Ooh! It's so BIG...

Minds from the gutter, people! I'm talking books, of course! :)

It's no secret, ‘Tales of a Traveler’ was originally meant to be just one, standalone book. But when I hit the 400 page mark, and the story wasn't even halfway told, I had to do some major rethinking. My choices were as follows:

-Should I prune the hell out of the story, rip out its innards, and trade depth for a brevity?

-Should I simply publish the whole thing as a 800 page McWhopper?

OR...

-Should I divide the story into two, allowing me to write freely, without constantly looking over my shoulder at the massively inflated word-count?

Okay, so you already know the answer to this one! Just run with me here as I think out loud. :)  

The decision to make ‘Traveler’ into two books came with a HUGE and insurmountable, problem... the dreaded cliffie ending. Dun dun duuuuuuun! :) I had to have one--there was no getting around it--so I ended book one shortly after Martha got her HEA moment hoping the reader wouldn't feel too cheated. I mean, theoretically, I COULD have just ended the story directly after her big, HEA moment. Imagine it...

V: "I love you."

M: "I love you too!"

(Cue snog-fest and soaring violins, roll those end credits...)

Thing is, I wanted to go on. To chase down and tie up all those loose threads that were blowing in the wind, to see where M and V took me. (I do mention on my Amazon page that 'Hemlock has a cliffie ending.)

The decision wasn't about wringing every last dime/penny I could from the lovely folks who bought my books. (Truth be told, I never imagined I'd sell this many in the first place! If I was lucky, I thought I might shift a couple of dozen copies to my family and friends and the like, but that's about it.) It was always about the story.

So here's my question: Would you buy the debut book of an unknown author that weighed in at 800+ pages?

M's Gabaldon: "Well, they bought mine by the ton!"

*sighs* Okay, you got me there, Di’. But I'm talking generally here. I think we can all agree, 'Cross Stitch' is a very exceptional exception. :)

Go ahead. Tell me what you think, and don;t worry about hurting my feelings. I have writerly abs of steel! :)