December and 2013 Writing Tallies

I was pretty busy again last month, especially considering I was on holiday until the 11th. I finished a German screenplay – yay – and started on a new novel. 

All in all, I wrote 26.655 words in December 2013.

Previous Tallies:

January: 19.675 words
February: 15.781 words
March: 19.215 words
April: 27.336 words
May: 49.403 words
June: 20.329 words
July: 33.900 words
August: 1.132 words
September: 15.100 words
October: 45.800 words

November: 7.305 words

Which means I wrote a total of 308.286 words in 2013. All within the first drafts of two novels, a full movie screenplay and a pilot episode for a TV-series.

Holy crap! O_O

November Writing Tally

I actually got some writing done in November despite my being busy on two weekends and away on holiday for half of the month. No NaNoWriMo for me this year, though. 

The only thing I worked on were a Christmas short story, which totaled at 2.521 words, and an outline for the novel I want to start in January, of 4.784 words. 

That makes 7.305 words written in November. Still more than I expected. Yay!



Previous Tallies 2013

January: 19.675 words
February: 15.781 words
March: 19.215 words
April: 27.336 words
May: 49.403 words
June: 20.329 words
July: 33.900 words
August: 1.132 words
September: 15.100 words
October: 45.800 words

October Writing Tally

I was a busy bee again in October, working hard to finish the first draft of the novel I wanted to take to a workshop I signed up for over the first November weekend. The workshop was about revisions, and I wanted to bring at least a full first draft to it. So I wrote and wrote and wrote, and it paid off - I got that first draft done a week before the workshop.

So last month I wrote exactly 45.800 words, all for that novel-in-progress.



Now it's November, that holy month for writers: National Novel Writing Month. 

I'm not participating this year, because I'll be backpacking through Peru in the last half of the month, and fourteen days to write 50.000 words just isn't realistic. I've decided that October was my personal NaNoWriMo for 2013. Or May; I got close to the 50k mark then, too. 

Good luck to all writers out there going for NaNo! You can do it!



Previous Tallies

January: 19.675 words
February: 15.781 words
March: 19.215 words
April: 27.336 words
May: 49.403 words
June: 20.329 words
July: 33.900 words
August: 1.132 words
September: 15.100 words

September Writing Tally

This was a better month than the last, word-count wise:

I handed in two assignments for my scriptwriting studies, which totaled at 8.735 words. This took up most of my time, though I did manage to get 4.707 words in for my current UF-novel-in-progress, plus 1.658 words for a tentative new project that might end up being a novel or a movie-script; not sure yet which is the better format. 

Overall, that gets me to a total of 15.100 words in September. That's more than I expected, so yay! :-)



Previous tallies: 

January: 19.675 words
February: 15.781 words
March: 19.215 words
April: 27.336 words
May: 49.403 words
June: 20.329 words
July: 33.900 words
August: 1.132 words



How has everybody else's writing been going?

August Writing Tally

This is going to be a small one. Apart from three blog posts (exactly 1.500 words altogether, but have I been counting blog posts in the tallies?), basically the only thing I worked on in August was one assignment for the screenwriting studies. It totaled at 1.132 words when I sent it in. It was up to approximately 6.000 at one point, but I had to pare it down to two pages, so I took a machete to the 6k. Which took me three weeks. 

Two more assignments to go and then I'll be a certified screenwriter. If I manage them by September 30th, but hey, the next one's almost done... going back to it now. Wish me luck and write on everybody!


Previous tallies: 

January: 19.675 words
February: 15.781 words
March: 19.215 words
April: 27.336 words
May: 49.403 words
June: 20.329 words
July: 33.900 words

July Writing Tally

Well, huh. Color me surprised. I got a lot more writing done during my three-week vacation in July than I thought, despite the fact that I was only able to write by hand into notebooks. With pens. On paper. Scribblings that I have been transcribing to my computer chapter by chapter. I'm finally done, so now I don't have to guesstimate (between 10 - 15 thousand) the word count any longer.

I worked mainly on my current Urban Fantasy project and wrote an amazing total of 33.900 words. *blink blink* 

So much for getting less done when writing by hand. Then again, it was vacation. I had a lot more time than usual. 

Except for transcribing it, I haven't worked on the UF project since July. So my word count for August will be dismal, consisting only of the assignments I've been working on for my screenwriting studies. I need to focus on those for now because I have three big ones left and time is running out. If I don't send them in by the end of September, I won't get the diploma. So everything else is on the back burner right now. 

