Today, when I finished the latest scene in the new novel, appended it to my master file and clicked on "word count" I was pleased to see we'd surpassed the magic 50,000 mark.

After 50,000 words it's all downhill. Mary and I have only once approached 100,000 words (in Two For Joy) so at 50,000 we're assuredly more than halfway home. Heck, if we were writing a 1950's noir we'd be all but done!

Part of the reason we write short novels may simply be our limited time. Mostly, though, we prefer to be concise. I'm a big fan of John D. MacDonald's brief, fifties crime novels, Simenon's Maigret series, Michael Moorcock's Elric books.

Modern novels I read as often as not seem bloated. Character descriptions are twice as long as I can remember, scenes don't know when to quit, conversations drag on and on. Even those books which mow the reader down with a machine gun barrage of page long chapters can have too darn many of the things. For my taste at any rate.

It's like my preferences in music. There's nothing wrong with a song less than two minutes. That's why I love the Ramones. Say what you have to say then stop.