I started a new short story, and the stats show it.

WORDS WRITTEN: 3735

HOURS SPENT WRITING: 13.3

WORDS/HOUR: 280.8

I spent August working through the snowflake method to plan a novel.  I am now somewhere between steps 5 and 6, which is to say that I’ve written a character synopsis for my main character the length of the plot synopsis in part 6 and several but not all of my one-page character summaries for the other characters.  As such, I have written lots of words, but none that I can count towards word count.  My plan, BTW, is to finish the character summaries, call steps 5 and 6 done, skip step 7, and go straight to step 8, listing the scenes in the novel.  Then I will be ready to start writing it.

However, I had a short story idea come to me, so that may get written first.

Either way, I expect to generate some actual word count this month.

WORDS WRITTEN: 0

HOURS SPENT WRITING: 12.5

WORDS/HOUR: 0

How the heck did it get to be July?  I must be having fun, because time is passing rapidly.

Here are my stats for June.  Once again, editing and planning have reduced my word count.  Writing less often has been the bigger hit, however.  And now that I know what I *can* do when I write every day … months like this are disappointing.  The bar has been raised, my friends.  The bar has been raised.

WORDS WRITTEN: 1961

HOURS SPENT WRITING: 17.7

WORDS/HOUR: 111

Here are my stats for May.  My words/hour ratio is lower than April because I spent the month editing two stories.  But I almost got in my age-old goal of an hour a day (although the current goal is 100 words a day, which seems to work a lot better).

WORDS WRITTEN: 5794

HOURS SPENT WRITING: 27.3

WORDS/HOUR: 206

Here are my stats for April.  Late and low this month, for reasons that will be explained in my next post.  My words/hour ratio is better than March, mostly because I was writing something new instead of revising.

WORDS WRITTEN: 3053

HOURS SPENT WRITING: 12.1

WORDS/HOUR: 252

Here are my stats for March. Less productive than February. I’ve found that trying to write 100 words a day is not a good metric when I’m in revision mode, which is where I am now on two stories. It’s also not a good metric when I’m in deep thought mode, which is where I also was on one of those stories. But, when I’m in writing mode, it works insanely well. And, since I’m now in writing mode for a new project … I’m hoping April will go well!

WORDS WRITTEN: 2261

HOURS SPENT WRITING: 16.9

Here are my stats for February.  I almost reached the mythical “write an hour a day”.  Not enough hours left in the month to actually reach that goal, though …

WORDS WRITTEN: 4973

HOURS SPENT WRITING: 24.7

I’ve started this system where I’m writing at least 100 words a day instead of saving up my writing for when I have a big chunk of time.  I’ve found that I can add 100 words to a story pretty quickly – 10 or 15 minutes – which is doable, even after a long day of work.  I’ve also found that I think about my stories more because I’m working on them daily.  The drawback is that when I’m in polishing mode, I have to start another story at the same time.  But that has a silver lining: it means I’ve got another story started.  Anyway, in January I finished one story and started another.  Here are the month’s stats:

WORDS WRITTEN: 5892

HOURS SPENT WRITING: 21.1