M.L. Jirasko

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The website of M.L. Jirasko, writer. (writing young adult fantasy, writing inspiration, writer's health, writing resources, brainstorming, freewriting, outlining strategies, first drafts, revising) by Milenka Jirasko

November 01, 2016

Nanowrimo: how much is 50,000 words? Looking up book word counts with perma-bound.com

November 01, 2016/ Milenka Jirasko

So, how much is 50,000 words? And how long are the novels on your shelf?

If you're just dying to see how your work-in-progress measures up to your favorite novels, or you're in the depths of despair because it might be longer than any feasible book ever written, or you're mortified it may be too short, or if you're just looking for another way to procrastinate instead of actually writing...

Look up book word counts at perma-bound.com.

Perma-bound lists word counts for almost all the books they sell, except some very new ones that probably haven't been counted yet. Go to perma-bound.com; search for your book; click it, and then click 'Reading Information.' (I've heard Renaissance Learning lists word count too.) Perma-bound is splendid. I've come here dozens of times, usually wondering how long YA Fantasy tends to be (shorter than mine), how long debut novels tend to be (much shorter than mine), and how often a debut author has published a first book as long as mine (not very.) Eventually, I stop procrastinating and get back to trying to cut words.

If you're in the throes of Nanowrimo (Happy November! Happy Novel Writing Month!) and you're wondering just what 50,000 words looks like, here are a few shortish novels followed by others in increasing size:

Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt: 27,848

The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho: 39,242

The Giver, Lois Lowry: 43,617

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams: 46,333

Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson: 46,591

The Thief, Megan Whalen Turner: 68,519

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling: 77,508

Cinder, Marissa Meyer: 87,661

Redwall, Brian Jacques: 101,289

The Scorpio Races, Maggie Stiefvater: 110,085

Seraphina, Rachel Hartman: 112,929

Graceling, Kristin Cashore: 115,109

The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss: 255,986

Happy writing, regardless of word count.

-mlj

M.L. Jirasko

M.L. Jirasko writes Young Adult Fantasy in Montana

M.L. (Kali) Jirasko writes Fantasy in Montana

Quotes for writers:

"If you are going to step on a live mine, make it your own. Be blown up, as it were, by your own delights and despairs." -Ray Bradbury

"Pick dreams that scare you." -Daniel Sax

"Shun electric wire. Communicate slowly. Live a three-dimensional life; stay away from screens." -Wendell Barry

"When writing a first draft, write with abandon. Write fast... In a way, writing asks that you be young, that you be fearless in the way you were before the world taught you caution, and diffidence." -Leigh Bardugo

"Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time- you have to write up, not down." -E.B. White

"Unless you believe something is possible, there is very little chance of experiencing it." -Dr. Andrew Weil

"Attention without feeling is only a report." -Mary Oliver

"If you are protected from dark things then you have no protection of, knowledge of, or understanding of dark things when they show up... Tell kids you can fight back; tell them you can win." -Neil Gaiman

"Most children and young adults are born with a taste for honesty before a taste for sweetness (in characters)." -Cheryl Klein

"Write like you. The only way to unlock the hearts and minds of your readers is by unlocking your own." -Jandy Nelson

"Description means nothing without examples." -Susan Sontag

"Writing a novel takes endurance." -Jandy Nelson

"...(My younger self, my childhood self...) She taught me magic, and the love of storytelling, and those are two things that do not die unless you let them." -Patricia A. McKillip

"(YA fantasy) is about the havoc our decisions can wreck, the damage we do and the damage done to us. Sometimes the world is a post-apocalyptic dystopia, sometimes it's a glittering palace full of schemers, sometimes it's Brooklyn. But the goal is almost always the same: survive, become better, live unafraid." -Leigh Bardugo

"Imagination is the golden-eyed monster that never sleeps. It must be fed; it cannot be ignored." -Patricia A. McKillip

"Someone will always be offended, no matter what you write. So you have to make sure what you write is the truth about that character, even if the truth is offensive." -Malinda Lo

"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis

"If you don't give up, you will win. If you really freaking dig in your heels and swear to yourself that you are going to find a way, and you show up day after day and try, you will win." -Laini Taylor

"Controversy is what mediocre people start because they can't communicate anything meaningful. I want to generate consensus." -G. Willow Wilson

"And as if in a trance I cried, 'Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks.' Thus I became a madman." -Kahlil Gibran

"The cure for loneliness is solitude." -Marianne Moore

"Simplicity in all things is the secret of the wilderness, and one of its many lessons." -Sigurd Olson

"Rejection has nothing to do with whether a book will make it or not, or whether it will connect with readers." -C.S. Pacat