I often hear how isolating writing can be. And there is a lot of truth to that. It’s usually a writer and the page. Now, not everyone types their manuscripts (like my writing bestie, Jack Lelko, who hand writers his entire first draft) – but for the sake of this argument, let’s just say they do.
The average words per minute (according to a number of articles I just Googled – not my most extensive research) is about forty words per minute. For those whose jobs require more computer time, they tend to average 80. We can probably put most writers there (though I imagine there are plenty of us who are closer to that 40 wpm stat). This means that an 80,000 word manuscript requires about sixteen hours and forty minutes of typing. This does not include the amount of time spent staring at the screen, researching obscure facts, revising/editing as we go, deleting entire chapters and starting over, day dreaming about our characters, searching the thesaurus for the exact right word that’s sitting on the tip of out tongue, doing the dishes in an effort to avoid sitting down and writing, etc. Unless you’re R.L. Stine, you’re probably not whipping out an 80K word manuscript in sixteen hours. So yeah, there is a lot of time where it’s just the writer and their story – and little else. (Part of me is tempted to actually time the writing of my next manuscript.)
But I’d also argue that writing doesn’t need to be isolating. It’s not lost on me that my writing really began to flourish with finding my writing bestie. And even more so with my writing group. Little by little, others have been added to my writing community – even folks who aren’t necessarily writers but have a love of reading or other sorts of interests that come in handy.
So it might seem weird that a post about the launch of my next book is not going to be much about said book – but oh well. I want to take a moment and shout out two people who were perhaps unexpected helpers in the writing of this story.
The first is my friend Matt Weibel. In addition to being my friend and a fellow teacher at the college where I work, he’s also the pun master in our group (whether we want him to be or not). To let a pun go by without uttering it would cause him physical pain. At one point when I was writing, I reached out to him and said – I’m probably going to regret this, but give me every coffee pun you can think of. Then I waited for the responses to come in. And he did not disappoint. (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ) I even gave him the assignment of naming the café – which is owned by a former villain with super strength. Pun master indeed.
The other friend that was a big help is my Cody. We’ve known each other since we were both the new kids in fourth grade, and they are to this day one of my dearest friends. Over the thirty (WHAT???) years we’ve known each other, they’ve been my go to for all things tech. I’m a proficient googler – and I like to figure out things on my own. But when I officially get stumped, it’s Cody to the rescue. Within this story, there is a lot of tech – and while I love a good research rabbit hole, and spent a lot of time diving into them during the drafting process, I also wanted a second pair of eyes with (far) more actual knowledge to make sure that everything I was attempting to do made sense. Not only did they help with that stuff, they offered some great feedback on the story itself. (They also acted as a beta reader for Wherever Would I Be.) And yes, I’m still mad at myself for not changing ALL the references to the character I named after them. I mean, it was still a surprise – I just let the cat out of the bag a little too soon. Oops. (>_<)
Big thanks to both Matt and Cody for helping to make this story even better than I could manage on my own. ♡
You can pre-order Goode vs Melville at Bookshop.org (paperback), Barnes & Noble (hardcover or paperback), or Amazon (paperback or Kindle). You can also ask your local bookshop to order you a copy.
Ami Maxine 