In today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* 20Books Vegas 2022
* Daily Word Counts
* Favorite Writing Spots
* Of Interest
Quote of the Day
“Between exhaustion from completing a readable draft of a novel on deadline and the confusion caused by having too many critical voices in my head (thanks, workshop), I didn’t know where to begin, let alone how to get to The End of something.” Matthew Duffus (emphasis mine)
20Books Vegas 2022
For any of you who might be interested, the first video for the 2022 20Booksto50k conference in Las Vegas is up.
See “20Books Vegas 2022 Day 1 – Opening Ceremonies & High Powered Authors Panel” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHyiwwKlcD4. The High Powered Authors Panel begins at about 26:00 minutes into the video.
If you look below the video on the left, someone posted a timeline there so you can see specific topics and times.
I also stumbled upon some other links I thought you might like. One is titled “14 Strategies for Indie Author Success,” though you might want to take it with a grain of salt as it’s posted on a site called IndieReader. I’m always skeptical of non-writers (even readers) presuming to teach writers how to be successful, but this particular post is written by Penny Sansevieri, the marketing guru behind Author Marketing Experts.
Daily Word Counts
There’s also a link to an interesting post titled “The Daily Word Counts of 19 Famous Writers.” Be prepared to be gagged by clichés though. The post is riddled with them.
Also understand that some of the numbers are averages and nothing else. Tom Wolfe’s daily word count is listed as 135. That has to be the average the author of the article came up with by dividing 370,000 words by 11 years.
The author also got the math wrong. By my calculator, writing 135 words per day and 365 days per year for 11 years will net the writer over 542,000 words. To write 370,000 words in that same time period requires only 92 words per day. Does any of this matter? Of course not. I seriously doubt any writer ever set a daily word count goal of 135 words. To hit that goal, you’d have to write for about 8 minutes. Ahh! What a sense of accomplishment! (grin)
According to the article (and to his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft) Stephen King, a highly prolific author, has a goal of 2000 words per day. That doesn’t sound like much, until you realize that’s actually 180,000 words in 3 months.
I’m not sure what to think about Ernest Hemingway’s supposed 500 words per day, considering that he wrote about six HOURS per day. That’s what, about 83 words per hour or 1.4 words per second? Makes my silly 17 words per minute seem like light speed.
I’ve always opted for setting my daily word count goal a little high (but still attainable), something that will make me stretch to stay in the chair a little longer. My daily goal is currently 3500 words, but lately I’ve seldom reached it and, frankly, I didn’t care.
For several years my daily goal was 3,000 words per day, and that seemed about right. Sometimes I shot far past it, but most times I was very close to it.
The point is, if you don’t want your goal to “stretch” you, that’s fine. There is value in setting a daily goal you can attain with relative ease. Then the real goal becomes attaining that word count every day and establishing a streak.
Favorite Writing Spots
There’s also a link to a post about favorite writing spots. Do you have a favorite writing spot?
Mine used to be the Hovel, an adobe mud building with thick walls and the atmosphere of a 19th century saloon in the Arizona Territory. Today I still write in the Hovel most of the time, but really I enjoy writing pretty much anyplace that’s generally free of distractions. I often write in a surprisingly comfortable metal rocking chair just outside the back door of my house.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “Fear Thesaurus Entry: Rejection” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/fear-thesaurus-entry-rejection/. Not about writers, but writing.
See “Tips For Indie Author Success And 20 Books To 50K With Craig Martelle” at https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2022/02/21/tips-for-indie-author-success/.
See “14 Strategies for Indie Author Success” at https://indiereader.com/2018/03/14-strategies-indie-author-success/.
See “The Daily Word Counts of 19 Famous Writers” at https://wordcounter.net/blog/2017/12/04/103207_the-daily-word-counts-of-19-famous-writers.html.
See “8 Famous Authors and Their Favorite Writing Spots” at https://wordcounter.net/blog/2017/10/23/103161_8-famous-authors-and-their-favorite-writing-spots.html.
See “How to Get Back to Writing” at https://www.janefriedman.com/how-to-get-back-to-writing/. Note that the author, an MFA graduate, has written ONE novel, compiled ONE collection of short fiction and ONE poetry chapbook, and works as the Writing Center Director at Earlham College in Richmond Indiana. He also offers book coaching and editing services. Seriously?
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 760 words
Writing of Santa Fe (novel, tentative title)
Day 1…… 3877 words. Total words to date…… 3877
Day 2…… 3460 words. Total words to date…… 7337
Total fiction words for November……… 44214
Total fiction words for the year………… 205739
Total nonfiction words for November… 19210
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 194840
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 400579
Calendar Year 2022 Novels to Date…………………… 2
Calendar Year 2022 Novellas to Date……………… 0
Calendar Year 2022 Short Stories to Date… 0
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 68
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31
Disclaimer: In this blog I share my experiences, good and bad, as a prolific professional fiction writer. Because It Makes Sense, I trust my characters to tell the story that they, not I, are living. This greatly increases my productivity and provides the fastest possible ascension along the learning curve of Craft because I get a great deal more practice at actually writing.