In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* The novel will wrap today
* Talking numbers
* It doesn’t happen
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
“I view my life as a novel in progress. As I awoke this morning, I anxiously turned the 27,373rd page to see what happens next.” Lars Bagman
I love this quote. In my mind, it’s absolutely true. That’s why I often refer to the difference between “my life/story” vs. “my characters’ life/story.”
I assume the characters’ life (and story) is ongoing even when I’m not checking in on them. So when it’s time again, I just open a door on that world, roll off the parapet into the trenches of their story, and run through the story with them for awhile. I repay them by acting as their stenographer, writing down what happens. Great fun!
“An author who gives a manager or publisher any rights in his work except those immediately and specifically required for its publication or performance is for business purposes an imbecile.” George Bernard Shaw (via The Passive Voice)
Well, it’s been a good run, but I expect the novel will wrap today. The end is in sight. It might have wrapped yesterday, but I’d have had to put about 7000 words total on the page to make that happen, and I’m not up to par with that nonsense yet. (grin)
When I stopped yesterday, I had enough steam left to write maybe another 2000 words or so. But I think I’m between 3000 and 4000 words from the end, so if I’d done that, today would have been a very short day with only maybe a thousand words left to write. I didn’t want to do that.
Given the energy boost that should result from kicking my addiction, I hope to raise my daily goal soon. But we’ll see.
Talking numbers
To hit my annual goal this year, I needed to write 83,334 words of fiction per month on average.
In the first 7 months of the year, I wrote 616349 words of fiction, or an average of 88048 words per month. So I’m ahead of the curve but only barely.
Note that I did that by ignoring the annual and monthly goal. Instead I worked toward a daily word-count goal each day. As Dean Wesley Smith says, “Numbers add up. You only have to let them.”
To exactly hit 1,000,000 words of fiction on the year, I need to write another 383651 words by December 31. Or a monthly average (for the next 5 months) of 76730 words per month. Even with the (maybe) interruption caused by kicking my addiction and the (maybe) ensuing fog, I think I can do that. I guess we’ll see. Aren’t numbers fun? (grin)
Note: I would easily make this a “pulp speed” year if I include both the Journal AND my fiction, as my friend Dean does. In that realm, I have 762779 total words for a monthly average of 108968 per month. But my goal is to make a million words of just fiction. After all, that’s where the challenge is. And for me, that’s where the fun is.
It doesn’t happen very often that I have absolutely nothing new for the “Of Interest” section, but it happened today. Dean’s post wasn’t about writing, the Kill Zone blog hadn’t posted yet as of this writing, and The Passive Voice was all quotes.
So I’m relisting the post from TKZ, complete with the Comments link, because there are some really great comments on that post.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “The How and Why of Epigraphs” (and comments) at https://killzoneblog.com/2021/08/how-and-why-of-epigraphs.html#comments.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 590 words
Writing of WCGN 4: Return to the New Mexico Territory (novel)
Day 1…… 1965 words. Total words to date…… 1965
Day 2…… 2624 words. Total words to date…… 4589
Day 3…… 1824 words. Total words to date…… 6413
Day 4…… 3160 words. Total words to date…… 9573
Day 5…… 3504 words. Total words to date…… 13077
Day 6…… 4704 words. Total words to date…… 17781
Day 7…… 2552 words. Total words to date…… 20333
Day 8…… 2234 words. Total words to date…… 22567
Day 9…… 2227 words. Total words to date…… 24794
Day 10… 3968 words. Total words to date…… 28762
Day 11… 4779 words. Total words to date…… 33541
Day 12… 3875 words. Total words to date…… 37416
Day 13… 3346 words. Total words to date…… 40762
Day 14… 3572 words. Total words to date…… 44334
Total fiction words for August……… 3572
Total fiction words for the year………… 619921
Total nonfiction words for August… 1150
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 147580
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 767501
Calendar Year 2021 Novels to Date…………………… 12
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 1
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 3
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 65
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31
Disclaimer: In this blog, I provide advice on writing fiction. I advocate a technique called Writing Into the Dark. To be crystal clear, WITD is not “the only way” to write, nor will I ever say it is. However, as I am the only writer who advocates WITD both publicly and regularly, I will continue to do so, among myriad other topics.