Word Count!

Exodus 12:49 One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you.
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I think it is so cute as newcomers come into the writing world. They throw caution to the wind, toss guidelines and rules out the window and just plain well do what they want to do.

Here is a gentle reminder to the discussion of WORD COUNT! It is essential in the writing world that we remember to show the word count. No publisher will even glance at your work if you forget to place the word count on the top of the page.

Imagine a publisher asking for 2000 words. He opens his/her email to find there is no word count. Do you know what happens to your submission? It gets TOSSED IN THE TRASH! All that hard work! All the anticipation, all the excitedness tossed in the bin. Why? Because NO WORD COUNT?

You might not think it is important but to a time honored profession, it is! I only push for it in all of my rooms for one reason, if you don't do it in your writing forums/classes/courses then you'll get lazy and not remember to place the word count in when the REAL submission time comes!!!

Also is is essential that you ADHERE to the guidelines. If the publisher, writing group, whatever, asks for a 500 word essay. It is downright rude, clumsy and unprofessional of you to write 1600 words. Sorry, I will not read it at all no matter how good of a writer you are. Not meaning to hurt your feelings in any way, but you didn’t follow the rules.

So please, (I see that some have mistakenly forgotten the word count, then remembered,)  that is fine in a writing course, unacceptable to an editor.  To be honest, before I even attempt to read 5000, 2000, 500 words, I need to see just how many words there are before I dive in! So remember the word count!

Someone said to me, “At least they’re writing, right?” Wrong! I am so happy to see writers writing but to be purposefully disrespectful to a guideline is wrong. Just plain wrong. If you’re taking a class on learning ‘How’ to write, and it takes you seven hundred words to write a paragraph, then look it over, revise it, shine it up and offer something of beauty to your peers. A 500 word guideline is set so you CAN write it right.

Be on your toes! Remember to always respect the guidelines, always double check before submitting and clicking that send button! This will get you in the habit and when submission time comes, you'll actually get your work read!

kernels

Matt. 12: 37 For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

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Well, I’m taking this course at WVU and as much as I love to learn, I can’t seem to take my mentor hat off. I mentor, which means aid and assist other writers, in the course. I’m not mentoring this class and I have to be able to take my hard hat off because some people don’t want to hear that a sentence was not good, or it didn’t work, or that they exceeded the word count.

There’s that issue again, word count. Well when the course calls for 500 words and I see people posting 600 words, 700 words and even 800-1500 words, it irks me to no end. I say, CUT IT people! This is a lesson, not a marathon to see if you can get your point across. If you can’t make your point in 500 words, then guess what, you didn’t make your point at all.

The second lesson was about a rose. (Don’t ask.) I wrote the lesson and it went to 589 words. SNIP, CUT, CHOP. I got it down to 507! Much closer to the word count called for and a lot tighter too. Not the awesome imagery I’m used to, not the free feeling of just let it go and let it flow, but guess what, I wrote it, got my point across, and I’ll post it today to see what others think. Wish me luck. :-)

My lesson one grew from a mass of kernel sentences. He was lean. He had stubble. It was gray. And so on and so forth. We were to make one sentence, and quite a long sentence, to make the kernels sentences one. I did it, I hope. All the writer’s had different takes on the sentence and I didn’t see many foul ups, so my mentor hat said good job. It’s amazing to see how one kernel can grow into a whole bowl of popcorn!

On another note, some people commented and asked me to use the words HIS and WAS instead of the stronger word choice I used. Thank you for the great critique but guess what? WAS is passive and an excess word in writing. I try to cut those words out and use them to a minimum, if at all possible. If it became the stronger word choice, by all means I would use the suggestion.

From one kernel grew a 507 word piece for the next lesson. I don’t even care if I got it right. I wrote, didn’t draw a blank, and got it all in, in 500 words. kibble kibble. I mean, good girl Joni, now write some more.

On that note I’m off to inspire myself. Hey, I can only inspire all of you once a day, I need some time to inspire myself. :-)

Write people! No matter what, writing is in you and you need to fulfill your destiny.

godspeed...

Week one down...

Deut. 1:9 And I spake unto you at that time, saying, I am not able to bear you myself alone:
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Week one down and 4 more to go!

Well we’ve gotten week one under our belts at f2k. It never ceases to amaze me at the amount of people who don’t listen to rules and guidelines. They come into class and one person wrote a 1700 word piece for lesson one.

We emphasize and emphasize a 500 word count but still they act like the rebellious child and post what they want. I’m wondering how they will do in week two? Or how they will do during submission time.

I usually give leeway in week one, because they are just new, anxious, want-to-write, writers. So I allow it and think they are cute and go on to our week two. This week I think I’ll threaten them with being ousted if they don’t adhere to the rules. Just kidding folks, I’m a little more professional than that.

I just wish that the new writer, (and keep in mind a lot of them appear to have degrees and are coming back into writing,) would show a little respect to the course and follow the guidelines. Is it that hard?

We have much smaller class sizes this time. I’m used to the first week being so full of running here and there, but this week has been laid back and I’m not as active. I want to run the halls but I think sometimes over exposure to too many mentors may scare a few kids back into the corner. I’m not there to scare, just help aid a writer in learning.

I’m sticking to my room and playing nice. This should make some people very happy.

Okay, I’m going to get to work. Writing is fun and exciting but you know what? There is a real world that is calling me out here! Time is NOT on my side!

Bye for now...see you in the morning...hopefully