It is month end, which means another update to my Get Your Words Out tally. Last month was a banner month for writing, and this month I did even better. I’ve been on a few “missions” the last couple of months, which is generating a lot of words. This makes me happy.

My total for the month of June, through about 5pm today, is 40,001 words. WOW! I hit about 35K words last month, which was my biggest month so far. Half of that is some thought and pontificating about changing my life and sharing pieces of myself over at the Diary.  The other half, I am happy to say, are additions to my story All I Wanna Do! I managed to get 2 chapters in last month, which is great! Got to keep it goin’!

My grand total for the year now is 203,927. That means I have fewer than 100K words until I hit my 300,000 mark. Uhm, seriously? I’m totally gonna make that. I have at LEAST 50,000 words left of AIWD, if not more. Plus NaNo is coming up in October- not sure if I am doing it yet, and a friend gave me an idea for something new that’s niggling at me. I’ve been laughing off the idea but damn if it’s not writing itself in my head!

Maybe in July. Maybe.

In all, I’m pleased with the progress! To think I was worried…………

Anyway, my numbers this month turned out pretty well– 39,400 words for the month. Total of 163,926. I am officially OVER halfway to my 300,000 goal. Amazing. Now for sure if I do NaNo this year that will put me over 300K, but I’m not sure I’m doing NaNo. I guess we will see once October comes and we’ll see if I have any ideas.

Til then, onward! I’m still ‘just writing’ and trying to plow through my storyline. Pen in hand,

it’s a loooonnnggg weekend, and coming up on the end of the month, which means a  GYWO word count, yay! I actually got back to some writing this month, which feels good. Getting away from needing a pat on the back for every little step and just… writing (even though I did send a very rough draft to a friend for reading because I am special like that. And she was bored. Sue me), so I’ll be adding more to that story before I go back and edit words out. I wrote them so I am counting them!

I also finished A Reliable Wife this morning. Erm. Interesting. It took me so long to finish this book I don’t even know if I can review it but I will try and post it up here. I might have bought a couple of books today…… okay I did buy a couple of books today. They seem to be oldies but goodies but I flipped through them at Target and they looked interesting. I got The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and Go Ask Alice, author anonymous.

Looking forward to reading them both!

My April numbers show it, I feel. I usually hit about 30K words a month. this month I just barely scraped 25K. Got to get on the ball! Right after I take a nap.

I’ve attached the chart that I use to track and submit my numbers. There are corresponding monthly charts behind it that feed into this one. This just gives me a snapshot of where I am. Almost 50%! WOOO! Even given my slackerificness, I am head of the game.

GYWO_2010_Pledge_Tracker

I’ve had a few people ask me why I count my words. Well, the answer is— because.

No, seriously. To me, it’s something that keeps me writing. It keeps a goal in my head to shoot for. I don’t say ‘I have to write 1900 words today’ and then set out to write that number of words. I just write. And then count the words. It’s interesting to see the numbers I come up with at the end of each month. I can then gauge if I am slacking off or being an overachiever or doing okay.

Anyone that knows me or my writing knows I don’t have issues with word count. I am verbose. Quite. LOL. My goal with this challenge was to do more, shorter projects. And to get myself into a habit of blogging regularly. I’ve tried to update here once a week at least and I try to blog over the The Diary 3 times a week. I count those posts because it is writing that I am doing on purpose. I don’t count my press releases and other work writing because it’s part of my job.

So how did I do?

Total Year to Date Count : 99,190

March Goal: 34,000

March Total: 34,434– I beat Feb’s number by just a few words!

I am 33% of the way toward my goal of 300,000 words…. though, I’d better check because I thought I saw my name under 350K on the Get Your Words Out Site. Which would put me behind.

Anyway, I am right on track, or fairly head actually. I expected to pass 25% this month and I did that, so yay.

As for how I am going to keep this momementum, I’d love to start something new. I just haven’t been inspired much and my mind is still pretty consumed with my long form piece. I put my NaNo aside because it’s driving me nuts that I can’t finish it, but I can’t finish it. Once I finish the long form, I’ll pick it up again. I guess. Or just leave it. I don’t know. It seems to have fizzled.

I could probably write another 100K ords of my longform (seriously) and that leaves about 100K or so for a NaNo 2010 and another big project, about 50K words. So, something to plan for. I also hope to keep entering pieces for publication and sharing my work via Al Gore’s Internets.

Blah blah blah, all about me and more words,

In the month of February, I blogged quite a bit on my personal blog, sometimes managing 7 blogs a week. I also completed a chapter of All I Wanna Do, the epic fanfic that seems like it’s never going to end but will, eventually. I also slaved over my first short story submission, Try to Say No, which I’m particuarly proud of. I’ve heard nothing about it, thus far.

My word count for February comes in at 33, 431, beating January’s 31K by a few thousand. I am at 22% of my goal for the year, which seems about right. At the end of March I should be over 25% of my goal. My YTD count is 64,756.

Sometimes I just can’t believe I write that many words!

I am hoping to get to Chapter 41 this weekend and the beginning of this week and have an update to that story by next weekend. My father is in town so I need to use my time wisely this week!

I wrote!

