Introducing: The Novel
I started the novel last year, when I applied to Clarion West and I used Chapter One in my application. A year later, I *know* I've written more than what this word meter shows, but I don't want to count them all because I've thrown too many into my *delete* file and if I start counting I'll be horrified. It's a big file.
So, since last year, I've finished my honours, applied for (and won) a post-grad scholarship, done some research into steampunk, written my PhD proposal, written a 5000 word paper on the history of steampunk, created some characters and a setting, built a world, figured out a very malleable plot, and spent six weeks at Clarion West in Seattle. Then I came back from Clarion and rewrote the plot, killed some characters and discovered some new ones. All excuses why I haven't got a bigger word count.
However, I'm chuffed that, in Seattle, I wrote five short stories which I think I can rewrite into something worth submitting. I've already rewritten one, and I'm letting that cure for just a little longer before sending it out after Christmas.
Back to the word count...
To date, I have 17,022 words that I'm keeping for my first draft. My aim is to write at least 500 words per day until it's finished. Though, since I started seriously counting words about a week ago, I've been doing about 1000 to 2000 words a day, but Christmas is ready to pounce and after that, I'm off for three weeks on the BIG HIKE. But till then, I'm counting words so I won't trick myself into making up any more excuses. Even when I've got the yearly progress report to write. And the polished-up 5000 word writing sample. I'm still going to write at least 500 new words a day.
That's the goal.
And thanks to Writeropia for the word meter.