I’m back in the saddle folks, and the new book is OFF to the races. It took me a while to find the “angle” on it. I think I’ve found it, and I’m settling into it nicely. Beast Mode lives on.
For reading, I started reading Vol. 8 of IDW’s TMNT.
For data analysis, I did some more digging into my dictation word counts. I dictated for an hour this afternoon and did some number crunching.
65 minutes
3800 words (before running my dictation macro)
2700 words remaining (after running the dictation macro)
2700/3800 = 71% keep rate.
The keep rate is the number of words that remain after running my dictation macro. My first session today was not as tight as usual (only because it’s my first dictation session in 6 days), so I think I can get my keep rate somewhere around 75%-80%.
This is a powerful number to know because:
* I know how many words I can dictate per hour on average (somewhere between 2700 and 3500)
* I can project how many words I can write in any given time. 30 minutes will get me somewhere around 1350 and 1750 words. 2 hours will get more somewhere around 5400 and 7000 words.
So, if I set a goal to dictate for at least 2 hours per day, it would pour gasoline on my numbers. I could be looking at 37,800 to 49,000 words per week. Yikes.
Anyway, these are useful statistics to know. I put together an Excel sheet that will now allow me to track my daily word counts in a way that is far more meaningful to me than how Scrivener tracks it. You can see the new tracker below. It’s not a perfect copy/paste, but you get the idea.
I decided to blow up my word count numbers at the bottom of the post and start fresh. I reset my plan to end on 12/31/2023. My goal is now 1.25 MILLION words by end of next year, which is basically 1 million words between 1/1 and 12/31. To give you a comparison, I wrote around 600,000 words last year. I’m attempting to double my word count. But I can’t do that unless I start tracking my words better. I want to start tracking them now so I don’t have to wait.
For marketing, I got some feedback on my book description for Year of the Rat. I rewrote it and it’s much better now.
Also, I spoke at Writer’s Digest virtual Science Fiction & Fantasy Writing conference today. My topic was “Lessons Learned After a Decade in Science Fiction & Fantasy.” It was a fun talk and I got some great questions afterward.
I also got a podcast interview invitation as well as another speaking engagement. Crazy how they keep rolling in, but I expect things to die down soon.
For production, I wrote 5200 words today.
Here’s a quick overview of my numbers that will be at the bottom of every post starting tonight. It’s going to look awkward until we hit 1/1 but it’ll be worth it.
YTD Word Count: Words I’ve written to date. Yes, I am resetting the number so it’s going to look crazy low…I was around 375,000 words for the year so far before I hit the reset button. I’ll reset things again on 1/1 so it will be cleaner moving forward, so bear with me.
Plan: 1.25M—the number of words I want to write before end of next year (12/31/23).
Words Over/Under Plan: How many words I am at in comparison to where I SHOULD be. For example, my quota is now 2750 words per day now that my voice recorder dictation has doubled my word counts. If I write 3200 words today, I am 550 words over where I should be, which means I have a 550 word surplus.
Days Ahead/Behind: This is the Words Over/Under but quantified in days. If I write 3200 words today, it means I am 0.20 days ahead of schedule. That means if I have a zero word day, it won’t hit me as hard. My goal is to develop the biggest surplus I can. On the other side, if I am running several days behind hitting the plan, I want to know that so I can plan to catch up.
Projected Annual/Decade Word Count: The number I will hit if I hit my minimum quota of 2750 words every day for a year and a decade, respectively. Keeping the 10-year view in mind is super helpful.
Anyhoo, that’s what I’m thinking about today, and I am back in action.
Have a good night.
YTD Word Count: 5,200
Plan: 1,252,000
Words Over/-Under Plan: 2,450
Days Ahead/-Behind: 0.89
Projected Annual Word Count: 1,528,800
Projected Decade Word Count: 15,288,000
Deadline 12/31/2023
Days to Go Until 12/31/23: 490
