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.
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Cutting it down to size

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Saturday, May 4, 2013, In : Writing update 
I can't pretend I wasn't daunted by the enormity of reducing my 118500 word novel by 45000 words or so to make it marketable in the Middle Grade publishing world, but I went about it anyway.  At the end of about ten days of furious editing, I've completed my first pass of the book and reduced it to 99,700 words, a reduction of almost 19,000. 

Most of this was achieved by simply going through sentences and trying to find a way to say the same thing in less words ("She had seen" becomes "She sa...
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Mission change: Less is more.

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Friday, April 26, 2013, In : Writing update 

What a difference speaking to someone with knowledge of the industry can make:-

One of the main problems I’ve had since writing the Chronomancer’s Daughter was that I never knew which age category it fitted into;  Middle Grade (9-12 or MG) or Young Adult (Teen or YA).   Now, after speaking to three literary agents I’m sure that it’s Middle Grade.

This presents a small problem as Young Adult books (especially fantasy) can run to over 100,000 words, but Middle Grade books are never ov...


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