I've been wondering a long time now about the differences in the writing guidelines in Germany versus those in other (English language) countries.

Did it ever strike you as curious that in the English language, the length of texts (maximum or minimum) is given in words - as in "this novel is complete at 100,000 words", while German regulations for submission are given in characters - as in "no more than 40,000 characters"*.

And so I find myself writing a short and a long text with character count "not more than" in both cases and I wonder why there is that difference. After all, there are long and short words in both languages, and I'd suspect that when the difficulty level of the text rises, so does the average word length. So why count words? Is this better possible in English than in German? Or is it some "historical reason"? Or do the Germans just want it that much more exact?** And why does MS Word include a character count, but not a (complete) word count when that is needed much more often (since there are much more English language writers than German)?***


And, the most important question of them all: Why did I not manage to get my characters counted properly yesterday, in spite of having used "Extras - Word Count" so often before?



*I'm not using the proper German 40.000 here, to avoid confusion - but I think it is funny that 40.000 and 40,000 mean different things in English and German. Talk about confusing.

** Yes, I know, that is so cliché. But did you know that because listing these huge numbers of characters for a text can be daunting, there's a conversion into "Normseiten", standard pages, that are usually worth about 1.500 characters. Which makes those figures much, much smaller.

*** You can of course download and install an add-in for MS Word. It might be useful for you (I only have it for fun - well, mostly). You can find "Complete WordCount" at Shauna Kelly's site - together with a lot of hints for using Word efficiently.

I am spending way too much time staring at my newsletter program (it's Birdigee's Newsletter Manager, by the way). The newsletter campaign I started exactly one week ago is coming along extremely well, and my webpage has never before seen so many people - you are all really amazing!

I have received additional mails with helpful hints, and I have also gotten requests for the table of contents. I'm looking into all of them, and I am happy to announce that I have just uploaded not only the "Inhaltsverzeichnis" (TOC), but also a snippet of the text as preview. So if you would like to have a peek into my (German language) book about medieval garments and tailoring techniques, click over to my webpage and see for yourself if you might want a copy once it is out. And if you do so, please subscribe to the newsletter to let me know!

Today is set apart for Current Writing Project - I need to make a little progress on that, plus three of the books I checked out of the library are due back next week, so I need to finish reading them. Since the alternative to writing on CWP is "sorting through paperwork and filing", I'm really keen on getting my nose into these books.

On an unrelated note, thanks to all of you who subscribed to the newsletter from yesterday's post!

I have fulfilled a dream by continuing research after my master's degree at Uni Bamberg. And, of course, I chose medieval garments as my topic. It took me a while, but I am very happy with the outcome (and eternally grateful to my parents, who were incredibly helpful when any obstacles turned up).

I have since successfully finished and defended my phd thesis "Konstruktion und Nähtechnik mittelalterlicher weltlicher Kleidung" (Construction and sewing techniques of secular medieval garments) in Summer 2008. The thesis is a comprehensive survey of extant medieval garments with analysis of cutting, construction development and sewing techniques.

It is written in German with an English summary; you can get more information (in German too) about the volume and the topics covered on my website. I have already found a wonderful publisher for the book, and publication is being prepared. However, two obstacles are left to overcome: Get funding for the costs of the print run, and determining the right number of copies to print.

Since it will take at least eight months until the book can be released - a long wait for you and me - and it is very hard to evaluate how many people will be interested - a problem for the publishing house and me - I am offering subscription to a newsletter that will hopefully help us all (and me even twice):
I will be sending a short newsflash whenever a step in the publishing process is finished, keeping you up to date.
You will know at once when the book can be pre-ordered, which means no delay for you in getting the book delivered.

In return, having a number of seriously interested people on the newsletter list will help me negotiating with the publishing house and my editor and me in determining the number of copies to print. We are aiming for the price range 60-80 Euro for the book (hardcover with b/w illustration and coloured plates).

If you are interested in getting this book, please subscribe to my newsletter by sending an e-mail with the subject "subscribe" to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

And if you are not interested in the book, but know somebody who might be, you can do me a huge favor by telling them!

I'm looking forward to the weekend so much, even if there is housework to be done. The last half of this week somehow dragged its feet instead of rushing by like second halves of weeks usually do for me.

I'm still working on the flyer and on the paper, and don't have time for much else. And after those two, there are already two other things-with-deadline looming overhead. (I'm in need of a writing flash, does anybody have one to spare?) So in case you are looking forward to the next parts of the Kruseler blog post, I'm sorry that I haven't been able to post the follow-up yet. I know what I want to write about, and it will probably be enough for two posts, but I am still lacking the photos needed (and the time and photographer to make them).

It will come up as soon as I can manage, but it will have to wait until both flyer and paper are further along the way. And thank you for your patience.

I have a huge To-Do-List today, looming beside me on my blackboard. I hope the amount of chalk white will be reduced significantly by tonight.

At least I have made good progress during the last two days, with finally an idea for a catchy advertisement phrase (that will go on the flyer/brochure thing) and an amount of writing done. Furthermore, I had the pleasure of reading a very old print (from 1573) in the library, which is always something special.

Word count in Current Writing Project today is 5.021 words. I wrote a bit more yesterday, but most of that is lying in a different file, as notes, and waiting to be edited into text and transferred. Rest of yesterday's work was mostly reading and thinking. The outline and the thoughts relevant to it are finished, and I have a pretty good idea what can be achieved with this book and where it can go.

Somehow, that nasty paperwork stuff has a tendency to agglomerate on my desk. I have a stack of urgent, semi-urgent and non-urgent paperwork stuff to occupy myself with, and I really feel like I should tackle it today. If not yesterday.

Well, usually I am glad about any pronounced drive to do paperwork. The problem is that I have dedicated this week to work on Current Writing Project, and I want to stick with that decision. I have given myself an incentive to get a chunk of work done, shaping the project and doing the groundwork, and that is what I want and need to do. Current Writing Project is coming along nicely, by the way, sporting 3412 words at the moment.

Still, those urgent paperwork things nag me and nibble at the back of my conscience daily. Do you know that situation? Do you have a fail-safe, fool-proof, wonderful way of dealing with that? If so, please tell me about it!