My WIP, Second Chance, is not even at the climax yet, and it's over 71,000 words. That means this book might reach over 80,000 words, which is not what I thought would happen. I'm not putting in any filler. I'm writing it as it comes. I had thought it would only be about 70,000 - 75,000 words. My shortest novel. But not anymore.
It's interesting how that works. I outlined the story, but as you write, a lot of other things happen that aren't in the outline. It's like the writer is actually living the story. It's real for the writer. That's probably why readers will never connect to a story like the writer does. Maybe some readers do. Those readers who are more empathic. And there's probably a lot of readers who are.
For Second Chance, however, only readers who know football will be able to connect to that story. I hope a lot of readers like football. It's kind of a personal story for me. I played football, I loved football, so much so, that at one point in my life it was the most important thing to me--the most enjoyable thing. I made many mistakes, however. And wouldn't you know that the mistakes I regret the most in my life are those mistakes I made regarding football.
If someone can say that their worst mistakes were those that involved football, then you can also say that their mistakes weren't so bad. After all, how important, really, in life is football? It's only a game. But for me, in my life, it's true. My mistakes regarding football have been the ones that have haunted me for most of my life. I've had recurring dreams for the last forty years about those mistakes. Even the story in Second Chance came to me in a dream. A dream! Maybe once I'm finished with this story, it will be some kind of a "coming to terms" thing.
One thing that resulted from my mistakes, at least, was they enabled me to advise my oldest son. And from that advice, he's living his football "dream." He was a star running back for his high school team. He was the team's MVP, the league's Offensive Player of the Year, he made the All Star team, played in the All Star game, scored a TD in the All Star game even, and he's playing in college now. So it could be true that because of my advice he's not making the same mistakes I made.
Second Chance is a football story. Who reads football stories? Maybe no one. We'll see.
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