How Long is 50,000 Words?

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By Wendy C Allen

f you are here looking for aliens, ufos, demons, cryptids, haunted cars, curses, Etiole, the wild man of old orchard beach, the goldeneagle car, the white monkey, or any of that other weird bullshit, you want this video:



...and after that video, you want these ones:

eelkat_red_scarf.jpgWendy Christine Allen, 2019, able to sit up in a chair for the first time in years, and able to raise up my arm and wiggle fingers. This was when I started playing Witcher 3 on Twitch as part of my physical therapy to regain finger movement. Playing Witcher 3 daily from 2016 to 2019, is how I regained the use of my thumb and two for fingers on my right hand... it is also why I stopped playing Witcher 3 in 2019, once I had strengthen my two forefingers enough to start typing again.

Wendy Christine Allen, Old Orchard Beach's Autistic Author, Artist, Illustrator, & Art Car Designer

Counting Down to the September 23, 2028 50th Anniversary of my first published book (September 23, 1978)

If you are here looking for The Twighlight Manor series, The Crystonite Wars series, The Wild Years series, The White Rock Asylum for the Criminally Insane series, The Twisted Tales series, the Captured By a MerMan series, The Space Dock 13 series, The Kats of Planet Ptarmagin series, the stories about Miss Citten the Eel-Kat, or the stories about Etiole... ALL of those series were combined and consolidated into The Adventures of Quaraun the Insane Pink Necromancer series in 2014, so ALL the different series, are now under one series title.

List of the published titles still in print:

The Index of over three thousand stories in The Pink Necromancer series

What the series is about, for those new here:

The introduction to The Pink Necromancer Series. 

If you want some stories to get you started in The Pink Necromancer series, reading these first will give you a good introduction to the 3 main characters:

My Elves Are JellyFish...and I asked Google AI and ChatGPT 5.6 what they thought of this.

As requested, my daily writing prompt series is now available print paperback editions on Amazon.

There are 20 volumes of this writing prompt series currently planned and in varying stages of finishing, hopefully all 20 will be published by the end of 2026. I likely will do a 2nd series of writing prompt books in 2027.

Coming soon (Nov/Dec 2026)... patterns for my slow stitched embroidery:

BoomFuzzy-scottish-phooka-faerie-kelpie-form-Wendy-C-Allen-felt-embroidery-art2
BoomFuzzy-scottish-phooka-faerie-cooney-rabbit-form-Wendy-C-Allen-felt-embroidery-art
BoomFuzzy-scottish-phooka-faerie-nuckalavee-form-Wendy-C-Allen-felt-embroidery-art4
12-dancing-princesses-trow-king-Wendy-C-Allen-felt-embroidery-art
BoomFuzzy-scottish-phooka-faerie-kelpie-form-Wendy-C-Allen-felt-embroidery-art14
green-witch-faerie-Wendy-C-Allen-felt-embroidery-art
BoomFuzzy-scottish-phooka-faerie-enchanted-pony-form-Wendy-C-Allen-felt-embroidery-art4
BoomFuzzy-scottish-phooka-faerie-nuckalavee-form-Wendy-C-Allen-felt-embroidery-art7
fishing-village-Wendy-C-Allen-felt-embroidery-art7
mermaid-Wendy-C-Allen-felt-embroidery-art7

The first of the Visual Novels/Video Games for The Adventures of Quaraun the Inane/The Pink Necromancer series is published and available on Itch.io, there are 3 more planned for release in 2026, 6 more planned for release in 2027, and the big 60-hour 80k word 150 page one (Quaraun Goes To the Fair) is planned for a 2028 release.

There is a Pink Necromancer card game and a Pink Necromancer board game, as well as a Pink Necromancer table top RPG supliment for Dungeons and Dragons, all in the works, and to be released over the next couple of years as well.

I shouldn't have to say this, but people keep contacting me, so apparently I do:

  • No, I do not believe in aliens. Stop contacting me to ask for alien information. If you believe in aliens, I think you are insane, retarded, or both.
  • No, my car is not haunted. I've debunked that rumour many times now. . Stop contacting me to ask for haunted car information. If you believe in haunted cars, I think you are insane, retarded, or both.
  • No, I am not connected to Stephen King. I didn't even know who he was until you idiots started contacting me asking about him. I had to look him up on Google to find out what you were even talking about! If you have questions about Stephen King, go contact him and ask him. I'm not him. I don't know him. I know nothing about him. I've never read one of his books. I've never seen one of his movies. I can't figure out why you people are even coming to me to ask about him in the first place!
  1. If someone told you I believe in aliens, if someone told you my car was haunted, if someone told you I was connected to Stephen King, you NEED to contact the FBI agent in charge of my son's murder investigation and TELL HIM WHO it was who told ou, exactly WHAT it was they said, HOW they contacted you, WHERE they contacted you... because it is a KNOWN FACT that my son's murderer is the one who started all these slanderous alien, haunted car, Stephen King rumours, and the FBI is trying to catch her.

If you have any information about my son’s murderer, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.

Do you know who this woman is?

On August 8, 2013 she drove a backhoe over my house. On November 14, 2013 she arrived at Southern Maine Community College and crippled me with a golf club and murdered my son. One June 24, 2016, days after my first attempts to walk again, she attacked me with a shopping cart at Scarborough, Walmart, reinjuring the Nov 14, 2013 injury.

She crippled me when I was 8 months pregnant, a woman with a golf club, severed my spine and bashed my baby's head in, I spent 9 years relearning to walk, and the FBI is 13 years into the murder investigation and not yet id-ed the attacker who crippled me and killed my baby, both violently with a golf club.

Complete details of EVERYTHING she did is on this page here.

Clairescreenshot.pngThe golf club woman who called herself Clair as she looked November 14, 2013. Her hair is a weird chin leangth pageboy (very Medival style cut) platinum blonde with wide brown/black dyed stripes in it (like a reverse of Lily Munster, but the stripes are several, almost like a zebra). I am 5'6" and she was a LOT taller then me, like closer to the height of a man; she had thin lips like a man, and large nose like a man... she COULD have been a man disguised as a woman, given the ease with which she severed my spine....she's is a LOT stronger then is typical for a woman). She was wearing a chambre blue denim "blazer jacket over shirt" and a button up mens shirt (possibly flannel) and blue jeans. The bulk of her yelling was focused on accusing me of being transgender, even while ripping my baby out of my 8 month pregnant belly and bashing his head in with a golf club.
zzzz999ClaireRed2016-screenshotThe Claire woman as she looked during her shoping cart attack at Scarborough WalMart June 2016, the attack with left me paralyzed and in a wheelchair. Her hair was dyed dark red, and she drove away in a gold Volvo 240 Station Wagon of a late 1980s/early1990s model, with a "458" on the lisnce plate.... If you have any information about the woman who crippled me with a golf club, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.
@eelkat part 9 of 10 #dogwalk around the block (Maine st, Elm st, South street, Bradbury st) #Biddeford #Maine #night #fbiinvestigation #truecrimetiktok ♬ original sound - Wendy C Allen | 📚 Author

If you have any information about the woman who crippled me with a golf club, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.

Good god! We just found out about yet another slanderous rumour this woman has been spreading? When does it end? How many more of these things are out there?

Video explains what else she's done ...

If you have any information about the woman who crippled me with a golf club, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.


The Goldeneagle World's Most Haunted Car - 1964 Dodge 330If you encounter anyone claiming my car is haunted, demon possessed, or somehow connected to Stephen King please give the information of who, when, where/location to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.
@eelkat part 7 of 10 #dogwalk around the block (Maine st, Elm st, St Mary's, Dunkin, South street, Bradbury st) #Biddeford #Maine #night #plannedparenthood ♬ original sound - Wendy C Allen | 📚 Author

If you encounter anyone claiming I believe in aliens or was an alien abducttee, please give the information of who, when, where/location to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.

@eelkat part 4 of 10 #dogwalk around the block (Maine st, Elm st, St Mary's, Dunkin, South street, Bradbury st) #Biddeford #Maine #night #library ♬ original sound - Wendy C Allen | 📚 Author

If you know who drove this backhoe over my house at 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine 04064-1520 on August 8, 2013 please give the information of who it is to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.

eelkats_house_before_after.jpgIf you know who drove this backhoe over my house at 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine 04064-1520 on August 8, 2013 please give the information of who it is to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.

I am sick and tired of people not giving a shit that my son was murdered!

I am sick and tired of jackasses making up rumours and lies about me and my car, calling me an alien abductee and my car haunted, just to try to cover up my son's murder!

