It begins with a whimper. I can’t believe I set myself such an insane goal of writing 100,000 words over the course of the next year. When you sit down and start thinking about writing, most non-writers don’t think in terms of word count. Instead, we think about pages or paragraphs or even posts that we have to do. The vast majority of papers that I have written as assignments for school are tied to a page count, and we all played the games of font size and spacing (“Can I get away with 2.25 spacing?”) to reach the end without having to, y’know, write more.
Anyways, what’s a 100,000 words between friends, right? Well, I dug up a spiffy chart from Pen Points through Google. A short story runs about 5,000 words, a hard-cover novel runs about 80,000, and a non-fiction book runs about 120,000 words in ballpark numbers. I’m trying to write a non-fiction book when my previous total output for a year has been approximately the size of a novellete (my thesis was about 50 pages including supporting data so it’s pushing it). My advantages are that I don’t have to stay on subject for every single word and … that’s pretty much it. My disadvantages are that I’m lazy and don’t like speaking my arguments opinions much less put them on electrons where even I can see that they are “doh” worthy.
There’s a reason that I set this kind of goal though. I have often expressed disappointment with myself that I was content to remain a consumer of entertainment and other things. I want to change to being a producer whether for other’s consumption or not. The best way to do that is to practice, and set some kind of goal for myself. Unfortunately, I had just read John Scalzi on his word counts, and had some kind of delusional idea that I could produce a sixth of the output of an established writer. “I don’t do drugs, though. Just weed.”
What it all comes down to is I think that I can do 274 words per day for one year. It’ll help my writing, critical thinking skills, and show some kind of dedication to something other than the pursuit of the sweet stuff and video gaming. Here’s to the New Year and the first of my goals for self-improvement.
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Tags: Life, Web site by uruloki
3 Comments »
All of this was with lagtimes in the 1 to 1.6 seconds with occasional spikes to 3+. Playing with less than 1s when I get home will make me feel like f’n Superman. 
I have the basics down for the site, now I need to convert it to use The Loop instead of static content that I plugged in to test and version 0.1 is ready to roll.