I'm trying to finish up a novella for submission to an anthology. I've mentioned before that some writers have natural lengths; I should've said that story ideas come with natural lengths, and writers just tend to come up with ideas of a particular complexity.
I'm not so sure I'm a novella writer, but I am lying fiercely to myself. I'm throwing in characters and plot twists left and right to get this story to the right number of words, and let's just say that I'm not much of an improvisational cook in the kitchen.
But I'm chugging away, and tracking the word count, and hoping I'll finish it in time to give it a good scrubbing over before I send it off. Would you believe this process has been sufficiently agonizing that I chose to write the query letter first, and that was a relief?