I’m having a crisis.

Of magnanimous proportions.

I suppose this is my fault for being a sub-genre crosser, but I’m so…I don’t even know the right adjective for how I feel.

As you know, my vamp wip’s (romantic fantasy) first draft was 174k. Well, the first draft of trilogy book one that I’m working on right now (romantasy) is ‘short’. And I’m freaking out.

I don’t know where I got this idea from that longer is better, or that if I write a short book it means I didn’t try hard enough, or it’s not as good, or whatever, but I’m definitely struggling with this mindset really hard right now.

Logically speaking, I understand that this way of thinking makes no sense. Whether a book is 200k words or 50k words, it’s a book. It tells a full story and that’s all that matters.

I read novellas that are 30k words all the time. Heck, I love them. So why am I having a crisis that my debut novel might end up at just 80k words? Am I okay in the head?

I, of course, understand that not every book has to be a literary masterpiece of massive proportions. I understand that short books can be just as good, just as memorable, just as impactful. In theory, I have a grasp on all of these things.

But my brain just won’t let it go. For some reason, when I hit the start of the third act in this draft today (I’m drafting this email on May 28th), and realized that the word count was only at 62k, I started panicking even more heavily.

Especially since the original story of this book that I wrote back in 2022 (I’ve mentioned this in previous emails), was 102k. It feels like I’ve somehow downgraded. Like I lost some of the quality along with the length.

I’m not sure how I’m going to shake this feeling.

I don’t know if I ever will.