I've been working for ... uh ... I don't know how long ... on a novel. I have never written a novel before, it's mostly new to me.

I've written many, many other articles for publication, however, having been a newspaper and magazine writer since the world was young, as  Peter O'Toole recites in "My Favorite Year," which is one of my favorite movies.

I was going through a rough patch of writing, because -- I have finally realized -- I was trying to truncate the story, as I might  do with a newspaper story.

It becomes ingrained, you know, this business of writing short stories. And it's getting worse, as newspapers shrink in size because the advertising isn't there.  Many readers are going to the web, and retail advertising is way down because of the Great Recession. A "perfect storm" for newspapers. 

(Just this week I wrote a "feature" story about a stage actor that was only 12 column inches long. Sheesh.)

But then I made use of the web and looked up story counts for the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling. 

By the standards of those books,  I am only two-thirds to one-fifth of the way finished with my novel.

Whew! 

I have lots more room with which to deal with all the conflicts and deaths and rebirths I have imagined, but have yet to actually type into my computer! 

Whew!

What a relief. 

It's a magical thing, this writing stuff. I love it.