Word count

I was talking to a friend the other day and said that I had reached page 150 in Tea Times Three and that in another 25 pages or so I will reach 30,000 words (this estimate is based on another novel of mine- also handwritten, that is typed up to page 175 and the word count is about 30,000). She asked why that was important. I explained I just needed to keep track because most publishers have a minimum word count for novel.

But this bring up another idea. To submit to Penguin and DAW I need to reach 80,000 words. Pyr wants no less than 85,000 words. I have seen some small publishers with novel submissions that start at 60,000 words. My initial goal for T3 was to achieve a sort of NANIWRIMO result of 50,000 in a month. But that was two months ago or so.

So if I don't reach that do I start to pad? Will that weaken the story? Mot of my personal editing, on my short stories involves cutting out non-essential words, which I use a lot of. (My worst offenses are 'that' and 'really' and a few others, maybe I'll go into that later! SEE! LOL!) So I have to be careful with any padding I do. I'll need add meaningful detail about the characters and their lives. Maybe more descriptions, both of the characters physical appearance, and of the town. Perhaps even add a character arc.

But I figure I'm doing well if I'm doing well if I'm still going strong at 30,000 words.

Remind me next time- I drew a floor plan for the Tea Time Three teashop :)