Thursday, October 23, 2008

I Got the *bump bumb* Wordcount Blues...

Man, wordcounts suck.

When I first got my redlines back from White Wolf, I arrogantly assumed that I would be totally done with them in a few days.

That rapidly transformed into oh sure, by the end of the weekend.

And then I'm ok. I can finish this before the deadline.

And now it's become uh, boss, can I have an extra five hundred words? or have a look, any advice for cutting five hundred words?

I haven't actually asked for those words. I'm very nervous about doing so. My pride demands I keep trying, my common sense tells me that the sooner I communicate with my boss/editor the better, and my insecurity tells me not to admit weakness in front of the man whose yay or nay determines my future with this company... regardless of how nice and reasonable I know he is.

I'm fine with every other sort of limitation. In fact, I welcome guidelines. When I received the outline for this project, I dived into it. I read it start to finish and my brain was immediately fizzing with ideas. I had a much harder time coming up with ideas for the writing sample I sent in, for which the guidelines were "write a thousand words that display your knowledge of this game and ability to write cool and evocative stuff."

But wordcounts... man, this 6k limit is kicking my butt. I know it sounds like a lot of words, but it really isn't.

That's really all I have to say today. If you want to, you can call it the first ever Burning Zeppelin Whine (no, I won't make a tag for that).

* * *

  • When have you run up against the demon that is wordcount, and what have you done to overcome it?
  • What is your experience with, in a professional setting, asking your boss/editor for more words or help keeping to a wordcount?

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