Spilt The Baby

Rick Kleffel writes an interesting article on the recent phenomonon in publishing where novels are being cut in half to make two books, due to pressure from the big chains. Hmm. There are so many issues here. Least of all being the corruption of the creative process. How do you cut a work of art down the middle? Go to King Solomon? You also have the Wal-Martization of books, where the distributor dictates the content/condition of the product. Plus, do the authors subjected to this nonsense get paid for two books, or just one? Because readers are charged twice for the same book.

If this is happening to books of 'lesser-known' authors, capping them at 100,000 words, it makes me wonder about the fate of the book I'm writing now. When it's finished, it will be closer to 200,000. My primary concern is simply getting published in the first place, but still, the handicaps placed on new authors today are enormous. One and your done. Caps. Splits. Makes you wonder.

Speaking of the book, I wrote six pages tonight in chapter 19. Didn't quite get to where I wanted, but that's okay. I got off on a tangent, and wrote a scene I know is doomed, but I wanted to try it on for size anyway. I may take tomorrow off, so maybe Sunday I'll finish this one off with a line I've had in my head for years (like the character from 1995, who will deliver it at long last). And if they make me split the book, it'd be a great little place to break. But if I ever ever heard, "Yeah, so we're gonna need you to split it in two there," the only breaking would be of arms. 443 pages, by the way. Or 110,000 words, for the cap minded.

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