Firstly: the next novel is currently at 72,000 words and is being read by some close friends for plot coherency. I think I’m in a good place with how it’s developing, though every time I look at my countdown doohickey to the deadline I squeak a little bit.

Secondly: A friend of mine is going to try her first original novel.

I had a hand in this.

I’m immensely pleased.

Ever since Chiaroscuro came out, I’ve gotten the vibe from various people that they want me to tell them the secret to getting published. Of course, the secret is there is no secret. There’s no set amount of words or chapters or drafts, there’s no magic font, there’s nothing but you and putting the right words in the right order. (And finding the right publisher, and contacting a sympathetic editor, but then it starts really getting out of your hands—but I’ve ranted about this before.)

I would never discourage someone from writing. I believe telling people not to fulfill their creativity is basically a sin, for lack of a better word. But I also expect aspiring writers to take writing seriously, and not to get caught up in gimmicks and sales and word counts and number of drafts.

(Seriously. Number of drafts. I think someone asked Neil Gaiman this on his blog and he said, “As many as it takes,” which is the only answer for most of these questions, anyway. How many pages? As many as it takes. How many words? As many as it takes. Etc.)

I think my desire for people to be the best writers they can be has been interpreted as discouragement: I’ve had people say to me, “Read this and tell me what you think,” and I read and tell them what I thought, and then I never hear from them again. They wanted praise and I gave them concrit.

I’m a lot more at ease with this development with A., that she’s going to try something she’s never tried before because I said, “Hey, how about . . .”

Tell me a story. That’s all I want. Make me laugh, make me cry, make me fall in love, make me mourn, but most of all, tell me a story.