On to 2014!

So, this post will be a little bit of writerly bragging. Feel free to skip if you don’t enjoy that sort of thing.

I tallied up my word count for this year, to see exactly what I accomplished. As for revised works (things I would actually show someone other than my CP), I wrote a total of 195,328 words. Those words make up two complete novels and one novella. Not too shabby.

As for first drafts, things that won’t be ready for anyone to see for another two (or three) passes: I wrote 161,060 words. Those make up one complete novel, two novellas, and half of a novel. Again, not too bad.

So grand total for 2013: 356,388 words. Give or take a hundred here or there. 🙂

For next year, I plan to write even more. And yes, I have more romance novel talk and indolence planned for the blog as well.

If everything goes well next year, some of those words might even be published. As a palate cleanser, I’ve been reading quite a bit of George Orwell these days. For taking a break from romance and old science papers, there’s nothing quite like his prose. I came across this advice from him in Politics and the English Language which strikes me as excellent for writers of all kinds:

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

I’ll leave behind 2013 pondering that very excellent advice and wish all of you reading a happy and healthy 2014!