The Short, Quick, Direct Answer:

For print books, MOST publishers assume 300 words per page. (Though this can vary from 200 to 475, depending on size of page, type of font, font size, line spacing, margins, ect.) For the standard 4x6 to 6x9 sized paperbacks the general rule is to assume there will be about 300 words per page. 

This gives us 50,000 words divided by 300 words per page to equal 167 pages, or about half the length of the standard paperback novel.

50,000/300=167

But keep in mind, font size changes page count.

A large print book, for example, may have only 175 words per page, due to the extra large font, making a 50,000 word book to a more standard paperback size of 285 pages.

On the other hand, a mini digest sized book, my use smaller font and narrow margins to squeeze 475 words to a page, resulting in a 50,000 word book totaling only a very slim pamphlet size at 105 pages.

If you are publishing to Amazon via Kindle or CreateSpace, Amazon uses 311 words per page to come up with the estimated page count that they display n the books description, so if you self-publish your book on Amazon, your 50,000 word book will be listed as 160 pages long.

Keep in mind that if you publish something that short on Amazon and call it a novel, you'll likely get a lot of negative reviews complaining that it's not a novel and you deceived them with false advertising.

Why?

Well, the shortest novels out there are the little itty bitty slim Romance novels by Harlequin, and those are 280 pages long (Every single one of them. Harlequin REQUIRES the manuscript come to exactly 280 pages, no more, no less.) 280 pages times 311 words is 87,080 words, and that's considered a LIGHT, SLIM, or SHORT novel.

The 400 page door-stopper Historical Romance, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi paperback books are packing 125,000 words or more - some as much as 300,000 words (in 500 page books with very tiny font).

50,000 words is only a novella. However, don't let that stop you from publishing it. There is a lot of demand for novellas and even short books, like novelettes and short stories. The trick here is to list it correctly: if it's a  novella, call it a novella.

As  reader, I personal prefer novellas in the 40k to 60k range. They are short enough to read in a single sitting (2 or 3 hours) but still long enough to big a very detailed story. So for me as a reader, I like that little 50,000 word books are becoming popular. 

Just keep in mind if you write a story 50,000 words long, you'll be hard pressed to find a publisher, as MOST publishers consider anything under 75,000 words to be a novella and will not even look at your manuscript. If your goal is to get published by a trade house publisher, then aim at writing a story at minimum 90,000 words long. If you write anything shorter then 90k, you'll have to self-publish it. If you like the idea of self-publishing, then great, go for it. 

Should you write a 50k story or aim for something longer? Well, that depends on many factors: the story itself, your publishing goals, and reader expectations being the 3 most important. In the end, only you can decide if your story is complete at 50k or needs to be longer.

What would I do? I just write the story until it's done. Some end at 20k. Some end at 90k. Others end everywhere in between. Some are short stories, some are novelettes, some are novellas, some are novels. hen I write I don't worry about word count or page totals, I just let the story go where it needs to and end where it ends.

My shortest published book is only 8 pages long (about 2,500 words) and my longest is 730 pages long (about 230,000 words), several are in the 30 to 40 page range (about 10,000 words) with most of them being in the 190 to 230 page range (65,000 words), so I'm all over the place and don't stick with any one word count goal.

Word Count To Page Count conversion Chart

When figuring word count to page count, I use Amazon's 311 words per page figure. If you go to Amazon's site, on every book they list, you will see where it says "page count" or "actual page count" or "estimated page count". They put this on every book on their site. 

For every book I have listed on Amazon, I divided my actual word count by Amazon's page count and every time got 311 words per page. I asked several other authors and they did the same and in each case confirmed that, Amazon had used 311 words per page for their books as well, when figuring the page counts.

Because the majority of people who enter NaNoWriMo will self-publish their book via Amazon KDP or will publish with a Indie Press that uses Amazon KDP, and because I myself publish via Amazon KDP, I now use Amazon's 311 per page when figuring page counts (rather then using one of the numbers used by a big house publishing house, which the average NaNoWriMo user will never actually publish with.)

So, below is a chart to answer all the other questions that go alongside this one. 

How many pages is 1,000 words?

How many pages is 5,000 words?

How many pages is 10,000 words?

How many pages is 50,000 words?

How many pages is 100,000 words?

etc.

Word Counts vs Page Counts
According to Amazon

1,000/311=3.2

1,000 words = 3 pages

2,000/311=6.4

2,000 words = 6 pages

5,000/311=16

5,000 words = 16 pages

7,500/311=24.1

7,500 words = 24 pages

10,000/311=32.1

10,000 words = 32 pages

12,000/311=38.5

12,000 words = 39 pages

15,000/311=48.2

15,000 words = 48 pages

25,000/311=80.3

25,000 words = 80 pages

40,000/311=128.6

40,000 words = 129 pages

50,000/311=166.6

50,000 words = 167 pages

75,000/311=241.1

75,000 words = 241 pages

90,000/311=289.3

90,000 words = 289 pages

100,000/311=321.5

100,000 words = 322 pages

125,000/311=401.9

125,000 words = 402 pages

150,000/311=482.3

150,000 words = 482 pages

200,000/311=643

200,000 words = 643 pages

And there you have it, the word count vs the page count of books listed on Amazon.

How accurate is it?

For every one of my books, Amazon was accurate to a 100 words more or less, and every author I asked, when they checked had the same result. 

Amazon also figures Harlequin books at 282 pages. I checked (because I own the books) and every one of them was 280 pages. I then went to Harlequin's website and checked their submission guidelines and see they say they ONLY accept manuscripts of 80,000 to 90,000 words, which DOES in fact come to about 300 to 320 words per page for books of 280 pages.

Because of the accuracy rate of Amazon's 311 word per page, to get an estimated page count, is why I use 311 words per page to estimate how many pages my manuscript will be once they get published.

There are many other word count per page figures out there, but when I tested them out against my own books, none of them were accurate. I've seen charts saying to figure 200 words per page and charts saying to figure 450 words per page, but none of them ever came out totally the ACTUAL page counts of my books after publication. In every case, my books have come out to 300 to 320 words per page, and using 311 always brought the most accurate estimated page count of the draft word count vs the finished published product page count.

In other words, if you are publishing someplace OTHER then Amazon KDP, then this 311 words per page chart may not be accurate, because each producer of your book, is going to produce different end results. Keep in mind too, that the 311 number is assuming the reader has NOT changed the factory default settings of their Kindle device. Changing the settings will change the words per page displayed on their end.

What this all means is, that in the end, diving your total word count by 311 words per page, gives you a best guesstimate of how many pages Amazon will say your draft is when they say "estimated page count" on the sales page of your book, which may or may not be the actual final page count.










The Longer Answer:

UPDATE: November 2015: The page you are on now, was written in 2007 and updated every November until 2014 - It was last updated October 31, 2014 and there are no future updates planned for it, as after 10 years of doing it, I have retired from "traditional" NaNoWriMo and am now doing a different writing goal each November.

For the current NaNoWriMo 2015 update see THIS PAGE (which includes the first public release of my Dares Generator and information on how I use it to reach 50,000 words in 3 days instead of 30 days, along with info on how I reached 537,000 words in 2013 and thus changed my writing goals for NaNoWriMo.)










Is 50,000 words REALLY a novel?

I joined NaNoWriMo in 2004, went on to become the first "overachiever" averaging 200,000 words in 30 days, instead of the average 50,000 words. Since 2006, I have been receiving on average 5,000 to 20,000 emails a week from fellow writers every October, November, and December, emails asking me how I did it and if I could advice them on what to do so they can write 200k instead of 50k in 30 days too.

In 2006 I wrote The 13 Step Method to Writing, in answer to their requests. In 2007 that was expanded to website known as "EelKat's Guide To NaNoWriMo", from their the advice column for writers (Ask EelKat) was created. Today there are more than 6,000 articles answering questions writers have, not only about NaNoWriMo but every aspect of writing and publishing in general and thus was born in 2013 EelKat.com the one stop database for every article I've ever written on writing. EelKat's Guide to NaNoWriMo is the series of articles that started it all, and here they are:

You are reading page #42 of EelKat's Guide to NaNoWriMo. If you have just starting reading this, please go back to Page 1 to read this entire 50 page article from it's beginning.


UPDATE: October 31, 2014 -

Due to a major hacking of my online accounts, and the theft and plagiarism of some 1,371 of my how-to articles for writers, I am now removing from public access MOST of my How To Guides for writers. They will return at a future date, but henceforth they will not be available for free. I'm tired of shit-head thieves stealing my work and passing it off as theirs. I'm sorry, to those of you who were not creeps and trolls, I know it's not fair to you, but, the hacking was done by a local person did a lot more damage than you know - the vandalism to my house and cars and the murders of my pets and death threats to my family, are not something I take lightly.

