Books in a Book

TED talk.

OK, a little random knowledge about the book. Hope you enjoyed and voted!

If you haven't read the book yet, alert! There are spoilers in here.

Uh, at first Dorian's brother was a sister.

McMagie was almost his uncle.

The way Lana picked Jeremy was the way I did too. On my second try.  At first it was her father, but we couldn't have that now could we?

I didn't know Lana was going to die until she did. B wrote her own story.

The first draft was actually three thousand plus words.

And that was a problem since I was writing with nine thousand five hundred to ten thousand in mind.

Now, this is like my sixth attempt actually penning words down and, apart from school essays, I had never written on a word count count before. 

(ad: one of my books is currently on my profile, do check it out. It's vampire, historical fiction and romance all merged into one and I have an updating schedule. Ish. )

(And we're back!)

When I first wrote the loose structure and got 3000+ I was all "meh, it still needs a lot of details. It'll fill up "

It didn't occur to me what a quite big number ten thousand was.

I went in. On the 24th. (My lazy ass had left till then even though I had done the first draft since about the 13th)

Became almost five thousand words.

I went in again.

Added Blair slash Brittany slash blake - even I don't know her real name - and brought Tyrone to the end too. Made Lana's short time with Dorian a lil more personal, added feeling into Anthony, added descriptions and viola.

But wait. Hold the phone. Shut the front door. What was that?!

7,416 words? Only? Impossible!

Looked through the book again. Found out that, by some miracle, chapter six was still in its very first draft.

And I hit a slight problem. How was Lana gonna give Dannie the letter without handing it to her. Chucked out the idea of her having a key and her sliding it under the door.

In came Mrs Frisher offering cookies and a way. Along with the chance to add more words. Hallelujah!

8, 000 plus words.

De spirited, but I valiantly pushed on. Added a lil more somethin' to chapters five and eight. Chapter five became the longest with 1989 words. Even caught my self making a few "can'ts" "can nots. " Not my best moment.

Went up. To 8,761.

What type of sorcery is this?! I thought.

I was done, was well and truly out of words. There was no way to lengthen the damn thing anymore.

And here I lay. Till the next day. The 28th.

Two days from the dead line.

I was right when I said there was no where to fit words in there anymore.

So the only solution was a new chapter.

...

But what about? Couldn't be about Lana's past, where would that fit? And besides I'd have to make one up.

Couldn't be about her future, cause she dies.

Couldn't be about Martha, or Ava or Dorian because it's her story. Dannie like Ava's past would be too complicated.

So what on earth was I supposed to write about?

Then the sweet old neighbor who I still don't know her name and whose sole purpose was to give Dannie Lana's letter came to me again.

Bingo!

Thus chapter eight was born.

First three hundred words attached itself to the book.

A hundred plus more

Another hundred plus more

Then suddenly forty six more words to go and I'd have written nine thousand five hundred.

Well, I'll be... I had done it?

I checked again. I had done it. 

Not quite yet though, said the annoying voice in my head.

So I shut it up. Added even more words.

And then 9,917 damn words. J. K Rowling who?

(By the way, I'm reading the Harry Potter series and they live up to the hype!)

Chapter eight became one of my favorite chapters.

So after editing and all, this short story, a life for a life, is a proud ten thousand one hundred and one words.

Now what am I trying to say?

What did I discover that I wanted to share?

What was the point of this extra,  long ass chapter?

The point is, from three thousand plus to ten thousand plus words so damn, I must talk a lot.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.