As 2024 started, I knew I would have diminishing time to write. All the signs were there that nap time was baout to go away for good for my daughter. She now does “quiet time” but it is much more interupted than in the past. Because of this, I narrowed my focus to just writing fiction and keeping this channel going.

In the past, I could do a quick temperture check on my business with how many consults I had booked, how much money was coming in. But with books DONE and not ready to publish, I needed a measure within my control to see how I was doing and if I was getting enough time in to write. Because I’m type- A like that.

I also don’t use fancy drafting software. I’m a MS word girl. So I used good old fashioned pen and paper with a starting word count and a finishing word count for each session. This was great for drafting. Not great for editing. But it’s the system that worked for me.

So here is how I did each month.

January: 16,773
February: 26,518
March: *Reviisng Draft of shelved book
April: *existential crisis
May: 25,656
June: 4,075
July: 25,868
August: 40,597
September: 1,854
October: 2,276 *2 hurricanes
November: 7,656
December: 3,143

My final word count for the year was: 154,416
My 2025 Goal: 200,000

I plan to keep monitoring this into 2025 just to see if I can get a good feel for if I am writing more, writing less. I like data and I’m surprised it took me almost a DECADE to start tracking this in earnest. I think I would see the end word count for a book and assume that’s all I wrote that year. But as my goals for 2025 will include short stories as well as novels. I know I want a better way to see what I am producing. Not every word is gold, but it builds and builds.

Doing this also helped me to realize how much I could write in an hour. I always thought I was at best 1000 words an hour. But iwth this method, I knew I could get 2000 words in anhour and that was really empowering.

Do you track your word count? Do you have a better method? Want to challenge and encourage each other to reach a certain word count goal in 2025?

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