Until we can get to the bottom of this and get this jackass stalker out of my life, I am simply not able to leave my articles online, due to the court case that is now brewing over this. I am also leaving NaNoWriMo, because the local NaNoWriMo ML Kendra Silvermander is the cousin of the man doing the harassment, stalking, vandalism (which included blowing up my house with a grease fryer bomb) and has been not only stealing my how to guides and posting them on the NaNoWriMo forums as her own, but also shows up at local restaurants to threaten me and my family while we are trying to eat. I am utterly disgusted that NaNoWriMo allows a filthy, thieving, vandalizing, scum bag like this to continue to year after year, inciting anti-EelKat riot threads on the NaNoWriMo forum, while continuing to allow her to steal my articles off my web site and post them to NaNoWriMo's website as hers.

This article you are reading now, is one of the few, I have not taken down, it is however drastically shorted. My mega long 20,000 word how to articles are ALL removed now, with only and the ones that remain are stripped of most of the info, with only the barest minimum required to answer the reader question - in many cases the articles are 90% shorter then when they originally appeared, most now under 2,000 words instead of their 20,000 word originals.

The reader question this page answers:

"I started NaNoWriMo this year and I have a strange little question: What is an example of a book that is about 50,000 words long?   I was making some notes this afternoon and came up with about 1300 words (just over the daily quota for people who succeed, right?), and I thought, if I just did that every day I'd reach 50K - but what I wrote does not seem like it would be 1/30th of a novel - it seems super short. 

Maybe I just read really long books, or maybe I am not extrapolating correctly about what seems like a really short piece of writing, to multiply it by 30.  But it got me thinking - has anyone put together any kind of list of books that are basically 50K words long, for reference? I think the classics are 50,000 words, but are modern books?"


Daily quota for NaNoWriMo is 1,667 words per day to reach 50,000 words in a month, but is that a novel? No. Not according to the publishing industry.

Let's look at page counts.

Kindle counts pages of a book at a rate of 311 words per page. That is ONLY 160 pages. A Nancy Drew book is bigger than that. Raise your hand if you consider Nancy Drew to be a NOVEL and not a Children's Middle Grade Chapter Book.

When you go to the bookstore and buy a paperback novel - 300 pages is pretty standard, and at 311 words per page , that means you are look at 93,000 words MINIMUM before a book is classified as an actual novel.

Yes, your right, 50k is super short. 50k is actually a novella not a novel, and if you try to publish it, you will quickly find most publishers consider 50k to be a short story and won't look at it as a novel unless you lengthen it to at least 120k, or submit it with 2 more 50ks with it as a collection of short stories (3 stories total for 150k total word count).

Consider here that Stephen King's SHORT STORY Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption was 49,701 words long. So, yeah, there you are, an example of what a 50k "novel" looks like when published. What NaNoWriMo calls a "novel" when published, was 1 short story bound in a set of 4 short stories.

If you are not planning to publish, or if you are planning to self publish, than it doesn't matter. When I'm writing, I don't worry about word count. I just write until the story is finished. This, however, makes it difficult for me to get many of my stories published, because in order to publish requires you follow publisher guidelines. I am than faced with either having to change my book to make it long enough to be considered a novel, or self publish it as is. I usually opt to self-publish my shorter works rather then rewrite them to match publisher demands.

But, when doing NaNoWiMo, you need to ask yourself, what your personal goals are. Are you just dong the contest and writing 50k for the sake of doing so, with no plans to publish? Or are you running into this thing fully intending to have something worth publishing when you are done?

Then if you plan to publish, how and where you plan t publish also changes your goal. Each publishing house has it's own guidelines. There is one, single, solitary Sci-Fi publisher who lists 40k as a novel (and is the one NaNoWriMo quotes on their website). However, they are alone in that, and the average publishing house very clearly states, often in very large, bolded, all cap letters, that they absolutely will not look at any manuscript under 80k word, with most publishers citing 120k words to be their minimum required word count.

If you plan to publish and you write your novel to 50k words and then do your research AFTER, chances are you'll be stuck with a 50k draft that never gets published, because its often easier to write a whole new story then to try to re-write the 50k into 120k. 

Every March, if you visit he NaNoWriMo forum, you'll find it FLOODED with upset, sad, depressed, or angry posts from writers who are screaming, wailing, and bemoaning the fact that:

"NaNoWriMo you led to me? Why dd you tell me 50k was a novel? I've got dozens of rejection slips here telling me no publishing house accepts 50k. They laugh at 50k. They told me I was stupid for not knowing enough about books, and thinking something as short as 50k was a novel. Why NaNo? Why did you deceive me like this? Why didn't you tell me the truth? Why did you tell me publishers call a novel 120k not 50k?"

It makes me very sad to see so many new young authors jump into NaNoWrMo each November with high hopes of publishing a 50k novel, only to have their dreams shattered a few months later, by the harsh reality of countless rejection slips laughing in their face and telling them a novel is 120k not 50k.

So, BEFORE you start NaNoWrMo, ask yourself what you goal is for those 50k words.

Your goal makes a difference in determining if you should write 50k or aim at more then 50k.

Are you planning to trade publish? If so, do you have a few publishing houses in mind? Have you checked what THEY call a novel, to be certain that what you are writing is ACTUALLY a novel and not a LONG SHORT STORY.

Keeping in mind here that NaNoWriMo has a DEEPLY WARPED sense of reality when it comes to what they consider a novel to be, and that publishing houses consider 50k words a long short story, (many say 50k isn't even long enough to be called a novella - now THAT is something to think about) nothing even close to being a novel.

NaNo's goal is not to get you published, but to help you feel a sense of accomplishment, not to help you get published. If you want to feel you've done something, stop at 50k, if you want to get published by a trade house, do some research, know that a novel is 120k words (more then twice 50k), and that if your novel is shorter than 120k words, you will be hard pressed to find a publisher. Knowing this ahead of time, affects what you decide to write.

I've been publishing since 1978. I have more then 2,000 published works. Most of them very short, but still. I've been around the block a few times and I know the dill, when it comes time to submit a manuscript to a publisher.

One thing most writers on NaNo fail to do, is to read NaNoWriMo's ToS, FAQs, or even know the history of how and why Chris Baty chose 50k as is goal. If yo know the history of NaNo and what it's ORIGINAL goals were, then it makes more sense.

The short of it is: In 1999 Chris Baty decided he wanted to write a novel, but knew from past experience that he lacked the motivation and would require a support team to keep him going. He next decided to give himself a time limit: write the novel from start to finish in 30 days. He next concluded that 30 days was only enough time to write a very short novel so set his goal to write a novel 50,000 words long, concluding that writing 1,667 words a day wouldn't be that hard. He contacted 10 people and asked them to sit in a cafe with him, everyday for 30 days until he had written a 50,000 word novel. Those 10 people decided there was no need for him to write alone and they each set out to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days too.

(UPDATE: 2013- The entire story in detail, with photos, used to be on the NaNo site back in 2007 when I wrote this article, but since Chris Baty retired, they took it down and put up a dramatically different and shorter version of how the goal got started.)

If you had read NaNoWriMo's ToS and FAQs, you would have seen the notation where they explain that 50k IS NOT the length of a FINISHED novel, but rather the average length of most author's FIRST DRAFTS. They come right out and tell you this, but no one reads the ToS, so no one ever stops to think: am I writing a first draft or a finished novel?

(UPDATE: 2013- NaNo has removed this notation from their site. Thepage I had originally linked to in 2007, no longer exists and so my link to it has been removed from this article. EVERYTHING written by founder Chris Baty has been removed from the NaNoWriMo website and the whole site has changed. It is no longer run like a group of friends, but like an organized religion full of strict rules and dogmas -I'm quite dismayed by the vast changes made since our beloved Chris Baty left the group.)

NaNoWriMo states over and over and over again in their ToS that you are writing a FIRST DRAFT; that the goal of the contest IS NOT to write something that is publishable, but rather to give you a kick in the ass to get that unwritten novel idea out of your head and down on paper. People who spend weeks and months primping and plotting and planning for NaNoWriMo got it all wrong. Creating a whole new idea for NaNoriMo IS NOT what NaNoWriMo is about. Read their ToS! The goal is to reach into your brain and pull out that novel you keep telling everybody "Someday I'll write".

In other words, you are SUPPOSED to be spending November, plotting and planning, outlining, sorting, jotting down, figuring out, as you pull the ideas out of your head, not in August, not in September, not in October, but in November. The goal is to have 50,000 words worth of idea, outline, and first draft.

