Michael Offutt's Slipstream Blog Tour

Morning, readers. Before I hand the reins to Michael, I just want to say a few things about my friend. He jumped on the scene (or at least I discovered him) about a year and a half after I started blogging. Right from the get go, Mike was shocking, honest, and even occasionally highly opinionated. But I learned to love him for who he was pretty quickly. We bloggers are part of such a wonderful community, and especially within the writing/book blogging community, many of us are close friends. But Mike has always ridden a wave of his own making. He's not afraid to tell the truth, and he's not afraid to say what he really feels, and I really respect him for it.

Now, I asked him to talk about word count today, because it's kind of my bane. This blog is yours, Mike. Take it away:

I’ve known Matthew for some time now. Aside from being my gossip partner, I get the sense that Matthew (like myself) goes to war with word count. I remember reading a post he did on Jessica Bell’s blog where he said he trimmed his novel down to 300,000 words, and I compare this to my own episode of cutting where I trimmed SLIPSTREAM from 180,000 words to 120,000 words. After I cut 60,000 words from the manuscript, what I had left was bare bones (this was really hard to do). I feel fortunate to have found a traditional publisher willing to put it out there for the world to see. But yeah…I hate the word count monster. I guess I just have too much to say, and I think really big. Sometimes those kinds of ideas take room to come to fruition. The only trouble is, when you are an unknown, traditional publishers don’t like fat novels.

Recently, I’ve been working on the sequel. It’s at 150,000 words and might end up at 160-170,000 words by the time I’m finished.

I’m facing the word count monster again. But having published one book at 120,000 words might give me the writing chops that my publisher might let me slide in with 150,000. Oh well…word count monster I have faced you and defeated you before! I shall do it again!

So aside from Matthew and I, are there any others out there who war with word count? Care to share your stories?

I have a contest for the release of my book.  I will pick one random person who comments on this post to win a $5 Amazon Gift Card and a SLIPSTREAM jeweled spider (the same person wins both prizes). The jeweled spider really sparkles in the sunlight. I hope whoever wins it really likes it. Also, please make sure that your email is linked to your signature in some way J. And yes, the crystal spiders play an important role in my book.

Rules:

1)      Mark my book “To Read” on Goodreads.

2)      Comment on this post.

3)      Tweet this post if you have twitter. You don’t have to sign-up for twitter. It’s the “honor” system. 

That’s it. I will choose a winner on Saturday, May 19^th.  And thank you, Matt, for having me on your fine blog.

You're welcome, Mike! And here's where you can find slipstream:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Goodreads

And here's a pretty thing: