Words Count: "God, the Devil, and Divorce" Memoir Writing

I "finished" my memoir once again. That is, I spent a day revising the second half of my story right down to the last chapter. It's rare I have a full day to write, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to "just get 'er done." But getting through twenty chapters in one day didn't bring me the relief I was seeking. I had discovered a major problem.

That major problem is word count. What's so important about word count, you may ask. Industry standards is the answer. Every genre has a word length that is acceptable to traditional publishers. If I want my story to be published by a well-respected publisher...and I do...I must adhere to the standard. A short memoir is about 65,000 words. A long memoir is about 90,000 words. Mine is about 46,000, so 

my work is about twenty thousand words short of a short memoir. Yikes!  

There are various ways I can approach this problem, and I'm in the process of figuring it out. More about that later.

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Blessing,
Linda

Note: 

​If you're in the process of writing a memoir, I'd love to hear about your challenges and breakthroughs. Or if you'd like to recommend a memoir to me and my readers, I hope you'll do so.