Book Length Rollercoaster

Man, this issue goes up and down, disappears and reappears. This whole time I thought it was just me freaking out about book length - apparently it is not just me. I found some bulletin board posts about length, and it seems that not only do editors/publishers care about book length, but the length they are looking for is nearly twice the length I had read in articles earlier. Appearently novel length is about 70,000 - 75,000 words. This is interesting as I am on page 73 and am over halfway through all of my bullet points.

I think it is a good idea to expand on areas of the story I hadn't before. So now we have the voodoo'ish smuggler hunting the book's heroes, and The Board of Directors gutting Dekkur's used computer shop, which causes the heroes to decide to stay at Jacob's place. This would allow them to learn of other geological events. Possibly pave the way to a betrayal by Jacob, or more likely - the Directors finding them due to bugs etc in Jacob's home. Perhaps it is here that they are arrested and Naeva is taken to the Board's island.

I have changed the interaction with old Earth and learning of the snooping scientist (Naeva). So I have to think about when the conversation with old Earth and The Board will occur, and how to introduce the reader to the state of Earth.