ANOTHER SLEEPLESS NIGHT IN RALEIGH

And so it begins...received my first rejection email yesterday from Book Cents Literary Agency. The email stated that "unfortunately, Ms. Witthohn, only represents single title stories 80-100+ k word count. My little debut novel only has 42,000 words, so it is way too short for her to even consider. She did "sincerely" wish me the best of luck. WOW...punch to the solar plexus!! Self-doubt of course set in immediately. Not self-doubt as to my ability as a writer. I know I can write and I believe in the book I've completed. My self-doubt was over my word count. What do I do now? The story is complete. Can I really add an additional 10-20,000 more words? Do I WANT to add more words? Where will the story end up if I do? Will all the agents I'm contacting feel the same way about my word count?

PANIC, PANIC, PANIC...tossing, turning, nausea, what do I do, what do I do? So this is what I did first thing this morning. I researched a couple of my favorite authors. Janet Evanovich, who writes the Stephanie Plum novels, is an author I truly admire! Her books run around 255-265 pages, for a word count of around 50+. She does however, have one book which contained only 184 pages...mine has 218 pages. Robert Parker, author of the Spenser novels is another of my favorite authors. Most of his books contain 208 pages. An author after my own heart!

I like a quick, page turning read. I think the author should tell the story in a tight interesting way and not necessarily go off on tangents with pages and pages of description and unnecessary fluff. I find myself just thumbing through novels that go into too much description and finding the "meat" of the book...so for me...those authors could have cut out 100 pages or so cause I only read about 250 pages of them anyway.

I'm going to continue on my quest for an agent. I have sent out two "Bs" so far, and will finish up with the "Bs" today and start into the "Cs". My characters are happy with this and I am happy with this. Onward and upward!