First drafts don't get published. First drafts get expanded into longer second drafts. Second drafts get expanded into longer third drafts. Third drafts get expanded into longer 4th drafts, which tend to finally reach 250k word range. The 4th drafts are the ones that started editing down and out, until they reach a publishable 120k to 150k.

If you are plotting and planning ahead of time, you defeat the purose of NaoWriMo, and you also have no reason to be limited to a measly little 50,000 words either. If you've already plotted, planned, and outlined in August/September/October than you have already finished your first draft and are ready to move on to a second draft, and your goal should therefor be at least 100,000 words at that point.

Can you see now, the folly of thinking 50,000 words is actually a FINISHED novel? Anyone who tells you 50,000 words is a FINISHED novel has got their head stuffed firmly up their ass and don't know squat about the publishing industry. And don't you dare say NaNoWriMo told you 50,000 words was a FINISHED novel, because they didn't, and had you read their ToS you would know that.

Consider this: Knowing how long the "classics" are doesn't mean swat. Sure it's good to know if you plan to jump in a TARDIS and publish your book 200 years ago, but you are dealing with publishing house that are publishing right now, so you need to write the word counts PUBLISHERS TELL YOU TO WRITE if you what those publishers to publish your novel.

If you try to publish a 50k "novel" you'll get laughed at by traditional big house publishers. Why?

Because of this:

Flash Fiction: up to 1,000 words

Short-Short Story: 750 to 7,500 words

Short Story: 7,500 to 15,00 words

Long Short Story: 15,000 to 25,000

Novelette or Children's Chapter Book: 25,000 to 75,000 words (Think: Bunnicula and Nancy Drew)

Novella or Sci-Fi or Young Adult Mystery:  75,000 to 90,000 words  (Think: Harlequin Romance and Star Trek novels)

Novel: 90,000 to 250,000 words (Think: standard paperback, mainstream fiction, mass market romance)

Big Novel: 250K+ (Think: Historical Romance, Epic Fantasy, Lord of the Rings, Terry Brooks and Stephen King)

That is the standard chart you find on most publishing house web sites.

(Note that many small press indie houses, use dramatically shorter words counts, some saying Flash Fiction is up to 5,000 words, others saying a novella is 7,000 to 12,000 words. Again, when planning to publish - read publisher guidelines because each publishing house is different. This chart is the average for the mega giant big house publishers, commonly known as "The Big Five", who many authors aspire to get published by. The Big Five tend to be the fist places every author submits to, often only considering e Indie Presses after being rejected by the Big Five.)

You'll be hard pressed to find a big mass market trade publishing house that will look at a manuscript with fewer than 120k words (industry standard for a novel).

Of course if you are planning to submit to Indie Press or even self-publish, then those numbers well be different because that's the nature of Indie Press and self publishing. Personally, I prefer to publish via Indie Press's because I prefer to write books far shorter than what the industry standard is. Longest story I ever wrote stopped at a mere 75k and was considered by big house publishers to be "a short story" not a novel! (Which I think is kind of funny, considering it was 25k longer than what NaNo says a novel is! LOL!) 

(UPDATE: As of 2014, my books have gotten longer. In 2007 when this article was written, The Ruby Hummingbird at 75k was my longest book. My longest book now is For Fear of Little Men at 237k words in 2010, and most books of my new Quaraun series are 60k to 90k)

Know too, that several of Stephen King's "short stories" published in magazines are in the 25k -75k range. An important thing to consider, when considering publishing your 50k "novel".

I just wanted to warn you of this, because I'm guessing from your question that you are writing with the goal to publish, and that you are writing under the assumption that 50k is considered a publishable novel length by publishers. I've seen a lot of folks here on NaNo get all hyped up over finishing their 50k "novel" getting it edited than be crushed spiritually and emotionally by some crude mouthed editor who tossed the 50k "novel" back in their face telling them that there is no such thing as a novel that is shorter than 120k. (Happens all the time, I see dozens of these nightmare stories posted on the forums here every March or so.) So, if you are writing with the goal to get published by a big house publisher, be sure you remember that you need to write 120k not 50k to get published! If it was up to me, I'd say 50k was plenty long for a novel, but I don't make the rules, of course I also don't read novels, because I like to read stuff I can sit down and read in one sitting.

Anyways, I hope that helps you out.

Bit of background on myself: I've been publishing since 1978, author of multiple books, 200+ short stories, 2,000+ non-fiction articles, a few playscripts, an advice column, I worked as an editor and publisher for several years, and started my own small press indie publishing house a few years back, because I was feed up with publishing houses that demanded everything you write be 120k long.

I don't agree with the "standard word counts" publishing houses put out there. Me personally, I prefer to read shorter works, but fact remains, and I know this from nearly 40 years of experience working with publishers, if you want THEM to publish you, then no amount of telling them "But the classics were all 50k..." is going to change their minds about calling 50k a novel.

If you want to publish your NaNoNovel, you have 2 options:

  1. Write it to the industry standard word count of 90,000 to 120,000
  2. Write any word count fewer than 90,000 and self-publish it yourself.

This is the sad reality of the publishing industry, which many authors, especially those coming from NaNoWriMo fail to realize or even consider.

Far too many new/young writers are getting pumped up on the NaNoWriMo hype of writing 50k words and thinking they have written something even close to being a publishable length.

And publishers are getting so fed up with the annual January to March flood of 50k manuscripts that nearly every publisher out there now (since 2009) has a policy of only accepting unagented submissions between August and September.

And you want to know what REALLY pisses publishers off? When they clearly state in their guidelines NOT to submit anything shorter than 90,000 words and you the author, goes "Phhfft! Guidelines are for sissies and losers, I don't need to read or obey stupid publisher guidelines, I'm going to send them my 50,000 word manuscript anyways, because NaNoWriMo says it's a novel, so there!"

But hey, guess what, publishers are all buddy-buddy with other publishers, so you go right on ahead and send your 50k short story to one publisher and let him pass your name on to all his buddies, because you can bet your bottom dollar he will, he'll warn them all about you and how they should avoid you because you were too arrogant to be bothered with rules and guidelines. And guess what? When you send your manuscript to those other publishers - they are jus going to look at the name on the envelope and toss it in the trash unopened, because they know you already, they were warned, they know not to bother with people who waste their time submitting stuff that doesn't fit their guidelines. I mean, if you didn't read the other publisher's guidelines, why would they expect you to read theirs?

As of right now I nly know of 2 publisher who will look at anything in the 50,000 to 75,000 range: Harlequin and Elora's Cave.Both are romance publishers, so if your 50k story is not romance you are out of luck.

Harlequin looks at them for inclusion in story story collections (which they publish only 3 volumes of 3 stories each, per year - so they only accept nine 50k to 75k SHORT STORIES each year).

Elora's Cave 50k SHORT STORIES and 75k NOVELLAS as eBooks, but they only accept highly sexed erotica that boarder on being porn, so very niched market here.

In short, 50k is classified by THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY as a SHORT STORY (What NaNoWriMo and Kindle self-publishers classify as a novel, is something else entirely.)

If you really want to know how short 50k words is, consider this:

It takes 20mins to type 1667 words.

20mins x 30days is 600mins.

600mins / 60mins = 10hours to reach 50k.

If you sat down and typed non-stop you could finish your entire NaNo"Novel" in just 10 hours. Less than half a day.