The heavens parted and words came forth! I wrote!

Praise be to William Shakespeare and Strunk & White, I wrote! Lol.

Have to make a big deal of it, because it’s been so long since words flowed. Crossing my fingers that I can keep up the momentum through the end of the chapter.

Yesterday on my personal blog I was reminded of a weekly story that used to post on Redbook.com I think, every Friday. It was called the Story of V, and I was completely addicted to it. It was more soap opera than literary offering, but I was into it. I’ve come to think of my epic fiction piece as like that story, just a weekly installment of decadent fantasy. And I’d like to be able to offer an update that regularly– not perfect but good enough to read, just to get it out of me. Not worrying about making it sound like a novel, just write and have fun. Fix it in post, lol.

We’ll see. Still working toward short stories, drabbles, writing exercises. TIME! I need more of it. There is a new prompt at Promptedtowrite. We’ll see if I can focus on something long enough to get something out.

Guh. Gonna be late for work. Shower is runninnnnnnnnnng.

Pen in hand,

So, what comprises my word count? Whatever I write on purpose, for pleasure. I include updates to current WIPs, drabbles, writing exercises, book reviews, and blog posts that aren’t written for a specific purpose like some kind of commercial post (which I never do anyway). I also don’t include short ‘hi, bye’ posts. My word count isn’t suffering so I don’t feel the need to waste time sending that through a word counter.

I’ve been doing a TON of writing at work– revamping our website and rewriting all of the content, updating the graphics, etc –and if I could count all of that, my word count would be outrageous. However, that’s writing that I’ve done for work as part of my job and that doesn’t really count for GYWO. I wouldn’t want to count all that anyway, then work writing would fill up my word count and I wouldn’t feel challenged or compelled to write for myself.

So tomorrow the count starts over at ’0′ (figuratively, I’ve no intention of moving my physical counter back, it’s come so far!) and I’ve got to get on the ball with more writing. I feel kind of uninspired lately and oddly I feel this way whenever I spend a lot of time talking to people who are further along this writing journey than I am. I don’t know if it’s a need I have to feel like I’m ahead of someone, or if I feel subconscious competition, or if I just feel like I’ll never be able to do what others are doing but… I always go through a period of doldrums, so I’ve cut myself off from that. I do best when I keep my eyes on my own paper.

As for any ideas of publishing… they’re far off as well. I’ll definitely keep trying to get short stories, etc published but “Same Time Next Week” is in danger of even being finished, let alone published. Not to mention that there’s no way I could even self publish that story. It’s entirely too graphic and I’d be embarrassed. It will sit at the archives and will continue to be my ‘I let it all hang out and I’m proud of it’ piece. Maybe sometime I’ll finish it, I just… I got nothin’ right now. Less than nothin’.

Only thing I do have is a whole month with which to fill with writing! Yay.

Pen in hand,

I started doing this at the beginning of the year, based on a Livejournal community doing the same thing. I missed the deadline by a few days :( so I decided to challenge myself to do it.

The idea is based upon the adage that only 10% of your material will be usable, and if that’s true then the only way to produce quality writing is to write more.  So in order to write more … I uhm…. write. More.

Hence, Get Your Words Out.

What Counts?

For the structured program, any purposeful writing– blogs, snippets, drabbless, short stories, long form, etc.

For me, I count anything I wrote on purpose except for blog posts. And I don’t think I counted anything I wrote for the writing class, since they tended to only be a paragraph or two at most.

My Progress

I started the year with a goal of 200,000 words, mostly because I had just started really writing and wasn’t sure what I was capable of. It sounded like a good, lofty goal that I could work hard to achieve. Months later, I realized I was going to surpass my goal because I am, as they say in literary circles, wordy. *shrug*

I met my goal in May, and reset it to 300,000. I’ll just keep moving it until I hit December 31 and we’ll see where I end up. I plan to do NaNoWriMo this year so that will be 50,000 words– I’m sure to surpass 300.000 by November 30.

Let’s see where I am so far!

Goal: 300,000

Previous Count:249568

New Words:  18613

New Count: 268,271

Words to go: 31,729

I’m very excited about that number! \o/ It represents a lot, for me. Mostly that I am doing something I never thought I could do. And the more I do it, the better I will. get. HUZZAH!

Write on!

Yeah I haven’t updated this count since May 1. Holy goodness. Good news is, I don’t think I’ve written much in the last six weeks, so it should be an easy one!

At the end of April I surpassed my goal of 200,000 words. Uh, that was supposed to be Jan- Dec ya’ll. I’m wordy. So I increased my goal level to 300,000 and kept on truckin.

So, now on……..June 21st, I am going to count everything I’ve written since May 1.

Goal: 300,000

Previous Count:208,562

New Words: 41006

New Count: 249568

Words to go: 50432

I didn’t include a chapter of AIWD because I’m not quite sure I didn’t count it in the May 1 count… it’s fine, I am doing well on my numbers, so if I didn’t count it, it doesn’t matter. This number was boosted by starting a new piece– which I am totally stuck on, now.

So now I am back on track and provided I write something before June 30, I will have another count then.

*Just for my own reference point: counted everything through Ch 19(AIWD)  and page6 (ST)