Yearly Word Count for June 1st, 2007 - May 31st, 2008

[unforth]

In early January last year, swan_tower posted a link to novel_in_90 in her LJ, and I decided to join the group. There was no shot at all that I was going to start a novel at that time, but I got it together to try in April...and crashed and burned in less than two weeks. :)

So my actual start date for novel_in_90 is June 1st, 2007. Since then, I've participated in four rounds (though I had to bale on the first round of 2008 in February when things got too busy). I've finished two novels and put in significant amounts of work on three others. I've gotten the juices stirring and have other ideas. The numbers are pretty telling - if slightly inaccurate, because I kept my wordcounts for June through August handwritten, and now don't have a clue where those papers are (though they're around somewhere).

Out of 365 days, I've written on about 275 of them. (aside from individual days, I missed about 3 weeks in August, from about the 15th until August 31st, and then from February 6th until April 1st.)

I've written 346,987 words. (!!!!) Note that before this year, I probably hadn't written more than a few thousand words of fiction other than character back stories, game stuff, and school and work. That's an average of 951 words per day throughout the entire year. This, of course, doesn't include the writing for the day job, which is easily at least another 50,000 words - I've written 5 grants by myself in that year as well as a lot of other side work; I've won every grant I wrote since June of last year (ha! Go back another month or so to May of '07, and I can't say THAT any more. ;) )

The most I wrote in one day was November 1st, the day when I finished the first novel, when I wrote 13,463 words. The most I wrote in a month was also in November, when I wrote 58,939 words, or an average of 1900 per day! Wow, it seems intimidating to me when I put it that way!! :)

Beyond the number crunching goodness of it all, though, there's the knowledge that I this is something that I CAN do and something that I LIKE to do. Thanks to Ni90, I've made friends with other writers from around the world, and I really look forward to seeing their word counts, learning more about their books, and all that jazz every day. I went from thinking that writing was nice and I liked it but now that I was older (ie now that I'm 8 years outta high school) it wasn't something I just didn't have the time, motivation, or interest for any more....to having written 346,987 words in a year!! Gah! And I'm thinking about editing the first (because now that she has actually read some of it, and mistress_sin - the only person who has looked at it - tells me she thinks it has potential) and trying to get the current WIP published, and berating myself because I've left my other current WIP out to dry, but I promise I'm going to get back to it because I was enjoying writing it so much, and I have ideas for turning the WIP I'm actually working on in to a trilogy, but first I have to finish it - it's at just over 50k (crossed the line last night!) and looks like it's gonna be about 125 to 130k before I'm done, and that's fine cause I've got most of it outlined - and I'm excited about all of it! You know, run on sentences demonstrate excitement. ;)

So yeah. I have to stop playing with my "fun" writing now, because the writing I actually do for a living is calling. I've got a grant due next Friday, but I'm not the primary author of it - not that I don't still have things to do, but the client is actually writing most of it himself thus far, much to my amazement. Still, plenty to do, and right now I'm procrastinating like you wouldn't believe!
So...my Sound off! is 346,987 since June 1st of last year, and hopefully many more to come this year. :) But, uh, I haven't written today yet. ;)

Comments

[unforth.livejournal.com]

Don't scold your brain, it's a good brain. :) Thanks for the f-list - I've returned it, certainly! After all this time... ;)

I learned working consistently the semester I graduated from college (fall, 2004), when I was working 25 hours or more a week, maintaining a whole lot of social commitments, and attempting to get straight A's to improve my GPA. God, that was a nightmare! I didn't even manage the A's, either (I got one A-!). With so little time, I had to budget it all and working over time on all of my school work or else I'd never have gotten any of it done on time. :) At the end of that semester, my grandfather commented at my graduation party that it was very sad that I had stopped writing, and that he thought I had a real gift for it, which started me on the road to starting Ni90! It's funny how things are connected I guess. ;)

[footlingagain.livejournal.com]

It's funny how things are connected

Yes. All roads lead to Ni90 ;-)

And how lovely that your grandfather said something about your writing. And not about that disgraceful A minus! (You know I'm joking - just reading what you managed to do during that time has tired me out! I'm in awe of you, now.)

I'm so glad that you received such encouragement.