EelKat's Guide To Writing

  1. EelKat's Guide To NaNoWriMo
  2. Why Write 50,000 Words In 30 Days?
  3. How Can I Possibly Write A Novel In 30 Days?
  4. Don't Quit!
  5. How Long Does It Take To Hit 1667 Words? And 50k In One Day - Is It Possible?
  6. Write Now - Edit Later
  7. Write It YOUR Way!
  8. What Is Word Padding?
  9. Word Padding & Why You Should Never Do It!
  10. More Ways To Write Fast Without Word Padding . . .
  11. After NaNoWriMo - Writing To Publish
  12. What I Did In 2006 - Reaching 50,000 Using The 13 Step Method To Writing
  13. The Secret To Reaching Word Count Goals Without Using Word Padding - What I Did During National Novel Writing Month 2007
  14. My NaNoWriMo 2008 - On Writing 50k In 3 Days & reaching 200,000
  15. Writing Tip: Have Fun!
  16. But, I Want To Finish A Book I Already Started . . .
  17. Write What YOU Want To Write!
  18. Accepting Your Writing Style
  19. Writing Advice Doesn't Always Work
  20. What Do You Look For In A Book?
  21. Creating Character Profiles
  22. Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
  23. Does What You Read Effect What You Decide To Write? Or What's On My Bookshelf . . .
  24. WHERE Should I Write? Where Do You Feel You Write More?
  25. Create Your Own Writer's Retreat
  26. Narration For Writers
  27. Novel? Novella? Short Story? How Do I Know What Am I Writing?
  28. ABCs Of Writing
  29. How To Become A Writer
  30. Are You A Renegade Writer?
  31. Creating A Fantasy World For your Series
  32. Editing Your Draft Into A Manuscript
  33. Marketing Your Book
  34. Home Office, Town Zoning, And IRS Oh My! The Business Side Of Being An Author
  35. My NaNoWriMo Journey: The Answer The The Oft Asked Question "So What Exactly Did You Write During National Novel Writing Month?"
  36. How Long Is 50,000 Words?
  37. Cliches To Avoid When Writing A Story
  38. 52 Stories in 52 Days
  39. Quantity Over Quality?
  40. How Do You Pick Which Story To Write?
  41. You went to the future, stole my idea, then went 10 years into the past and wrote my book before I thought of it! (A look at Kendra Silvermander & My answer to the craziest email I ever got)
  42. The KBoards Incident (A behind the scenes look at Unscrupulous Cyber Bully tactics used by modern day kindle authors)
  43. Amazon's Adult Filter & How to get rid of it (And look at how Kendra tried to get my books unpublished)
  44. The Return of the kB Articles (They're back!)
  45. NaNoWriMo & Kendra's Big ML Conspiracy (Another year, another conspiracy & I'm doing more then sucking out her brain, this time!)
  46. You Damned Dirty Overachiever! You Wrote 50k In 3 Days And I'm So Pissed At You I Can't Write My Book Now. Now I'll Never Get Published And It's All Your Fault For Writing More Then 50,000 Words In 30 Days! (She's back & Kendra's conspiracies keep on coming!)



The Old Index

UPDATE: November 2015: The page you are on now, was written in 2007 and updated every November until 2014 - It was last updated October 31, 2014 and there are no future updates planned for it, as after 10 years of doing it, I have retired from "traditional" NaNoWriMo and am now doing a different writing goal each November.

For the current NaNoWriMo 2015 update see THIS PAGE (which includes the first public release of my Dares Generator and information on how I use it to reach 50,000 words in 3 days instead of 30 days, along with info on how I reached 537,000 words in 2013 and thus changed my writing goals for NaNoWriMo.)

UPDATE: October 31, 2014 -

Due to a major hacking of my online accounts, and the theft and plagiarism of some 1,371 of my how-to articles for writers, I am now removing from public access MOST of my How To Guides for writers. They will return at a future date, but henceforth they will not be available for free. I'm tired of shit-head thieves stealing my work and passing it off as theirs. I'm sorry, to those of you who were not creeps and trolls, I know it's not fair to you, but, the hacking was done by a local person did a lot more damage than you know - the vandalism to my house and cars and the murders of my pets and death threats to my family, are not something I take lightly.

Until we can get to the bottom of this and get this jackass stalker out of my life, I am simply not able to leave my articles online, due to the court case that is now brewing over this. I am also leaving NaNoWriMo, because the local NaNoWriMo ML Kendra Silvermander is the cousin of the man doing the harassment, stalking, vandalism (which included blowing up my house with a grease fryer bomb) and has been not only stealing my how to guides and posting them on the NaNoWriMo forums as her own, but also shows up at local restaurants to threaten me and my family while we are trying to eat. I am utterly disgusted that NaNoWriMo allows a filthy, thieving, vandalizing, scum bag like this to continue to year after year, inciting anti-EelKat riot threads on the NaNoWriMo forum, while continuing to allow her to steal my articles off my web site and post them to NaNoWriMo's website as hers.

This article you are reading now, is one of the few, I have not taken down, it is however drastically shorted. My mega long 20,000 word how to articles are ALL removed now, with only and the ones that remain are stripped of most of the info, with only the barest minimum required to answer the reader question - in many cases the articles are 90% shorter then when they originally appeared, most now under 2,000 words instead of their 20,000 word originals.

Complete Index of
EelKat's Guide to NaNoWriMo
(Including The ORIGINAL 13 Steps To Writing Method)

MANY of these pages are changed to private viewing only now, and or have had most or all of the original content removed - see note above for reason why.

  1. EelKat's Guide To NaNoWriMo
  2. Why Write 50,000 Words In 30 Days?
  3. How Can I Possibly Write a Novel in 30 Days?
  4. Don't Quit!
  5. How long does it take to hit 1667 words? and 50k in one day - is it possible?
  6. Write Now - Edit Later
  7. Write it YOUR Way!
  8. What Is Word Padding?
  9. Word Padding & Why You Should Never Do It!
  10. More ways to write fast without word padding . . .
  11. After NaNoWriMo - Writing to Publish
  12. What I Did In 2006 - Reaching 50,000 using The 13 Step Method to Writing
  13. The Secret to Reaching Word Count Goals Without Using Word Padding - What I Did During National Novel Writing Month 2007
  14. NaNoWriMo 2008: 50k in 3 Days!
  15. Writing Tip: Have Fun!
  16. But, I want to finish a book I already started . . .
  17. Does writing a bunch of short stories count for National Novel Writing Month?
  18. Write What YOU Want To Write!
  19. Accepting Your Writing Style
  20. Writing Advice Doesn't Always Work
  21. What do You Look For in a Book?
  22. Creating Character Profiles
  23. Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
  24. What Genre is My Vampire Story?
  25. What Genre is My Mermaid Story?
  26. Does What You Read Effect What You Decide To Write? or What's on My Bookshelf . . .
  27. WHERE Should I write? Where do you feel you write more?
  28. Create Your Own Writer's Retreat
  29. I Want to Keep Writing December and Beyond: JaNoWriMo, FebNoWriMo, SeptNoWriMo, OctNoWriMo . . . ???
  30. Script Frenzy
  31. GothNoWriMo
  32. Narration for Writers
  33. Novel? Novella? Short Story? How Do I Know What Am I Writing?
  34. ABCs of Writing
  35. How to Become a Writer
  36. Are You a Renegade Writer?
  37. Creating a Fantasy World
  38. After NaNoWriMo: Editing your draft into a manuscript
  39. After National Novel Writing Month: Marketing Your Book
  40. After NaNoWriMo: Home Office, Town Zoning, and IRS Oh My! The Business Side of Being an Author
  41. My NaNoWriMo Journey: The answer the the oft asked question "So what exactly did you write during National Novel Writing Month?"
  42. How Long is 50,000 Words?
  43. Cliches To Avoid When Writing a Story
  44. What are the Benefits of NaNoWriMo?
  45. Is NaNoWriMo About Quantity Over Quality?
  46. How Do You Pick Which Story to Write?
  47. You too can NaNoWriMo like a pro







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This page was written by Wendy Christine Allen of 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

All Rights Reserved.

Note: there are likely spelling errors on this site, and I am unlikely to see the ... I fix them when I find them, but, there are many issues here...

Note: English is not my first language, Shetlean Scottish is my native language, there are likly spelling and grammar errors, as I do not know American English and am attempting to write it by sounding words out.

Many times that Americans think a word on my site is misspelled, often it is not misspelled, it is just I mixed up languages and wrote it in Scottish without realizing I mixed the Scottish in with the English. Also our grammar is somewhat reversed from English grammar so words that are seeming in the wrong order for American English, is usually because they are in the correct order for Scottish and I either put English words in Scottish order by mistake or was unaware English put them in a different order then Scottish does.

