentum until this week. I stalled for a while because I had to work through a major transition point between the time Orlando and Chloe are at his country home to when they go back to London. Now that I crossed this major hurdle, things have gotten a lot easier to write. What a relief.
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In case anyone is wondering about Janet Syas Nitsick, her husband is home from the hospital, but he’ll need to have surgery. I don’t feel like it’s my place to go into details in a public place. I just wanted to give a quick update and ask for prayer on their behalf. Thanks. 🙂
Ruth Ann Nordin's Author Blog 
So, A Groom’s Promise will end up being a novel instead of a novella. I’m like you, a book should be as long as it should be. Trying to make word count makes writing a chore instead of fun..
I’m glad you got over the hurdle in The Earl’s Stolen Bride. I hate it when I have trouble getting from here to there.
I’m praying for Janet’s husband.
I’m trying not to go too much over 50,000 for my part in A Groom’s Promise. I know I’ll hit over the 50,000 word mark. Sometimes I think it’d be nice to be able to tell a story in less words, and I have for a few. I had to give up on flash fiction. Everything I tried wanted to be way longer. LOL
On the plus side, I am very much in love with A Groom’s Promise and The Earl’s Stolen Bride, so it’s been a lot of fun focusing on them.
All we know about Janet’s husband is that he needs intervention. What kind and when are still up in the air. He has an appointment tomorrow, so hopefully they’ll know what to do soon. Thanks for the prayers!