The chronicles word counter!

[Boneman]

By Harebrain

That's fantastic - in just a few weeks? Since the wordcount for the first part is going down, you're not just transferring whole chunks between volumes, are you? Are you working on both at the same time?

Of course!! I think I'd gone on too far in the first book, and I realised that 140,102 was a much better place to end than 168,822..... Automatic bonus of the words for book 2. And I'm working on Book one editing only. It's a lot easier with less words, I can tell you....(and I'd be lying!). But it's a great feeling to know that when I've finished, someone has already written 34,00 words for me of book two. I must take my tablets earlier in the day......

 

[Michael01]

It's only been a few days, but I thought I'd check in anyway.

Short story: A Scout's Heart 422/4500 words
status: Reactivated. I'm taking the original 5122-word manuscript and rewriting it to reduce exposition, adjust the pacing, etc.

Novel: Estranged Earth
genre: Dark urban fantasy
word count: Down to 96,323
today: I wrote 1092 words so far. The count is lower because I've removed the first scene of the prologue. I might revise it again later and put it back in. We'll see.

Went to work on chapter 3. I'm going at David's character from a different angle now.

 

[The Judge]

Harebrain, Boneman and Michael - oh and chopper too, though I don't think we've been formally introduced - congratulations to you all. Frankly, I don't know what you guys are taking at the moment, but whatever it is, start pushing some my way!

And Harebrain, it is legitimate to count the discounted words - you have written them after all. (Well, I assume it's you still doing it and not the monkeys with the typewriters!) I imagine that you'll be going into overdrive with March now upon us - or does the Hare spend so much time boxing you can't get him onto the laptop for the month?

J

 

[Michael01]

Frankly, I don't know what you guys are taking at the moment, but whatever it is, start pushing some my way!

I think it might be the lack of substances in my case. I haven't had a cigarette in six weeks and my nicotine receptors are still in overdrive - after all this time!

Heck, I've even cut down my caffeine intake. Instead of drinking caffeinated beverages all day long, I just have two cups of coffee and a cup of regular tea, then have decaf or caffeine free tea (or diet soda when I can afford it) for the rest of the day.

The problem is I'm eating a lot now. Grr!

 

[HareBrain]

Now 41,200. There was more, but the dog ate it.

 

[ctg]

HB, don't feel bad about hitting the low numbers. The important thing is that there is some progression. In past month, I rewrote and edited more then 40 000 words. I think that's a lot, but when you look over all count, I have still only written 51 000 since last November. It's not a lot, is it?

 

[HareBrain]

I dunno ctg, if you spent the last month editing, that's 51,000 in three months, or about 4,000 a week - not too shabby.

I feel I have stalled in the last couple of weeks. We'll see what the next one brings.

 

[ctg]

It is not as fast as I wrote last four version and at back then I managed to write around 5 pages or around 1500 words a day. I can feel the pinch and I dreadfully think about where the hell has my progression gone? Note that there are days when I just write and rewrite and rewrite the same fooking three pages.

 

[Michael01]

Argh! I know how you feel, Ctg. My count isn't rising as much as I'd like right now.

Incidentally, I'm going to show the count differently now. How far I've progressed into the rewrite. I know the original 96,000 words are still there, of course, but they're part of the long, slow road. I'm sure to reach the end soon, though.

Novel: Estranged Earth
genre: Dark urban fantasy
word count: 7100/95,000

 

[chopper]

well i think mine's going to go backwards very shortly as two unfinished chapters are looking at each other rather hungrily.

 

[Michael01]

Galaxy collision imminent!

 

[chopper]

duck, quickly...... (adverb alert)

 

[chopper]

mostly everything else is out by the back door while i tackle a couple more terraforming shorts (these things seem to come in threes!)

Cold Snap
500 words
off the ground, but not quite caught by the wind yet....

Rent (aka: Put the Kettle On)
3000 words, aiming for at least 5k
major revelation led to title change and plot editing, now needs finishing off and bulking out. aiming it at Hub's Bootstrap compo.

