One Million Strong · 6:29pm Jan 17th, 2016
Normally I wouldn’t be putting up a Sunday post. But this post is different, different enough that I’m going to make an exception.
Last night, I was lying in bed and thinking about writing things (as usual). The release of Unusual Events, work still to do on Colony, plotting for Shadow of an Empire … even the upcoming LTUE convention near where I live (which I will, sadly, apparently not be paneling at this year, though I will likely still attend).
Anyway, as I was lying in bed trying to sleep (and failing utterly because my mind wouldn’t stop rolling along) I realized something. I’ve hit another milestone. A massive one.
One million published words of fiction.
I had to pause and think about it for a moment. The Dusk Guard: Rise? 275,000 words. The Dusk Guard: Beyond the Borderlands? 300,000. Side stories? 115,000 words. One Drink? 33,000 words. Dead Silver? 139,000. And now Unusual Events: 152,000.
Total? 1,014,000 words. As in one million, fourteen thousand words.
Even better? I’m going to almost double that this year. Colony, slated for a May release at the moment, is 325,000 words. Shadow of an Empire isn’t far enough along to have a dedicated length yet, but given that it’s another Epic and I haven’t written one under 250,000 words yet, it seems a safe bet that it’ll be at least 200,000 words edging on 300,000.
The point to all this, aside from me going “Holy smokes, look at what I wrote?” You can do it if you put your mind to it. A million published words in just a few years is feasible if you’ve got the drive. It’s not about the car you own, it’s not about how many workshops you attend or how much you talk about how hard you’ve been working.
It’s the doing. The sitting down and pushing forward. Not giving up or thinking after an hour “I’ll do that tomorrow.” And eventually, as we push forward, we reach the mountain peak.
And then we find the next one to climb.
Few truer words were spoken.
One million is an excellent number. Congratulations. May you write a million more.
Congratulations!
Grats! That is one heck of a milestone.
If I'm determined enough, I should be able to break 100k lifetime horsewords this year, myself. It'll take a lot of not putting it off until tomorrow, though.
Nice! Just shows what can be accomplished when you keep putting one word after another down and don't stop.
Congrats.