I’m a writer. I don’t do math. That’s my mantra — and I stuck to it. Until … I ran into two little words: word count. Stay in the writing world long enough, say longer than 24 hours, and you’re gonna run into those two little words too. Word count, like jeans, comes in all shapes and sizes. You’ve got non-fiction word counts for blogs. Magazine articles. E-zines. Devotionals. And then you have word counts for books, both fiction and nonfiction – everything from novellas to self-help to sagas the size of Gone with the Wind (960 pages in paperback). Just what are the basics when it comes to word counts? It depends. Really. It depends on the publisher. But there are some ballpark figures — and that’s what I’m […]
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Taking It One Day at a Time
Talking to the lovely and gracious Susie May the other day, we hit on the topic of survival. She’d been exhorting her college son on how to manage his time, get through the rigors of college. “Take it one day at a time,” she said. “Don’t get lost by looking too far into the future.” It hit a chord with me. I remembered reading an article about POWs during Viet Nam. The ones who were hopeful, looking forward to getting out, knowing release would come soon ended up being the ones who did NOT survive. The prisoners who lived just for today, whose only goal was to survive the day, were the ones who endured their years in prison. Some were POWs for seven years. Not a pretty or hopeful […]
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