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Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Halfway to my goal of writing 200,000 words of fiction in 2013

As I mentioned in a previous post, one of my writing goals for 2013 is to write 200,000 words of fiction. While that sounds like a lot, it's actually only 550 words a day. Quite doable.

Despite it being doable I only just passed the halfway mark last week. Yesterday I counted and found I'd done 101,330 words. Of course we're more than halfway through the year but my pace is picking up. Part of this is, sadly, because I have less work at Gadling. A change in editorial direction means they will be publishing much less travel writing.

So what have I been working on? A book set in the same world as A Fine Likeness, some short stories, some other work I don't want to talk about yet, and of course my Tangier novel. That last one made up for a whopping 26,000 words of my total, written in an intense ten-day retreat.

Back to work, only 98,670 words to go!

6 comments:

  1. Congratulations. Keep up the great work

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  2. Congrats on reaching a mid-point, I'm impressed. Yes, 500 or so words a day is something I do (James Scott Bell recommends at least that every day, too). I try.

    That's too bad about Gadling doing less travel posts, I enjoyed reading your posts on Iraq and some others. Any reason given?

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    1. There's been a shift in editorial and they've suspended feature writing (which is what I mostly did) until further notice. Also they've reduced the number of newsy stories per day. Right now Gadling's future is very uncertain.

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  3. Sorry Gadling isn't using you as much, but now's a good time to take advantage of the free time. Keep writing!

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  4. This is great news, and my hat's off to you, Sean.

    I must admit, I'm having serious motivational issues this summer, despite taking almost half of it off from work. A combination of factors has just had me in the writing doldrums, although I'm hoping for a bit of a breeze in my sails this August. Once I finish my current project, I've got quite the laundry list of ideas I'd like to take a crack at before the end of the year.

    Here's to writing a little bit every day, all the way through 2013!

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  5. 200,000 words??!! OMG. I've written about 5k in the past month and that's the first time I've written in a year. (Long story. Don't ask.) I'm glad you're pressing on with such an ambitious goal, and wish you tons of luck (and coffee and inspiration). :-)

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