Happy Dance

I finally finished the WIP I've been working on for the past 3.5 weeks. Instead of running 12,000-15,000 words, Ember came in at over 31,000. That's a big baby.

Ember

Charm is a curse. Love is a fire. And this story? It's is no fairytale.

31,304 / 15,000 (208.7%)

Time to take it off the old WIP board.

I spent more time on it than I'd planned, but I don't regret it. Ember was sitting on my hard drive at 1,500 words for at least a year. I just could not motivate myself to write it for sale. But once I started writing for fun and web content, the story just took off.

Perhaps the reason for my hesitation was that I have a longer story set in the same world that I like better. The other story, Rohais is also first person narrated. I was beginning to think the narrative voices of the two main characters were a bit too similar. The funny thing is, now that the story is finished, I don't think Ember sounds too much like Rohais.

So, what have I learned.

1. Writing is fun.
2. I do not need the motivation of a deadline to finish a story (but it helps).
   
3. I shouldn't talk myself out of stories I haven't written yet. Maybe the things I'm worried about won't be a problem.
   
4. Some stories run longer than you think they will, and that's OK.

Look for Ember in November.