 

[MEStaton]

Unfinished
Novel: working title
Genre: Speculative Fiction (Sci-fi)
Current chapter: two
Total count: 6,376 or there abouts
Status: waiting on some feedback from a friend which will probably mean total rewrite.

 

[Jon_Sauve123]

Unfinished
Novel: The Statue
Genre: Fantasy
Word Count: 28,179
Status: Going very smoothly. It's been almost a year since I have found a book that I know I can finish. Should be done with this one if a couple of months. I've been writing five pages almost every day, I started it only two weeks ago so It is going good.

 

[Jon_Sauve123]

I am unable to edit my previous post for some reason, so I guess I'll just have to double post!

Unfinished
Novel: The Statue
Genre: Fantasy
Word Count: 43,581
Status: I am very excited now! Over the past year I've been quite lazy with my writing. Since I finished my last book around summer '08 I have only written about a hundred pages, which is pathetic as I'm usually very prolific. What also excites me is that my writing has seemed to have gotten a lot better. I still make the same old mistakes here and there, such as typing "if" rather than "is" or pausing in the middle of a sentence to think and then typing one or two words over again, but everything seems to flow much more nicely. Its still a rough draft and will need an edit or two before I send it off to anyone, but that's a long ways away seeing as I'm not even halfway done with the book yet.

 

[Hilarious Joke]

Keep going, Jon Suave!!!

 

[Jon_Sauve123]

Keep going, Jon Suave!!!

Indeed!

Unfinished
Novel: The Statue
Genre: Fantasy
Word Count: 69,554
Status: About ten thousand words ago my characters reached the setting where the main part of the story is going to happen. I have a good part of it plotted out but I always leave myself with a bit of room to change things. If I had to guess I would say it is about 2/3 done, and my calculator skills tell me that, if it this is the case, than this book will be 106,000 words. Something tells me it will be longer than that, but that is my prediction for the moment. However long it comes out it will be my second longest book; I doubt it will reach 173,000 words, which is my record.

P.S. How to know if you have found a good story: if you make a goal and you actually hit and even surpass it. My goal was to write at least a hundred pages a month. Tomorrow it will be a month since I started it and I have 115 pages, 120 by then. I hit a huge lazy spell before I started this book and wrote barely anything. This story started as a couple of paragraphs I wrote a long time ago. One day, while stumbling around my documents and feeling quite depressed that none of my projects seemed to be going anywhere, I found the two year old document and read it. The writing was really horrible (almost as if I was drunk or on mushrooms at the time) but I remembered the general story that surrounded it and decided I might as well rewrite at least these two paragraphs so they were not so crappy. And I ended up finding a long sought for outlet for my creativity.

 

[Jon_Sauve123]

Unfinished
Novel: The Statue
Genre: Fantasy
Word Count: 88,229
Status: Getting close to done now. This is somewhat of an anti-epic, sort of like Don Quixote, except that it is much shorter (Quixote is over 400k words). I have now raised my prediction to 110k words. I have estimated that I can do around 20k per week, so I should be finished with this book in 7-8 days. I think the only mistakes I have made in the past were drawing things out or padding them just out of writer's block. But now I seem to have matured and always have the next part plotted out by the end of each day's writing, and I can say without a doubt that this book will fall around the 100-110k mark. We shall see; perhaps I will find something that absolutely positively has to be added, but I doubt it.

Fun fact: this book is now longer than three of my previous ones, and is only 300 words shorter than the next in line. When it is over it will be my second longest book.

 

[Jon_Sauve123]

Finished!
Novel: The Statue March 30th, 2009 - May 10th, 2009
Genre: Fantasy
Word Count: 97,850
Status: A couple of days ago I changed my prediction back to 100k... Usually I either end up way under or over my prediction, but I came really close this time. I could have written only a few pages more and had 100k, but to unnecessarily pad would only serve to make the book less effective. This is my second longest book, which is weird because the scope really isn't as epic as some of my books which are shorter. But honestly I think this is my best book so far. I will wait until I finish my next book (probably about 2 months from now) to edit it as John Jarrold recommends, in order to be able to look at it freshly and without as much emotional attachment.

PS: I'd like to start a tradition/celebration for whenever I finish a book. Any ideas?