January Word Count Report

So one of my goals for 2010 was to do a better job keeping track of my production.  I figure it makes sense to do a monthly report (as it’s not likely to interest anybody but me, and I figure you’ll let me get away with one of these boring progress reports every four weeks).

In the month of January:

• I finished the first draft of novella Forsaken By Shadow at 36,734 words.  I started this back in September of 09, so it was in production, so to speak, for 130 days of actual writing (though I also wrote a class from scratch during the same time frame, so it’s not QUITE as slow as it might appear).
• I wrote 14,806 words.  This works out to a daily average of 478 words (779 words averaged on the days I actually wrote).
• Of those, 12,787 words actually stayed in the manuscript, for a net loss of 2,019 words.  Well, actually, it may be that I cut and wrote more, but the net difference was 2,019.  I’m kind of interested in following this year how many words I write and then just toss away because they suck.

Overall, I’m very pleased with the start of 2010, considering that I was traveling or sick for a large part of the month (and actually the fact that I was traveling or sick contributed to me being not at work and thus having more writing time, in fact).  Can’t say those same factors did anything great for my weight loss efforts…

Anyway, as of today, February 1st, I’m setting off on draft 2 of First Blood, formerly known as Hunted In Shadow.