I’ve been looking at my word count spreadsheet for last year and here’s some numbers. This is excluding any blogging, promo, ghostwriting or the MA writing. It’s only my own fiction words:
During the year I wrote 199015 words which is an average per week of 3827 words per week
The most words written in one week was 26393 during week of 24 October which was also incidentally the Clacton writers retreat weekend during which I wrote 14000 words.
The fewest words written in one week was 0 and I did this for 11 weeks during which I did: edits of existing WIPs, beta reading, MA assignments, had a holiday of reading and relaxing.
The words I wrote on my own fiction consisted of:
What about for 2017?
I’ve seen some other author friends, who also work full time, state publicly they’ll write 1000 words per day. I won’t actually write 1000 every day because that’s not how I write. I tend to binge write and then have a break between WIPs. But as an average over the year I think 7000 a week is manageable.
I know other authors who write full time who can write between 600000 to a million words in a year. I don’t doubt that if I were to write full time I could average 5000 words a day over 5 days a week which in theory would be about a million words - allowing time for days of editing and promo. However, as the phrase goes, ‘If my uncle had t**s he’d be my auntie.’ And I don’t write full time, I’m being pragmatic and sticking to my 364000 word annual target.
I’m not going to track blog post words or promo words because although they are still words and it is still writing, that’s not what I’m really interested in monitoring.
Hopefully this will keep me focussed on writing fiction words and remind me of this when I’m mincing about on the internet or debating penning a long blog post about something or the other.
I went to a great afternoon tea event in 2016 and Victoria Connelly gave a great talk about writers getting back to the writing. She mentioned Miss Read, a prolific author who always said that writers write. Victoria Connelly updated this with some words of advice that now, authors are asked to promote, publish, social media, blog everything.
She ended by saying that really readers don’t want another blog post, they want another book. This is going to be my guiding principal for 2017.
In the meantime, if you fancy something to warm your heart, in two different ways, I thought I'd remind everyone about my two popular novellas:
Love and light!
xx
During the year I wrote 199015 words which is an average per week of 3827 words per week
The most words written in one week was 26393 during week of 24 October which was also incidentally the Clacton writers retreat weekend during which I wrote 14000 words.
The fewest words written in one week was 0 and I did this for 11 weeks during which I did: edits of existing WIPs, beta reading, MA assignments, had a holiday of reading and relaxing.
The words I wrote on my own fiction consisted of:
- Looking for Love In Levi, a short story 2500
- Imploding Marriage first few chapters of a chick lit novel 4500
- Two Big Ifs – Hacienda story 63000
- Ibiza Story 45000
- A New Life For Christmas novella 38000
- M/F romance set in a hospital 50000
What about for 2017?
I’ve seen some other author friends, who also work full time, state publicly they’ll write 1000 words per day. I won’t actually write 1000 every day because that’s not how I write. I tend to binge write and then have a break between WIPs. But as an average over the year I think 7000 a week is manageable.
I know other authors who write full time who can write between 600000 to a million words in a year. I don’t doubt that if I were to write full time I could average 5000 words a day over 5 days a week which in theory would be about a million words - allowing time for days of editing and promo. However, as the phrase goes, ‘If my uncle had t**s he’d be my auntie.’ And I don’t write full time, I’m being pragmatic and sticking to my 364000 word annual target.
I’m not going to track blog post words or promo words because although they are still words and it is still writing, that’s not what I’m really interested in monitoring.
Hopefully this will keep me focussed on writing fiction words and remind me of this when I’m mincing about on the internet or debating penning a long blog post about something or the other.
I went to a great afternoon tea event in 2016 and Victoria Connelly gave a great talk about writers getting back to the writing. She mentioned Miss Read, a prolific author who always said that writers write. Victoria Connelly updated this with some words of advice that now, authors are asked to promote, publish, social media, blog everything.
She ended by saying that really readers don’t want another blog post, they want another book. This is going to be my guiding principal for 2017.
In the meantime, if you fancy something to warm your heart, in two different ways, I thought I'd remind everyone about my two popular novellas:
- Heat Wave Astoria - a sizzling heat wave and gay romance Buy links: JMS Books Amazon.com Amazon.co.uk
- A New Life for Christmas - a gay romance life swap novella for anyone who enjoyed the fabulous film The Holiday as it's inspired by that. Buy links: Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk
Love and light!
xx
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