Meelion Word Update: January 2012

My boasty-boast New Year’s Resolution to write one million new words in 2012 is off to a rocky start. That’s my writing ego in the picture, taking a punch from Captain Reality.
I started off on fire because I was cranking out the first draft of THE MVP (which goes on pre-sale right here on this site on Super Bowl Saturday, Feb. 4, 9am PT, noon ET, 5pm GMT). When I finished THE MVP, I puttered around a bit reveling in my glory. Well, glory (and FIFA 2012) doesn’t pay the bills, folks. I had a bunch of zero-word days and discovered those are unacceptable if I want to accomplish this crazy goal.
MONTHLY CALCULATION
• I wrote 61,777 words in January.
• I need to write 83,333 words a month to make 1,000,000 for the year
• I am now behind 21,556 words.
DAILY CALCULATION
• I averaged 1,993 words a day (8 pages)
• I am off of the required pace by 1,007 words per day (4 pages)
• To catch up in February, I need to write 2,976 (if I write every day in Feb) + 1,007 (to make up for January deficit) = 3,983 words a day (that’s 16 pages a day)
Impossible? Hardly. Difficult? You bet your country ass it is. I have had plenty of 5k+ days in my career, but an entire month of 4k days is a biggun. Hopefully, I can carve into the deficit in February and finish it off in March.

About The Author

#1 New York Times bestselling author Scott Sigler is probably stalking you right now, looking for a way to steal your soul and sell it at the local Five-And-Dime.

Comments

  1. DEAD_SILVER_EAGLE_BAYL06

    Hey Mister Sigler put down those video games and get to work. Someone has a busy schedule this year. Keep fighting the good fight, YOU CAN DO IT ALL NIGHT LONG!!

  3. Lone_Ghost_Jinn

    Scott, how can you expect us infantile humorists to leave such comedic gold alone as “moving large blocks of text with your mouth alone?”.  I’m still laughing.

  4. Sgtjusticeofthe52ndsuckitdivision

    im not country. i live in the city. i take heavy offence in your mis titleing, i dont know why, i just shall, i have declared my anger and angry i shall be. no look whats happened, im all angry and now i have to go blow somethin up. not because im angry but because explosions are freakin awesome. but they also make me hungry for some reason. now im mad,hungry and somebody has to get blown up. besides the explosions im not having that good of a day, but i am happy that my schools finals are done for the semester, because of all the studying i could go on the website for a week, but now i can. thats good. now im confused d to all of the emotions that i am expierianceing at the same which only makes it worse because its another layer of emotion. i have completely forgot what im am doing now.

  5. scottsigler

    Haven’t tried dictation, but I doubt it would work for me. I write a couple of sentences, go back, edit, delete a sentence, rework another, move them around, etc. This is a constant process. So unless it’s easy for me to move large blocks of text with my mouth (all of you infantile humorists can just leave that one alone, thank you very much), I change my text to often and too fast for dictation software. 

  7. Stormy

    If I have something to write, I can easily to 2, 3, 4k in a day. I’ve had weeks where I did 2-3k each weekday, and took the weekend off – I can’t count on it though, which is why I’m always worried about committing to any kind of stretch goal. -_-

  8. deltrimental

    Have you ever tried dictation? I suffer dreadful writer’s block (ok, procrastination) and I find the best way to kickstart things is by telling a story out loud. I mostly do it in my car, or sometimes the beach, a mountain, the bath, etc. Just find somewhere peaceful where you won’t be interrupted, turn on a recording device and talk up a storm.

    I do it the hard way – transcribing from tape recorder – but most devices these days can turn all your words into text for you. You’d be surprised how many words you can say in half an hour of talking to yourself!
  9. steffiebaby140

    I applaud the work done so far, you’ve just hit a slump..the fire will return!  And until then just write 10 pages about what a leaf looks like, hey Tolkein did it and look how that turned out!  Plus you can always edit it out later lol.

  10. avinjer

    Good luck and happy, er, horrific writing to you. I hope you make your goal and not just because I want to read more Sigler stank.

  11. scottsigler

    Goddamt, @TheNutofRed, that was how I planned to spend March. Thanks for fucking blowing that one for me. 

  12. Rednut

    Go FDØ as long as the last 200,000 words don’t end up being ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES SCOTT A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES SCOTT A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES SCOTT A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES SCOTT A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES SCOTT A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES SCOTT A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES SCOTT A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES SCOTT A DULL BOY

  13. BigJohn

    The bad thing about setting the bar so high is that you might kill yourself trying to achieve it.

    The good thing about setting the bar so high is that even if you don’t make it, you can still look back later and say, “Wow. Look how far I did get!”
  16. NeilColquhoun

    Oh dear… but I’m sure you’ll make it!

    Get stuck right in wee man (said in a Scottish accent… ‘cos that’s where I live… in the land of the brave where men wear plaid kilts).
    Cheers