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Writing in Public: Month 3 Summary: October 2013

November 1, 2013 /

Month #3 Summary of this Writing in Public challenge.

October, 2013

I’m stunned that this third month is already done, to be honest.

And I’m stunned that it was my best month by a little bit. It sure didn’t feel that way. Strange.

I have those word counts below.

And as I have said every month, even though I knew I was going to give a general summary of the day here every day, it changed my behavior not at all. Not at all.

And as a couple of you asked, I do exercise, just not in huge blocks of time. My bad knees won’t allow that until I drop this last twenty pounds of extra weight, and even then it might be difficult. But for example, tonight I walked about a mile to dinner. And I am constantly up and moving and doing things I never mention here around the WMG offices.

And as with last month, I was very much aware that the stuff I do outside of writing, from the publishing, to the workshops, to sitting in meetings, to working on collectables and formatting Smith’s Monthly and other things. All that takes up about 50-60 hours per week on average. A little more right around the first of the month.

So in other words, as I said before, I have a full time day job. Now granted, I love everything about my “day” job and it mostly focuses around writing, but it isn’t time writing new words. That amount of time spent on the “day” job sort of surprised me a little, to be honest, even more this third month than it did the first.

As with August and September, my fiction writing pace seemed to average around 1,000 words per hour on some projects and faster as I got into novels or toward the end of short stories.

I only reported new words on everything. The amount of blog post words did not surprise me, but the amount of e-mail words did surprise me again for this third month because my number of e-mails were down by a bunch. I don’t mind at all, I just never had any reason to add them up before doing this. It is interesting.

I completed seven projects in October, including four new short stories and a novel. And I got forty-six thousand words on a new novel as well that will be done early next month.

I had a total new words written of 127,800 words, of which 86,200 words of that was new fiction. (See all the totals below.)

 New Month

For November, just as I did with the three months before, I’m going to start the counting over. And the project list of completed projects for the month over as well. Up under the Writing in Public tab at the top I will put the completed projects per month and links to the first and last posts of the month and to this summary post, so anyone can go back and look.

If you have the time, the comments on a bunch of the posts have been great questions and worth the read. Thanks everyone, for the great comments and questions.

And each monthly summary post I’ll update the full year’s projects on that post as well.

Stay tuned.  Here we go with month four. And yes, once again, I am that crazy. (grin)

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Monthly Totals

Fiction:
August: 78,900 words
September: 81,200 words
October: 86,200 words

Nonfiction: 
August: 1,000 words
September: 2,900 words
October: 2,000 words

Blog Posts: 
August: 21,300 words
September: 16,600 words
October: 15,150 words

E-mail:
August: 809 e-mails. Approx. 23,050 words
September: 861 e-mails. Approx. 24,600 words
October: 647 e-mails. Approx. 24,450 words

TOTAL NEW WORDS

AUGUST… 124,250 Words

SEPTEMBER… 125,300 Words

OCTOBER… 127,800 Words

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Stories and Projects Finished October 2013

In order of production with the most recent at the top.

And Where and When You Will Be Able to Find Them

— Short story titled “Out of Coffee Experience.” It will appear in Smith’s Monthly #3 published in December 2013. And then in stand alone book form in March, 2014. Approximately 3,500 words long.

— Short story titled “I Killed Adam Chaser.” It will appear in Smith’s Monthly #3 published in December 2013. And then in stand alone book form in March, 2014. Approximately 3,500 words long.

— Short story titled “The Case of the Pleasant Hills Murder: A Cold Poker Gang story.” It will appear in Smith’s Monthly #3 published in December 2013. And then in stand alone book form in March, 2014. Approximately 5,200 words long.

—Turned in the full manuscript for Smith’s Monthly #2.” It will appear as Smith’s Monthly #2 published in November 2013. Approximately 80,000 words long.

— Introduction to Smith’s Monthly #2.” It will appear in Smith’s Monthly #2 published in November 2013. Approximately 800 words long.

— Short story titled “A Storm from a Relic: A Poker Boy story.” It will appear in Smith’s Monthly #3 published in December 2013. And then in stand alone book form in March, 2014. Approximately 4,000 words long.

— Novel titled Against Time. It will appear in Smith’s Monthly #3 published in December 2013. And then in stand alone book form in March, 2014.

(I also did the second parts of the golf book and the two serial novels for Smith’s Monthly #2, but there was almost no new writing in them, so I don’t count them this month.)