I don’t know what it about round numbers that are significant to people. Last night I hit 75,000 words in my novel. I also hit 73,000 and 74,000 last night, but when I got to 75,000 it felt like I had reached some place and I could stop. Actually when I was at 74,123 and it was time to go to bed, I couldn’t stop, or rather didn’t want to stop.
I was on a roll and I convinced myself that I couldn’t stop. I needed to get the words out. Today I paid the price, trying to focus at work without enough hours of sleep. Now that I’ve reached 75,000 words it feels like the next milestone is 80,000, then 90,000 and 95,000, and final 100,000. Where will I be when I’m done? I’m not sure. I’m writing fairly short chapters, my outline says a total of 92 chapters and I’ve written 63, which should put me at 2/3 of the way through, or 75,000 of 112,500.
I guess that feels about right. I’ll probably drop a few of the chapters in my outline, but I know there are pieces missing from the chapters I’ve already written – mostly Annay’s journal entries. If a 112,500 words is the target, what are the milestones after 100,000? 110,000 and goal to go.
I looked back at my twitter entries and I was at 50,000 April 15th, so 25,000 words in three months. I’m going to really try and get done by the end of summer. That would be 10,000 a week, with a little room to slip. I guess I should stop blogging and start writing. I’ve got 1:15 before warehouse 13 is on.