Although I haven’t entered any
contests in a while, I always have the intention of entering at least one book in a
local competition each year. I haven’t made the target in 2-3 years, so some
months ago I decided to enter a MG novel. The deadline for entry is today.
Having entered this competition
several times, you’d think I know the rules, right?
On Friday, I downloaded an entry
form for someone else and got a real shock when I noticed that the word count
for YA novels is 40,000. That’s normal and I do vaguely recall coming across
the information previously, but it started me thinking about just how many
words I had in the novel I was planning to enter. You know what comes next,
right?
Even with a glossary of terms
(which by no stretch of the imagination can be considered ‘story’) I’m not even
at 35k. What to do but sigh, admit I’d been foolish and move on?
