A Year of Blathering On

 
A recent blog post (though it may have been her post a week before) made me curious how many words did I really write last year?
 
I know I wrote a somewhat lackluster 119,963 words of fiction last year. That’s new words, written in the first draft of Gunwitch2 and the first third or so of GoSH2. I almost always add ~1% to the total word count of a novel when I edit it for publication, but I never count those words. First draft words only.
 
But … even ignoring those added-in-editing words, what about all the other words I write? Journal entries? Programming notes? Designing/outlining/brainstorming? What does all of that add up to?
 
I’ve been keeping a personal journal since 1993 and a professional journal since 1996. And starting in 1999, when I became self-employed, it became hard to tell which was which. Still, I have separate categories for them in The Journal. (And, fortunately, The Journal makes it very easy to count everything.)
 
2012

Personal Journaling – 16,600 words
Professional Journaling – 63,000
The Journal Newsletter – 4300
Writing Journal – 24,400
Writing Brainstorming/Outlining – 51,300
Blogging – 19,000
Gaming Notes – 25,700

 
Total: 204,300 words
 
And that doesn’t include forum posts, customer support emails for The Journal, and other misc writing that is hard to track.
 
So, I really wrote about 325,000 – 335,000 words in 2012. Just not all of them fiction.
 
There. Now I know.
 
And now you know.
 
Sadly, I’m not sure what either of us is supposed to glean from this exercise.
 
-David
 
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A Word From Our Sponsor: The Journal 6 is Now Available!Piles of WordsThe Trackless Sea of WordsEbook Pricing Update – 2012 Q1Talking to Myself Blindly in the Dark