For those unaware, Scottish Shetlean looks like this:

American English to Scottish:

a bit (piece) = a party --- EXAMPLE: "And some know a bit of Latin " > "And somme kan of latyn a party "

a long distance from = A piece fae

a piece of = the bit --- EXAMPLE: "The duck ate a piece of bread " > "The deuk ett the bit breid "

about the banks (on the shore/at the beach) = aboot da banks

accomplishments = kunnandi

After = Back o --- EXAMPLE: " After Halloween" > "Back o Hallomas "

alive (living) = kvikr

Always on the move = Never aff o da go

am I not = amn't I --- EXAMPLE: "Am I not invited? " > "I amn't invited? or Amn't I invited?"

are = is --- EXAMPLE: "Are you going soon?" > "Is ya to be going soon?"

autumn = dah haihst

belong to = fylgja

best = bettah moost

betray (verb) = svíkja

bewildered = villhyggjandi

building = biggin up --- EXAMPLE: "building confidence in everyday use " > " biggin up confidence in ivvryday øs "

built = builded --- EXAMPLE: "He built a new porch." > "Hims builded a new porch."

cast a spell = hoodooed

cat = kat (sounds like "caught") --- EXAMPLE: "Is it an orange cat?" > "Be he a o'jinn kat?"

child = bairn

church = kirk

color = colour

danger = hœttr

daren't = darena

daring = djarfr

dark = dökk

dark elf = Dökkálfr

dark-elves = Døkkálfar

darker = dökká

do you agree = ,eh? --- EXAMPLE: "That's a fine looking woman, do you agree?" > "Dair's ah right bonnie lass, eh?"

do you want to come too = ,eh? --- EXAMPLE: "I'm going to the store, do you want to come with me?" > "Me go to shope, eh?"

each = eche --- EXAMPLE: "Which each person can understand " > "That kan eche man understonde "

educated = lered --- EXAMPLE: "Both among the educated and the uneducated " > "As wel among lered as lewed "

elf = Alfr

Elf = Álfr

Elf Home = Álfheimr

Elf World = Álfheimr

elf-advice = Ælfred

elf-beautiful = ælfscyne

elf-friend = Ælfwine

elf-guardian (female) = Ælfwaru

elf-guardian (male) = Ælfweard

elf-powerful = Ælfric

everyday = ivvryday

eyelids = eye ledes --- EXAMPLE: "He closed his eyelids." > "Hims did shut hims eye ledes"

fair = faire --- EXAMPLE: "Going to the fair." > "Done gone went to the faire."

feild = felde --- EXAMPLE: "Standing in the feild." > "Stoodt in thems felde."

further = ferther --- EXAMPLE: "I looked further." > "I dids lokid ferther."

green = grene --- EXAMPLE: "Look at the green hedges and woods." > "Look see at thems heigges and holtz so grene."

handsome = braw --- EXAMPLE: "He is very handsome " > "Him wicked braw "

have faith = trúa

Have no doubts about our doing it = Nae faer o wis

Have no liking for this. = Hae nae brou o this.

have not = ain't

He knows how many beans make five. = He kens the laid frae the croun o the causey.

He knows which side his bread is buttered on. = He kens whilk side his bannock's buttert on.

Head for = Mak wye for

head rope in fishing nets and lines = baak

head to head = Be at the knag and the widdie

horse fly = klegsie

I = Me

I Think = Me thinks --- EXAMPLE: "I think we're late. " > "Me thinks that we is late. "

I wish you well for the future = Lang may yer lum reek (translation: Long may your chimney smoke)

idiot = eejit --- EXAMPLE: "You idiot." > "Ya eejit."

idiot = numpty

if = iffy or yif--- EXAMPLE: "If you don't mind..." > "Iffy yas does no care mind...."; "If you'll stay with me long enough = "Yif ye so longe with me wil dwelle". "

I'll be even with you = A'll see day aboot wi ye

know = ken

looked = lokid

looked = lokid --- EXAMPLE: "I looked up." > "I lifte up me eye ledes and lokid ferther."

magic = hoodoo

naked = nøkkviðr

needle = bodkin

neither = nouther --- EXAMPLE: "Who know neither Latin nor French " > "That kan nouther latyn ne frensch "

No = Nay --- EXAMPLE: "No, I don't think so. " > "Nay, me thinks not. "

Nobody knew = not-knew nobody

Noontide = Da heicht o da day

NOTE: Extra words are often added. --- EXAMPLE: "Did you meet the new family next door?" > "Dids ya gets a chance to stop by and meets with thems new folk that move-ed in down yawn there next doors to ya, eh?"

NOTE: Extra words are often added. --- EXAMPLE: "He went to Rite-Aid to pick up his prescription" > "Hims did go to that yawn there new fangled store the new folks call that Rite Aid place, to gets himself some of thems there pills what the doctor gone and tells him to take each morning, a-yep, hims did."

old = olde --- EXAMPLE: "But educated and uneducated, old and young " > "Bot lered and lewed olde and yonge "

orange = o'jinn

out = oot --- EXAMPLE: "The cat wants to go out." > "The kat he do wants oot."

outside = oot dair

people = fokk --- EXAMPLE: "the people of Shetland " > "Shetland fokk "

people = folke --- EXAMPLE: "Look at all those people." > "Lookie at all thems folke."

poorly = febelly --- EXAMPLE: "Who know French very poorly " > "That kan frensch ful febelly "

Recognising = Recognisin --- EXAMPLE: "Recognising the bilingual nature of Shaetlan speakers " > "Recognisin da wye at Shaetlan spaekers is bilingual "

shield = skjoldr

Since = For --- EXAMPLE: "Since that is your native language " > "For that is youre kynde langage "

tell = telle --- EXAMPLE: "I'll tell you in English " > "In englysch tonge I schal you telle "

the = da, de, or is not used at all --- EXAMPLE: "I went to the store" > "Me goes to da shoppe" or "Me goes to da shoppe" or "Me goes to shoppe"

them = dem, dem dair --- EXAMPLE: "I went with them" > "Me goes wit dem dair"

there = dair --- EXAMPLE: "I want those potatoes" > "Me be wanting dem dair tatetas."

they = dey

To where = whither --- EXAMPLE: ""Where you go, I will go." " > ""Whither thou goest, I'll go."

understand = understonde

understand = understonden --- EXAMPLE: "Some understand English " > "And somme understonden englysch "

very = wicked --- EXAMPLE: "very good" > "wicked good"; "very bad" > "wicked bad"; "very cold" > "wicked cold"

Where = Whither --- EXAMPLE: "Where is the restroom? " > "Whither is the privy?"

Yes = Yea or Aye --- EXAMPLE: "Yes, I think so. " > "Yea, me thinks so. " or "Aye, me thinks so. "

For anyone actually interested in learning my native language, the Scottish government has THIS listed as the official dictionary of our people:  https://static1.squarespace.com/static/61d7352954b7fd1c9dbdfef4/t/65ddb2749d5e0541a01009c0/1709027964496/Spaektionary_2024feb.pdf  

The Scottish government provides this document to show our language in use: https://www.shetland.uhi.ac.uk/t4-media/one-web/uhi-shetland-images-and-documents/documents-/shaetlan/Shaetlan-Language-Plan-2022-Shaetlan.pdf 

More information about our language can be found on this website:  https://www.iheardee.com  which is written in my native language.


However, there is also other reasons why words might be misspelled, or why I might not understand someone when they speak to me.

My grandmother Helen Ricker Allen, was from Unst, Shetland, Scotland, and she the one who raised me. She taught me to read and write, but it was Shetlain that she taught me. She died when I was 8 years old, and I was locked in a woodshed after her furneral, I escaped the woodshed 27 years later at age 31, and have been trying to learn how to speak and write English since then.

It is a very great struggle.

At age 37 I took remidial reading and speaking classes at Southern Maine Community College, but we are Gypsies and Gypsy men do not allow us Gypsy women to have education, and so, while at college, on November 14, 2013, I was beaten with a golf club, while I was 8 months pregnet, breaking my spine, hips, and knees, killing my baby and leaving me quardepaleic since.

Now my primary focus these past 13 years has been on relearning to use my hand so I could type... as of 2023, I have regained the use of my right thumb, and first two right fingers, and after 10 years offline, I am back online due to I can use three finguers.

I never went to school, so I do not know maths and numbers and sciences, and I do not know what else would have been taught to me in school. We are Scottish Gypsies and Gypsy culture does not allow females to go to school. Being born female was already a great sin, but my grandmother took great risk in teaching me reading and writing. At 4 years old I was punished by my Uncle Bruce for knowing how to read, by being beaten in the face with a cinder block brick, that broke my right jaw and left me with garbaled near-mute spoken words ever since.

Because no one ever spoke words to be face to face from he time I was 8 years old until I was 37 years old (I escaped the room at age 27, but did not start college until 37), I have no training in how to vocally sound out or speak the words I write or read. I can read words, but I do not know how to sound out or say those words. I can write words, but I do not know how to match the written word against the spoken word. I struggle to associate spoken words at all, or make them match up with writen words.

Esentially, written words and spoken words are two completly seperate languages in my brain, and I have difficulty understanding spoken words.

If you say a sentance to me with your mouth, chances are very high I will have ZERO understanding of what you said and I will not be able to ander you.

However, if you WRITE down that exact same sentabnce, I can understand you and can type a written responce to you.

My doctors tell me this is a side effect of extreme isolation and neglect and lack of human contact during my toddler, childhood, teen, and young adult years, and that my brain never deveoloped to comprehend spoken vocal words due to no one ever speaking to me in over three decades of the first half of my life.

