Another Spreadsheet Revelation

December 12, 2024 by Harvey

In Today’s Journal

* Another Spreadsheet Revelation
* Results Begin to Trickle In
* The Writing
* The Numbers

Another Spreadsheet Revelation

Sigh. But that’s all right. I promised to share lows (and errors) as well as highs in the hope that both would cut the learning curve for someone, so here goes.

Yesterday, I glanced back over my entire annual spreadsheet for this year. And I started thinking (with a frown), How in the world can I be so close to going over 1,000,000 words on the year when I’ve had several paltry months?

I mean, in four of those months I didn’t even break 50,000 words. In another month I only hit 52,000, and in another one only 61,000. When your goal is a million words on the year, that’s bad math.

I exceeded 100,000 words only in January. In the other five months my count fell between 78,000 and 96,000.

Um, nope. No way.

Math is an exacting and unforgiving mistress.

If you want to hit 1,000,000 words in a calendar year, you HAVE to average 83,334 words per month. Or you have to average 2740 words per day for 365 days.

So I went over the “big” numbers on my spreadsheet. Lo and behold, somewhere back along the line—specifically because of an erroneous and unnecessary formula I entered—I was double-dipping on some of my fiction numbers.

I have one formula that keeps a running total of the annual numbers for the year. It does that each day by automatically adding whatever fiction I’ve written for the day to the total number of fiction words I wrote during the previous month.

Foolproof, right?

Well, it would have been foolproof, but in a moment of brilliance back in June or July or August, I used another of those alluring empty cells on the spreadsheet to enter yet another formula. The extra formula wasn’t there very long because it only added around 200,000 words.

I’ve already said that formula not only spouted erroneous numbers (actually, correct numbers, but duplicated), but it was also unnecessary.

I won’t go into the grisly details. Just know that as a result, in the spreadsheet I was inadvertently counting some of the numbers twice.

So the “bad” news is that I’m a LONG way from writing 1,000,000 words of fiction this year. Still, I’ll take the 791181 (so far). But I’m pretty sure I’m not gonna write another 208819 words of fiction in the next 20 days. (grin)

That would require an average of 10,441 words per day. I mean, blessings on those prolific old pulp writers (and folks, they hit over a million words of fiction a year on MANUAL TYPEWRITERS), but I’m too much of a slacker for that.

Anyway, there were two bits of good news too:

First, this will still be my best year ever with (probably) over 850,000 words of published fiction on the year.

That’s my current total plus a projected 60,000 words if I can hold to my daily goal of 3000 words per day for the next twenty days.

And at this point, I gotta face it: With all my years of practice, if I can’t maintain a lousy 3000 wpd average for twenty days, I ought’a quit and go fishing.

I looked back over my old spreadsheets too: My biggest year for fiction before this was 2016 with 702838 words, and that was *publishable* fiction, not published fiction. (See the asterisks?)

Also I’m still way over 1,000,000 words with my cumulative, consumable word count (fiction and nonfiction both) on the year. So that feels pretty good.

So Dean would say I’m writing at “Pulp Speed,” but it doesn’t feel like that to me. I wanna do that with only fiction. Otherwise, at this stage of my writing life, how can I call myself a fiction writer?

So I’m setting my annual goal for 2025 right now:

In 2025 I will write 1,100,000 words of published fiction. That will require an average fiction word count of 3014 words per day for 365 days. Hence, my daily word count goal beginning on January 1 will be 3100 wpd (an extra 5-6 minutes in the chair).

And I intend to keep TNDJ going for at least the next year. So we’ll see how that all works out.

Results Begin to Trickle In

One-third of the way through December, results have begun to trickle in from the four hearty writers involved in the Run with Harvey Challenge.

Let me just say this: If you attempt a challenge at all, it is always a positive experience. When you enter into a challenge, you will always write more fiction than you would have without the challenge.

Yes, keep tabs on how far you have to go to reach your goal. That and adjusting priorities are how you stay on track.

But also keep tabs on how far you’ve come since you started the challenge. And pat yourself on the back. Those words and stories might not have existed had you not taken up the gauntlet.

GOOD on you! Onward and upward!

Talk with you again soon.

The Writing

Had a great day of writing yesterday.

Because The Waller Files showed no signs of wrapping as a short story, I wrote a different short story for the Bradbury Challenge to get that out of the way, then added more to The Waller Files.

The title of the short story has been bugging me for a few weeks. Finally, yesterday was the day to write it.

I love it when the words flow. When that happens, I don’t even notice how much I’m writing until the day’s over and the smoke clears.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………… 880

Writing of “Before I Forget”

Day 1…… 1551 words. To date…… 1551 done

Writing of The Waller Files (a Stern Talbot PI mystery)

Day 1…… 2094 words. To date…… 2094
Day 2…… 4654 words. To date…… 6748

Fiction for December………………… 45081
Fiction for 2024………………………. 791181
Nonfiction for December…………….. 12940
Nonfiction for 2024…………………… 375510
2024 consumable words…………….. 1,166,691

Average Fiction WPD (December)…. 4098

2024 Novels to Date…………………….. 18
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 32
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..… 102
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 269
Short story collections……………………. 29

Disclaimer: Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.

Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.