Russell's Writing Blog

About Me


I'm 46, Married with two sons. This blog will document my attempt to get my children's novel published.
Enjoy the blog. To comment on any of the posts, just click on the title of the post you want to comment on.  Play nicely!

Browsing Archive: June, 2013

Wringing more blood from a stone

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Saturday, June 29, 2013, In : Writing update 
I'm now on my fifth editing pass to reduce the wordcount of the book by the maximum possible.  It's very much an exercise in the law of diminishing returns, but each pass does yield a reduction, however small.  I'm currently sat at about 81,800 words and I think realistically I'll get to maybe 79,000 words by the time I'm finished.

This time, things are improved by the very able assistance of my god-daughter Natalie, who's just completed the first year of an English Literature degree (with fl...
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Guest Blogging with Sam Whitehouse

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Wednesday, June 19, 2013, In : Writing update 
Sam Whitehouse, a writer whose blog I've been following for a while has recently asked me to guest blog on his wordpress blog. If anyone wants to read it or follow Sam's blog about his YA fantasy series, follow the link:
http://sam26051994.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/russell-sanderson-on-writing/


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Close, but no cigar

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Friday, June 7, 2013, In : Writing update 

Well, this is the end of pass 3 of "operation word reduction."  I've managed to reduce a 118,500 word book to 85,400 although that's still not quite enough.  Although other books for this genre and age bracket have been bigger (Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief is 87500 words), they're outliers.  I won't be able to relax until I get to a number in the 70,000s.

It's an odd sort of task really.  I described it recently as like a sculptor trying to shrink a 10ft statue into an identical 7ft o...


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