I have finally finished the rewrite of the story that has been tormenting me lately.
Yes, the one about the mystery victim in Headless. It is the fourth of six stories in The Wind on the Blade, half of which are short stories and half of which are novelettes. I did not know I was writing novelettes. I had no intention of doing so. I thought they were just long short stories. But according to the Reedsy blog, a novelette is between 7,700 and 17,500 words, and three of my stories fit right into the middle of that range.
So … I can add novelettes to my oeuvre. Fancy.
The funny thing, or should I say worrying thing, about the Reedsy blog post is that it lists a short story as being less than 7,500 words.
This has me in a panic.
What if I write a story that has 7,600 words??? It’s in this no designation zone. What is it? Will the world get sucked into a black hole that originates from my laptop if I type “The End” after anything between 7,500 and 7,700 words??
The end of our fragile existence could hinge on a mere 200 word span, trusted to the hands of an author. Any author.
I will never sleep again.
But my story, this particular story that I “finished” today is 12,372 words currently. So we are safe, unless I do some serious edits.
I hesitate, however, to commit to saying it’s done, because I need to read through it again to make sure all the drastic changes I made worked. But I need space before I do that. So I will tackle the last two stories in the book first and then go back to it with blistered fingers crossed and teeth gritted, prayers to the writing gods on my bleeding tongue.
Journal 