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"Hard is not hopeless." - General David Petraeus



Monday, December 12, 2011

Surprising Word Count Progress in 2011

I have to admit, I enter the end of this year utterly (and pleasantly) surprised.  By the time December 31st rolls around, I will have gotten over 125,000 words down on paper this year! 8-)

The only negative to that is that those 125,000 words are spread over four different projects, which means I did not complete any one manuscript.  But this has been a phenomenal breakthrough for me, if you consider that this is more than THREE TIMES as many words as I got in last year (and last year was far better than the previous several years).

When people give aspiring writers advice and tell them that the process of building a writing career takes years, it is no joke.  I started seriously pursuing writing in 2002, initially with screenplays then switched to my true love, novels, in 2005.  And from the time I switched to novel writing, it took me SIX YEARS to complete my first manuscript.

Now there's no rule that says you can't take six years to write a book.  But I ain't gettin' any younger. 8-)  I had actually hoped to finish the first draft of a complete manuscript this year, but it wasn't meant to be.  But I still got a whole lot closer than I ever have before.

Now what remains is to decide how to set my writing goals for 2012.  I'll get to that on the next post.

I'm just elated (and very grateful) that during all the hardships and tremendous stresses of this year, that even so, I managed to get a solid word count in.  Besides reminding me that I am blessed (no matter how ungrateful I act toward God sometimes), it also proves to me that though sometimes it doesn't feel like I'm making any progress, I HAVE been diligent in pursuing my career with all the means I can muster, in the midst of many other responsibilities.  It is also proof that you can find time to write when you want it bad enough.

Now on to setting those 2012 writing goals...

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