My entertainment and day job calendar was packed last week which makes me all the more surprised that I managed to break the 4,000 word mark – 4,045 words to be exact. Mostly on Glitch with a tiny bit of revision on In the Shadow of Memories which needs to be finished this week. We went to a lot of fantastic events this week, including some great Vancouver Writers Festival sessions but more on that later. [Metrics Monday – 28th October 2013 by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 28th October 2013]
Metrics Monday – 21st October 2013
Another mediocre week, just 3,527 words on Glitch including a bit of outlining. I did break a couple of milestones. I reached 122,335 words for the year, breaking the 120,000 mark and my previous best of 119,514 words from 2010 when I wrote the original version of The Ghost Smuggler. Interestingly, it’s taken me quite a lot longer to write that many words this time – 198 hours compared to 149 in 2010. Hopefully that’s because I’m focusing on quality rather than quantity. Still plenty of time for writing this year (just not in the next week) so I’m setting my sights on a 150,000 word year. It’s good to have goals, even arbitrary ones. [Metrics Monday – 21st October 2013 by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 21st October 2013]
Metrics Monday – 14th October 2013
Not quite my least productive week since I started my writing streak (which now sits at 106 days) but close. In fact, this week’s total of 3,202 is only 6 words more than my lowest. This week was only saved by the fact that I wrote almost 800 words on the ferry on the way to Victoria, and managed to stay awake long enough on Sunday night to add 677 words – a lot more than I was expecting. Still, I’ve broken the 20,000 word mark on Glitch Mitchell and the Planet Within (working title). I don’t have high hopes for this week either, I have a day off but I’m also going to very busy with a day job project. [Metrics Monday – 14th October 2013 by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 14th October 2013]
One Hundred Days of Writing
I wrote 569 more words on Glitch today – making this the 100th consecutive day of writing. I started the streak on the 30th June and have written every day since then. Total word count is 73,655 or 737 words per day. Here’s the graph of those words – for the most part, these metrics don’t include words written while I was revising a story. (Click for a bigger version) The very low word count on day 51 (August 19th), was a pure revision session focusing on cutting out words rather than writing new ones. That writing took me 114 hours 27 minutes which is about 644 words per hour. You can see the breakdown by day in this graph which includes time spent revising. (Click for a bigger version) During that time I finished the first draft of The Ghost Smuggler (34,250 words) and started nine short stories and what will eventually be a full length novel – Glitch Mitchell and the Planet Within (working title). Six of the short stories are finished and one of them has been sold. This isn’t my longest streak. That record was set in 2010 when I wrote for 197 days (I wasn’t paying … Read More
Metrics Monday – 7th October 2013
Another very busy week, but I did manage to continue my writing streak – bringing it to 99 days. Total word count for this week was a respectable (for me) 4,502. Most of that was spent working on Glitch but I did revise a flash piece I’ve been working on called The Ride. This week will be hectic. I’ve got a lot of day job work to be done, especially as I’ll be out of town for a few days at the end of the week running the Victoria Marathon for the second time. [Metrics Monday – 7th October 2013 by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 7th October 2013]
Metrics Monday – 30th September 2013
Not a great week from a writing perspective, just 3,619 words. Most of my spare time was taken up with a new day job project. It isn’t the least productive week I’ve had but it’s close (I had a 3,196 word week six weeks ago). Still, I continued my writing streak (92 days and counting) and broke the 12,000 word mark on Glitch. I did spend a big chunk of time writing yesterday; revising and sending out my monster story, Saviour. That’s the eighth story I’ve written this year and I still have four more first drafts to revise. My total word count for the year is 111,072 words. I should easily smash through my previous record of 119,514 words set in 2010. Overall, my renewed focus on writing is making for a very productive year. More importantly, I’m really enjoying writing. More and more I’m choosing to write over TV or videogames, rather than having to force myself to put them aside. [Metrics Monday – 30th September 2013 by Philip Harris was first posted on Solitary Mindset on 30th September 2013]
Monday Metrics – 23rd September 2013
All Glitch all the time. Thanks to two surprisingly good days, I managed 5,840 words on Glitch this week, bringing the total word count up to 8,702 (plus 1,000 words or so of outline). This week should be better – I’ve got a couple of days off from running (although I’ve got a splitting headache this evening that may scupper my chances of getting a good start to the week. I’ve got three stories I need to edit this week and my secret day job prototype has transformed into a secret day job project so that will eat up some of my mindspace, if not my time. [Monday Metrics – 23rd September 2013 by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 23rd September 2013]
Monday Metrics – 16th September 2013
After a slow start, last week turned out to be very productive – 7,267 words. That’s my second most productive week of the year, my best being the 8,871 word week I managed at the beginning of August. The first couple of days went how I expected, very low word counts, but on Wednesday evening I found myself home alone and hammered out a respectable 1,436 words on my monster story, Saviour. My Thursday and Friday sessions also went better than expected and I was able to wrap up the first draft. I’d realised I needed to make some changes to In the Shadow of Memories so I did those on Saturday morning which meant all my in-progress stories were at the first draft stage and I needed something new. I’ve been toying with an idea for an episodic science fiction novella for a while. I had a very rough outline and the opening 3-400 words but not a lot else so I spent about two and a half hours on Saturday doing a much more detailed outline. The structure is fairly complicated so I ended up having to use a spreadsheet. By the time I’d finished I had the structure sorted … Read More
Monday Metrics – 9th September 2013
As expected, not a very productive week, writing wise, although at 3,923 words it’s not my least productive week and I hit day 70 in my writing streak. Apart from the one productive day on Tuesday, I’ve been limited to scraping together half an hour here and there to pound out a few paragraphs. What I have found is that limited time helps me focus and my words per hour rate is generally pretty good. I know I don’t have a lot of time so I don’t let myself get distracted. I worked on four stories this week, the final revisions of The Bone Boy, finishing off the first draft of In the Shadow of Memories, outlining and writing a new flash piece tentatively called The Ride and working on my monster story, Saviour. The Ride is out for feedback, Saviour still has a way to go and I’ve realised I need to rework a chunk of Memories. I also started doing some research for my next big project. It’s going to be busy week and I won’t be taking any time off so I’m expecting another low word count week but we’ll see how it goes. [Monday metrics – 9th September 2013 by Philip Harris … Read More
Monday Metrics – 2nd September 2013
If my writing was a starship most of its systems would be turned off to conserve energy and life support would be at a minimum, just enough to keep the crew alive. I did manage to get down a respectable 4,108 words this week but my writing time is severely constrained at the moment. I’ve got two prototypes I’m building for work, plus a presentation to create for a keynote speech I’m giving in three weeks. All of the writing I did manage was on my new science fiction story, tentatively titled In the Shadow of Memories. I should be able to get that finished in the next couple of days and then I need to revise The Bone Boy. I’m expecting next week’s wordcount to be a bit lower, despite the fact that I have a four writing deadlines looming. I’m also unlikely to be able to blog much. [Monday Metrics – 2nd August 2013 by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 2 August 2013]