• This Writing Journey

    Typewriter Mania

    I have no idea how long my handwritten novel is. One A5 exercise book is 240 pages. I average about fifteen words a line, and there’s twenty-five lines per page. That would mean there’s roughly 90,000 words in that book. I made it halfway through the second exercise book, which would make that first draft (not counting the annotated material) about 135,000 words. Given how scrappy it was, given the notes scribbled on inside covers, given it had taken writing a book to work out the story, I knew I had to rewrite it from word one (even if you could do something with a hideously handwritten novel). Moving up…

  • Life of the Mind

    Through the Waterfall

    I grew up a fantasy nerd. I read The Hobbit when I was 11. Then I moved onto The Lord of the Rings. I read historical fantasy, such as The Scarlet Pimpernel, Ivanhoe, and various incarnations of Robin Hood. Then it was high fantasy, such as The Belgariad and The Malloread by David Eddings, as well as books (and series) by Raymond Feist, David Gemmell, Terry Brooks, and others. Fantasy appealed to my imagination. Real life didn’t – especially during those early years in high school when I was just learning to fit in. Compounding the issues surrounding my integration was that I was dealing with growing neuroses, such as…