Number Crunching

A couple days ago, one of my writing friends informed me that I've written 978,919 words so far this year. That's almost a million freaking words. With the speed that I write, I'll probably reach the million word mark by the end of the year.

Wow. Definitely not what I expected, and not what I was trying to achieve.

Don't get me wrong– I love looking back on the word counts I have at the end of the day, and I love the sense of pride that comes with a high word count. But what matters to me is liking the words I create. You can write a million words in a day, but if you don't enjoy what you create, is there much of a point?

There are days where I write an entire long scene, am about to count the words for it, realize I don't like how it sounds, and change the entire thing. That actually happened yesterday while I was working on the opening of Areios Brothers 4. I knew something about it didn't feel right, despite the enormity of the scene I'd created, so I scrapped half of it and started over. I've done this with novellas and short stories time and time again, and come up with pretty sad word counts. But I've always looked past that and seen that I created something much better in the end.

So if there are any NaNoWriMo's reading this that aren't happy with your word count, don't stress about it. Be proud of the words you created. What you accomplished wasn't easy, and if you need to take a step back from your novel and think about what you want to say, then do so. When the words come, your fingers will be flying.

In other minor number related news, I'm also taking part in a blog that will hopefully get me some more exposure. It's called Weekend Writing Warriors aka #8Sunday, and the goal is simple: On Sunday, post 8 sentences from a current writing project, published or unpublished. That's it. You can visit other author sites/blogs and offer opinions, critiques, or support. It's all about improvement. My first post will be this coming Sunday, though I'm not sure what I'm going to post. Right now I'm finishing up my last round of edits for Path of the Horseman before I send it to my editor. It'll likely either be something from the Areios Brothers or the next Blood Moon short.

Sorry about the lateness of this post, but I promise to bring you a great review and a WIP snippet this weekend! Take care, all!

Amy