A weird thing happened after I finished writing Paragon of Light. My daughter looked at me and asked, “So how many is that?”
And I officially had no idea.
Novels, novellas, long epics – they all feel sort of the same when they end, which is odd, in a way. I’ve always been a little bemused by the lack of excitement that comes with finishing a book. It feels like it should be a big win, a great triumph, something that leaves me over the moon excited. Instead, it’s always felt more like just checking off a task. There’s always something left to be done afterward, and being done with a book doesn’t feel like much.
It feels like even less when you can’t even remember which book it is.
Twenty-four? Twenty-five? I couldn’t figure it out, and that was a whole new sense of weird. It was just another thing finished, another thing done, and now it’s on to the next.
December’s break is here, and Paragon of Light ended up being just under 108,000 words, which was a bit shorter than I originally anticipated. I’m actually glad it didn’t run too much longer, because it was a book with a lot of moving story threads, heavy foreshadowing, and deep character growth. It’s the bridge, the pivot point that changes everything for the characters and their destinies, and while I’m excited to dive in and work on Paragon of Shadow soon, I’m going to get all the edits done first so I don’t muddy the timeline in my head… like I’ve muddied my count of how many stories I’ve written.
So, help me count.
Which novellas should count as “books” when I’m doing my tally? All of them? Some of them? Only particular ones?
Once I figure that out, I’ll have a better idea of how many books I’ve written now.
Just in time to start another one.