Writing Stats.
Like
many men, I am fascinated by statistics. One of the ways I display this
fascination is by keeping a record of the number of words I write each day.
This record includes both fiction writing and the writing of articles for the
Divine website.
Recently
I checked my word count record and found I had written at least 10 words on each of the last 366 days. So I have fulfilled the
Norman Mailer quote stuck to the bottom of my computer monitor that
says “a real writer produces work even on bad days.”
I
totalled up the number of words for the past year and it came to 128,000, which is 349 words a day. Now if only it was a1000 words a day, then I might get somewhere.
Oh,
and I have just clicked over the 100,000
words on the novel I am writing.
Adventures in
Dentistry.
This
week I had my 23rd
article posted on the Divine website.
The article is about my adventures using the public dental system. It
contains a few numbers like 6090,
which is the number of dollars quoted by my dentist to fix my teeth.
I
left out a few numbers from the article like on Monday I will be heading down to Melbourne for the 16th time to see a dentist since
April last year. It will be my 26th
dentist appointment in that time.
Word Counts in
Ebooks.
I
do wish the people who format anthologies into ebooks shared my enthusiasm for
numbers. Then they could include a word count under the title of each story in
the anthology to let me know how long the story is. Ebook anthologies don’t
have page numbers in their tables of contents (at least the ones I checked
didn’t). So the only way of knowing the length of a story is to laboriously click
through each page until the end. I want an easier way to figure out whether I
have time to read a story.
Those
of you who trawl through my longer blog posts will probably be very happy that
this one is a brief 361 words.
5 comments:
Thanks Graham on your post on statistics ... in a former life before I was a teacher and a writer, I was a bank Johnny and a statistician. I still retain a love of numbers too.
Yes I agree eBook anthologies should have word count or a page numbering system... Karen :)
Many don't even have a Table of Contents, which makes looking for a story really difficult!
Love the Mailer quote. I guess if you even it out like that, it makes it seem like work achieved.
Congrats on your Divine article. You've done very well with them.
I don't read ebooks, but a word count is a good idea. A book size will determine if I buy it or not, so makes sense.
Short is good, unless its really justified.
No table of contents, ahhh, that would really annoy me.
I agree Anthony, short is good. Only when the book is so good that you miss it when you finish it - like The Passage by Justin Cronin - is very long good.
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