Meelion Word March: Get the body bag

At the end of 2011, I set a rather ambitious goal of writing 1,000,000 new words of fiction in 2012. Emphasis on the word “new” — editing doesn’t count, blog posts don’t count, the only thing that matters is new words for a piece of fiction.

I posted one update earlier this year, but now I must make the sad declaration: I will not reach this stretch goal in 2012. The “Meelion Word March” is dead.

To make this work, I needed to write 3,000 words a day for 333 days of the year (plus a bonus 1,000 somewhere). That’s about 90,000 words a month. I fell behind early in January and February, and after a low word count in March it was all but finished. I thought I might rally later in the year, but my Eeevil Plan™ failed to take into account two major things: editing, and the tour.

Remember: editing doesn’t count. If I edit, say, 80,000 words for the second draft of THE CRYPT: Book One, then that 80,000 doesn’t count. Editing 80,000 words? Takes more than a day. Takes more than a week. All that time, no new words are being written.

Then, add in the 2012 Tour, both East Coast and West Coast. I’ve tried writing on tour, and it’s a real bitch to make good stuff. I basically wrote nothing on tour. Seeing as we spent upwards of five weeks on tour, six weeks if you count Balticon, ComicCon and Dragon*Con, that’s a lot of lost writing days. Frankly, I didn’t take that into consideration when I did the initial math (because 3,000 words a day is very, very do-able, if that’s all that you do.).

I just received Tha Shiv’s notes for PANDEMIC‘s first draft. That means it’s time for the second draft of PANDEMIC. There will be many new words in there, but I turned in 150,000 words (a 600-page novel) — any edits to those existing 150,000 words will not count.

As we roll into October, I am 410,000 words behind where I should be. Therefore, it’s time to admit defeat, throw in the towel, tap out, etc.

In 2013, maybe I’ll make that the Half Meelion Word March and see if I can achieve the goal.

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Here’s my word count so far this year:

January 61,777
February 76,409
March 6,442
April 50,265
May 60,484
June 47,074
July 75,820
August 19,670
September 0
Total 397,941

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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. Twainy

    Hi! Just got home from work. Got the FDO-mail. Congratulations! That’s a mighty fine word count! I canNOT wait for Pandemic! 600 pages?! Hmph! I could read more. I am SO excited!! That teez-mail will always make me sleep walk over here to say HI!! I miss everyone! G’nite! x

  3. ScottEPond

    I think it really just comes down to priorities and time management… 

      – I mean, come on, why are you wasting 5.6 hours a night sleeping? 
      – Are you taking your laptop into the lou when you make dookie? 
      – You only need one hand to eat… and other things… so use the other to crank out some words (though you may need more editing in this case). 
      – How about quadidextrious training… those damn toes should be doing a heck of a lot more than just helping us balance.

    Right there is equivalent of 6.3 hours extra a day you could be writing. Heck, that would be like 60K extra words a day for a Nathan Lowell… or about 2K for the rest of us mere mortals.   🙂
  5. TheDutchJunkie

    I would also have accepted the following reasons:
    – “A sklorno drooled over my laptop and broke it”
    – “A Ki ate all my drafts (and the neighbours)”
    – “There were triangles appearing on my screen so I had to format my disk”
    – “Cows can breed monsters, I rest my case”
    – “I am the FDO, I need not to explain myself to minions”

  6. Kefo_of_The_Mountain

    Scott,

    Any chance you can hit the 1/2 million mark by the end of this year?  You look so close.
    And Hey,  Edits and promotion of your company are part of the business.  That you do it yourself is part of the reason We follow you.   It was a great goal, and 1/2 million for 2013 sounds like a great goal as well.   
    Remember, it’s not failing at your goals, it’s failing to make goals.  It’s a good goal, you tried, you did not accomplish it, but you tried.  Keep going, try for 1/2 million this year and 1/2 million next year.
    Kefo of the Mountain
    Skybox #18, Krackens Stadium, Ionath