I work full time. I write part-time. I am a professional photographer … part-time. I read sometimes. I’m a mom all the time. I’m never a cook. I’m always looking for ways to be efficient. That’s the goal. Efficiency.

So … by the end of this post I’m going to prove to you that ‘novella’ is in fact a shorter word that ‘novel’. (Go ahead, count the letters before we get started).

Done? Right now you’re thinking … it’s two letters longer! She’s a nutcase (or a chocolate doughnut).

Okay then, I shall prove it — mathematically. Did you know the average novel is something like 300 pages (or 90,000 words)? Do you know more people can read about 100-200 words a minute (though many are on the slow end of that and many, many are far faster)? Let’s use 200 as our number … that means for the average novel, it’s going to take 7.5 HOURS to read.

7.5! Do you know what I can get done in 7.5 hours?

• I can work a full day at work (well … almost — see? I need sugar already).
• I can sleep (well … if I didn’t have three kids and like to do other stuff, I could get a full 7.5 in).
• I can do laundry, wash my car, feed the cat, eat, photograph a family of ten, write a blog post, eat more, get donuts from Dunkin Donuts … I can do a TON of stuff in 7.5 hours.

Do you have 7.5 hours to sit down and read?

How about 6?

4?

Yes, I need my leisure time, and I also like to exercise. Because I cannot exercise without some form of entertainment, I read, too. I LOVE to read for the 30 minutes I’m on my treadmill. 30 minutes. Book. That is total good-for-me-time.

Let’s see … in .5 hour increments, it will take me approximately 15 days to finish a novel.

That’s a long time when work, husband, kids, life, eating, donuts, etc. get in the way. I’ll have to add in another 2-3 days of interruptions just because of them.

Even if a story has hooked, me and I’m dying to keep going, life sidetracks me. And that sucks.

But I have figured out how to make it work! I have found a way to stop the insanity that is reading novels on my treadmill. 🙂 That’s a little tongue-in-cheek, you know given I write novels. But I digress. Back to the purpose…

Read novellas.

And no … novellas aren’t novels said with a Mexican accent. They aren’t novels which have been girl-i-fied. They aren’t novels from LA or stories that someone couldn’t make long enough to meet the novel length requirement.

Novellas are stories that range from 1/4 to 1/2 the length of a novel.

Oooh… that sounds interesting, doesn’t it? I mean 1/4? That’s not even 2 hours of reading to finish a WHOLE story. That could be done in one sitting. Four trips on a treadmill or stair stepper thingymabob.

Short stories don’t work because 5000 words (for me) is done in about 20 minutes. I need at least 30 minutes of reading material in one sitting or I won’t get on my treadmill. I need enough to make me keep walking, not just enough to get started and then get bored and then quit and then get off. That foils my plan just as much as if I were reading a whole novel! And clearly, I need to be ON my treadmill since I’m dying for doughnuts!

That’s what comes in these novel-like stories that are shorter than the traditional novel.

Better yet, a lot of these novellas are exclusive to ebooks which means, like novels, they fit right on my Kindle.

So you see? Novella is actually shorter than novel (Okay, yes, I cheated … the WORD is technically longer). 🙂

It’s the busy woman’s best bet for reading.

Now that you know … get reading!

So what do doughnuts and reading have in common? Absolutely nothing except that as I wrote this post, I was craving(!) doughnuts. So, my apologies for all the subliminal, unrelated marketing … This is Why I Write Fiction. (#TiWiWF)

Have I convinced you to try a novella? Or … are you heading to Krispy Kreme or Dunkin Donuts for sugary sweetness?

Share in the comments!

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