While I can read and write, American English (somewhat) I do no know how words are sounded out, what they are supposed to sound like. I readand write by shape recognition, not by sound/vocal recognition, so when reading and writing I do no "hear the words in my head" as I am told most people do when they read and write. In other words... I see "c a t" and think "c-a-t" I do not think "cat" nor do I "see" an image of a cat, no do I "hear" the word cat spoken. I'm told that this is very rare and that most people read and write by sounding out the words and linking them to visual mind images, while hearing the sound of the word in their head. I neiher hear words in my head no see images of things in my head. I'm told this is what makes me both a speed reader and speed writer, because I'm not tripped up by hear sounds or seeing images in my head like nomal people would be doing... however, I'm also told this is why my spelling and grammar are very poor, because my brain is not hear the sounds of the words or seeing visual images of the objects the words represent, so my mind also does not register spelling and grammer errors at all.

As I was only let out of the woodshed on Sundays to go to the Cape Elezabeth Ward Church of the August Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I was never allowed to go to school or hospital either. No adults ever talked to me because I was evil for comitted the sin of being born female, so I never learned how to speak properly and do not know how to sound out words to say them.

I was 42 years old, in 2016 when, while having an MRI for my spine, the doctors found out my speak issue was caused by a broken jaw as a toddler that was healed wrong because not being allowed to go to doctors. I had surgury to fix that, and since 2016 have been trying to learn how to use my jaw and touge so I can speak vocal words now.

Since 2023 my primary focus shifted to relearning to walk. I can now, in 2026, sit up for 2 or 3 hours a day, and can sand with a cane for a few minutes, and can walk for around five thousand feet in 2 to 3 segments a day, with the help of pushing my wheelchair like a walker.

As of 2026, with a slight return to using my fingers and legs, I am once again focused on trying to learn the American English, but I live in mortal fear of my uncles and male cousins, as they are so hateful of allowing me to have education.

have no one to help me to know if I am doing words correctly, and as such, I have no way of knowing if there are spelling and grammar errors, but I asume there are, and I fix them when I learn them, but I do not know what I do not know and spelling American words is a thing I do bnot know.

I have Low Fucntioning Kanner's Syndrom, also known as "RainMan Type of Autism" aka REAL and ACTUAL Autism, not to be confused with Aspergers, High Functioning Autism, or and of thr 861 illnesses on the Autism Spectrum. An Autism Spectrum Disorder is an illness that has symptoms similar to Autism but IS NOT Autism. If you have an Autism Spectrum Disorder, it LITERALLY MEANS you do NOT have Autism.

I am medically diagnosed as "kanner's syndrome, actual autism, the rainman type, profoundly retarded autistic savant, with a general IQ of 73, and an writing IQ of 221" but they added that they did not know how to properly diagnose me as I am "technically a feral child" and they don't know "how much is the autism, and how much is simple horrific levels of abuse and neglect induced post traumatic stress disorder that will go away with proper socilization".

It means I know how to write, I can write a lot, and it is next to impossible for you to teach me how to do literally anythig else because my brain only knows how to write and doesn;t know how to do anything else..
There's a reason, when I do book signings, people are quick to say: "Okay, what's the joke? why is this stupid retard here? where's the real author? I know this retard isn't the author. where are you hiding the author, why is this fucking retard here"

The end result is, I have near zero social interaction... my 3 years in college was the ONLY face to face interaction I have ever had with humans in my entire life, and I struggle deeply to understand MOST words used by MOST people when they ask me question. And so I suffer from a huge lack of understanding many words people say to me, how to translate those words into spelling, and how to translate what it is that has been said.

The fact remains hat until there exists a human on this planet who is willing to sit down and teach me what words spoken line up with and match what words written, this deficent is unlily to improve. But the fact also remains, that I am simply far too profoundly retarded for anyone to even try to make any attempt at all even to speak a friendly "hgelloe" or "good morning" when passing me on the street, so I have lost all hope of anyone ever either being my friend, being willing to teach me how to match spoken words to written words, or how to speak to other humans.





While there are around 20k pages on this website, most of them are blocked from search engines, with only around 800 of them available for appearing in Google/Bing/etc search results. The remainder can only be accessed via the various links found throughout this site. This was done deliberately on my part, and I did it because the bulk of the pages on this website are chapters from 138 novels and 423 novellas, so only the first page of each novel and novella indexed by search engines, and the remainder are linked in order, one page at a time, via clicking "next page" at the end of each. So if you are looking for a specific page from a specific novel, Google can't help you.



Thank you for stopping by and have a nice day! ꧁✨🌸🔮🦄🔮🌸✨꧂

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Wendy Christine Allen 🌸💖🦄 aka EelKat 🧿💛🔮👻

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Wheelchair Fundraiser

@eelkat

i just found out there is yet another bizarre rumour going around. where are these wild rumours coming from? who is starting them? and why?

♬ original sound - Wendy C Allen | 📚 Author
@eelkat

since I've been flooded with hundreds of messages the past two weeks asking if I still own "the world's most haunted car", yes, and here it is, filmed today May 18, 2026… but my son Xavier is dead, i am crippled and given that people are AGAIN showing up calling my Dodge "haunted", calling my friend "an alien", calling me "transgender", and spreading wild defamation slander connecting me to Stephen King, I think I need to start taking down the contact information of every blogger, podcaster, youtuber, and social media account spreading these rumors, and sue every single one of them for CAUSING my car to be cut in half May 10, 2010, for CAUSING the backhoe that drove over my house August 8, 2013, for CAUSING my son's murder November 14, 2013, for CAUSING me to be crippled and in a wheelchair November 14, 2013, and for CONTINUING to CAUSE harassers to show up in person to harass me near daily, STILL now in 2026. EVERYONE telling you my car is haunted, telling you my friend is an alien, calling my car "the goldeneagle", calling my friend "Etiole", or trying to connect me or my car to Stephen King, is lying to you. They crippled me when I was 8 months pregnant, and a woman with a golf club, severed my spine and bashed my baby's head in, I spent 9 years relearning to walk, and the FBI is 13 years into the murder investigation and not yet identified the attacker who crippled me and killed my baby, both violently with a golf club and the FBI believes that it is friends and family of the woman who did it, are the ones who started and spread the rumors saying my car is haunted, saying I'm an alien abductee, saying all kinds of similar bs about aliens, ufos, ghosts, witchcraft, demons, and Stephen King connections, even though I don't believe in ghosts, aliens, ufos, demons, and had never heard of Stephen King before 30k of his fans showed up in my yard trying to find my car! FBI believes the backhoe driver and the murderer are the same person and it is a developer who wanted my land and so started the Stephen King, ghost, and alien rumors all in an attempt to drive me off my land, and when it didn't work they drove a backhoe over my house, and when that didn't work they crippled me and killed my son. Why are they doing this? How do I get them to stop?

♬ original sound - Wendy C Allen | 📚 Author






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Get an email whenever Wendy Christine Allen 🌸💖🦄 aka EelKat 🧿💛🔮👻 publishes on Medium.

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Do you know who drove this backhoe over my house at 146 Portland Avenue, Old Orchard Beach, Maine on August 8, 2013? If you have any information, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.

My house at 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine, July 4, 2013, photo taken because we had just finished building a baby room on the back. vs My house August 8, 2013, when the same group of people (yes group, the golf club woman was not alone when she attacked November 14, 2013, nor was she alone with her second attack July 2016.) who murdered my son on November 14, 2013 at Southern Maine Community College and crippled me July 26, 2016 at scarborough WalMart,... they arrived the first time with a backhoe on August 8, 2013, that they used to drive over my house, during a time of day that I normally was home asleep... I had to work a different shift at the Waffle Cone Pizza Food Truck at George's Parking Lot by Bill's Pizza at the OBB Peir, that day, otherwise, I too would be at the bottom of a landfill, along with my house and everything I owned that was also in the house. I was 5 months pregnant at the time and have been homeless for just under 14 years, homeless ever since....

... which means it is now only a few weeks from the 14th anniversary of my son's murder. I was 8 month pregnant November 14, 2013, and a student ay SMCC, and coming out of the Buglight Lighthouse art studio after art class, when a still unidentifiedwoman wielding a golf club attacked me, severed my spine, while I was 8 months pregnant, triggered early labour, then killed my son minutes after he was born.

While accusing me of being transgender, screaming "transvestite freak" and "look at that thing, that's Ken's son in a dress"... while I was 8 months pregnant.

eelkats_house_before_after.jpgMy house at 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine, July 4, 2013, photo taken because we had just finished building a baby room on the back. vs My house August 8, 2013, when the same group of people (yes group, the golf club woman was not alone when she attacked November 14, 2013, nor was she alone with her second attack July 2016.) who murdered my son and crippled me, arrived the first time with a backhoe that they used to drive over my house, during a time of day that I normally was home asleep... I had to work a different shift at the Waffle Cone Pizza Food Truck at George's Parking Lot by Bill's Pizza at the OBB Peir, that day, otherwise, I too would be at the bottom of a landfill, along with my house and everything I owned that was also in the house. I was 5 months pregnant at the time and have been homeless for just under 14 years, homeless ever since.

The backhoe driver returned November 14, 2013, armed with a golf club, used it to break my spine and smash my baby's brains out on the ground

On November 14, 2013, my son was murdered. I was 8 months pregnant, leaving my college classroom, and just getting into my car, when 3 strangers, a man and two women, armed with golf clubs leapt out from behind my car screaming "kill or be killed, kill the transvestite freaks, kill them all before they kill us! look at that thing! That is Ken's son, look at how it's dressed! kill the transvestite freaks! kill or be killed"... while the bald man and the red haired woman chanted this over and over, the blonde woman, lunged with the golf club.

She severed my spine, I am now a quadriplegic, and been paralyzed arms and legs, and in a wheelchair for 13 years now. She broke my hips, my knees, my legs, ruptured most of my discs, and shattered three of my vertebrae so bad that the shards of bone acted like glass and embedded themselves into my spinal column nerve bundle.

The attack also triggered labour.

My son was born in that parking lot, and he lived only a couple of minutes, before the deranged blonde woman, beat his head in and smashed his brains out, with the same golfclub she had just used to sever my spine and leave me crippled for the rest of my life.

Realizing that I was not transgender, and they'd just murdered a baby, the man grabbed the 2 women and forcibly dragged them away to a 4 door white pickup truck, and they left me there to die.

The FBI told me later, that a few weeks before this attack, and transwoman, had murdered a cis woman, in a parking lot, abou 20 miles away from where I was attacked. The FBI, believes that my attackers, had somehow found out I wrote transgender fiction, connecting my real name to my penname, (my father's name is in fact "Ken", and I do have a brother) and believed that I wrote transgender fiction, because I was myself transgender, even though I'm not transgender. The FBI, believes the attackers, thought I was my brother, pretending to be a woman.

The FBI investigation, into my son's murder, has dragged on for 13 years, and still now in 2026, continues on, with the FBI, still not having yet identified my attackers, and only guessing at what their motive was.

Thus we come to 2014, and the full swing change of the series I write. WHY my series, went from just a transman main character living life, to the full blown Mpreg genre series that it now is today.

Before the attack, I had a chance of having a baby. I don't know. And because I'm in America, I'm too old to adopt. You have to be under 45 years old to adopt a baby. That is the law in America. I was informed this, when we tried to adopt, now that my injuries leave me unable to get pregnant a 9th time.

Thus began my obsessively writing, my transman main character, pregnant. Always pregnant now. Every time. Every story. Stories that now fully focus on pregnancy, labour, miscarriages, babies dying, babies living, raising babies... the whole series, since 2014 has devolved into an outright baby obsession.

Meanwhile, reborn baby dolls were suggested to me by my therapist, and have also become a deeply obsessive part of my life. Because 13 years ago my son was murdered minutes after he was born, because a transphobic bigot mistook me for being transgender, I'm STILL in a wheelchair, struggling to relearn to use my arms and legs, now 13 years later, and I'm still DAILY dealing with police officers and FBI agents who while they are trying to find my son's killer, they are also daily reminding me... oh, yeah, my son was murdered, literally ripped out of my belly, by a transphobe. Who still has not been located and walks free to kill again.

The golfclub woman as she looked during the golf club attack at Southern Maine community college November 14, 2013. She is about 20 to 30 years older then me and would be around 75 to 85 years old now in 2026.

Clairescreenshot.pngIf you have any information about the identity of this child murderer, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322

The golfclub woman as she looked during the shopping cart attack at Scarborough WalMart July 26, 2016. She is about 20 to 30 years older then me and would be around 75 to 85 years old now in 2026.

zzzz999ClaireRed2016-screenshotIf you have any information about the identity of this child murderer, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322

The 2nd woman as she looked at both attacks, her hair goes all the way down to her knees. She is about 20 to 30 years older then me and would be around 75 to 85 years old now in 2026.

Kendrascreenshot.pngIf you have any information about the identity of this child murderer's accomplice, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322

Do you know who these two woman who crippled me and murdered my baby, at Southern Maine Community College at 10PM on November 14, 2013, are, and what their connection to the backhoe that drove over my house is? If you have any information, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.

I am a legally blind quadriplegic, and low verbal, I have also published 138 novels in the last 48 years. It's not as impossible as people think. The problem being blind and quadriplegic, medically have different meanings then how those two words are used medically.

Fewer than 3% of all blind people see nothing. While 97% people who are classified as fully blind are able to see up to two feet in front of them. Legally blind means I can see more then two feet in front of me but not far enough to see twenty feet in front of me. In my case I can see about eight feet.

Quadriplegic, has varying levels, it means having a damaged nerve bundle in the spinal column causing limited mobility of all 4 limbs, (in my case this was done by a women wielding a golf club, who also beat my 8 month infant's head to pulp on the parking lot tarmak, at the same time she severed my spine with the same golf club; both on November 14, 2013; the FBI investigation into my son's murder and my being crippled has gone on now for 13 years, a few weeks away from 14 years now, and the FBI has still not identified the killer or her motive). Contrary to popular misconception, quadriplegic does NOT mean ZERO movement, it means means limited movement, specifically in means unable to lift arms over head, unable to grip fingers around objects to pick them up, and unable to stand for more then 5 minutes to a time. Because there are so many thousands of nerves in each limb it is actually very rare for there to be 100% no movement, but how much, and to what extent varies by patent depending upon the specific point of injury to the spinal column.

Meaning typing is still possible for over 60% of all quadriplegics.

In my case, it was the lower spine that was severed, cutting off completly my ability to move my right leg, leaving limited feeling in my left leg, and an ability to stand but not walk, with crutches, for the first 9 years. I regained enough nerve growth in my legs by the 9th year to be able to take ten or twelve steps allowing me to get out of bed for the first time since the golf club attack; This in turn lead to me being able to start using a wheelchair, as I was able to sit upright for the first time as well.

Because the shattered vertebrae bone fragments are broken off completly and embedded into the nerve bundle just above my tailbone, doctors were saying I would never walk again, but now at 13 years, I am able to push mu wheelchair like a walker, a distance of almost a thousand steps a day. Though doctors are still doubtful I will ever walk "normally" again, I have proven them wrong, when their said 13 years ago, that I would never walk again at all.

But because of the placement of the damage to my spine, regaining hand use, was always thought possible, it was just a matter of waiting long enough for nerve regrowth, along side daily finger exercises. I was able to continue writing, after becoming quadriplegic, because I still have use of my right thumb, and 2 fore figures of my right hand. And can type 90 words per minute with those 3 fingers.

I however have no wrist strength, elbow strength, or shoulder strength, so I am not able to form a fist, or lift objects, or brush my hair, or my teeth, all thing I have to have my caretaker do. But, those things are not needed for typing. Unfortunately, my pinky and ring fingers are "nerve dead" and drag over the keyboard, and cause horrific spelling errors and typos, which are incredibly frustrating to deal with.

Unfortunately trying to edit errors myself, just makes the errors worse, because those same two fingers drag over the keyboard yet again. Prior to the golf club attack, I rarely had spelling errors; now I got more spelling errors then someone is learning English as second language. Editing is a challenge, that I've had to accept, I simply can not do myself, and I have to hire several editors to help with that.

Low verbal means sounds can still be made, sounds that software programs like Dragon can be trained to recognize and translate, and type into full words. More then half my novels were typed with this method.

I still have a long ways to go before I am anything close to being able to do the things I could do before the golf club woman beat my baby's brains out and shattered my spine. And you know what's more frustrating then how slow mu medical progression has been? The fact that it's been 13 years and the police and FBI are still coming up at dead ends as to who the woman who murdered my baby was, or why she even did it.

My son's 14th birthday is only a few weeks away, but he didn't even get to live long enough to celebrate his 1st birthday, I don't even know why. And I can't wait to regain my ability to walk again, because regaining my ability to walk, means gaining the ability to go outside and start looking for my son's murderer myself instead of sitting at home trapped in a wheelchair waiting for the police and FBI to to find her. So, writing isn't a big priority for me anymore. I only write now, as a way to exercise my hands, in between relearning to walk.

Never let a disability stop you. Plenty of writers, artists, athletes, do not let either blindness, speech impediments, or limited mobility hold then back from perusing their careers.

Do you know who these two woman who crippled me and murdered my baby, at Southern Maine Community College at 10PM on November 14, 2013, are, and what their connection to the backhoe that drove over my house is? If you have any information, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.

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