I can do this! I know I can, I know I can.

Here's wishing everybody a productive rest of the month, too.
Cheers!



Previous tallies: 

January: 19.675 words
February: 15.781 words
March: 19.215 words
April: 27.336 words
May: 49.403 words
June: 20.329 words

June Writing Tally

After finishing the first draft of a novel at the end of May, I took two weeks off from writing in June. Considering this hiatus, I still did pretty well on the June word count front, by writing 20.329 words on my next work-in-progress. 


Previous tallies:


January: 19.675 words
February: 15.781 words
March: 19.215 words
April: 27.336 words
May: 49.403 words



How's everybody else's writing coming along?

May Writing Tally

May was a great month. A great month. I finished the first draft of the UF novel I've been working on since December 2012. I'm still kind of in awe, but more about that in the next post. This one's about the numbers, and boy do I have big ones this time. 

First, the previous tallies:

January: 19.675 words
February: 15.781 words
March: 19.215 words
April: 27.336 words


May Tally:
Last month, I concentrated almost exclusively on the novel. Ergo, the numbers summed up like this:

- 11.010 words for Chamaeleon Chronicles
- 38.393 words for my UF novel

In total: 49.403 words in May. 
Holy. Moly. 

O_O


Now, for June I need to focus on a few other things as well, primarily my screenwriting assignments. I want to hand in at least three of them, otherwise it might get a little tight towards the end of the studies in September...

April Writing Tally

It seems like April was a good month for me, writing-wise. Yay!

Here are the stats for my April Tally:

- 620 words for one assignment of my Screenwriting Studies 
- Six chapters of my UF novel, which total 16.058 words *awesomesauce*
- One synopsis for said UF novel, 825 words
- 5.333 words for Chamaeleon Chronicles
- ca. 4.500 words of an outline for my next UF project

In total, that makes an amazing sum of 27.336 words!


Compared to the months before, that's quite a bit more:

January: 19.675 words
February: 15.781 words
March: 19.215 words


Hopefully I'll manage to keep going at this rate. 

March Writing Tally

At the end of every month, I compile a tally of my writing achievements: what I worked on and how much I wrote. This way, I hope to monitor myself a little and see the progress I make:

Here's the January Writing Tally

- 19.657 words total

- including 32 pages of script

February Writing Tally

- 15.781 words total

- including 50 pages of script

Before I get to my tally for March, I must include something cool that happened to me this month: I got to meet author Dan Wells. Yes, I did! I even have evidence: I'm in one of the pictures! 

I must admit, I felt a bit starstruck, seeing as Dan's the first best-selling author I've met in person, but he quickly put me at ease with his easy-going, down-to-earth manner. 

My favorite Dan-quote, which has me all kinds of inspired, was this: "Being a full-time writer is even better than I expected. And I thought it would be awesome!"

Best book club evah! :-)

Okay, back to the point of this post:

March Tally

- One assignment for my Screenwriting Studies at 1.119 words (for which I got a straight A, woohooo!)

- Three chapters of my UF novel, which total 9.552 words

- Four chapters of the Chamaeleon Chronicles, 8.544 words

- Revision of the pilot episode with a lot of cutting rather than adding, ergo no additional word count to speak of.

Summing up, I wrote 19.215 words in March. As always, it could have been better, but slow and steady wins the reace.

And here’s another tidbit I treated myself to: I had the pilot episode of my TV-series printed out and bound into this nice little package:

   

So what if the chances of this version of my pilot being adapted to screen are as high as the chances of me ever watching The Ring again (I prefer to sleep at night, thank you)? Printing and binding my pieces is part of the process for me. It shows that I finished something. So, kudos to me! 

My goals for April:

- Two assignments for my Screenwriting Studies

- Write and post at least three new ChamChron chapters (approx. 6k words)

- Continue my UF novel, at least 10k words

February Writing Tally

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to compile a tally of my writing achievements at the end of every month; what I worked on and how much I wrote. This way, I hope to monitor myself a little and see the progress I make:

Here's the January Writing Tally
- 19.657 words total
- including 32 pages of script


February Tally

- Five blog posts, which total at 1.887 words.

- Three chapters of The Chamaeleon Chronicles, which total at 5.479 words.

- My Screenwriting Studies took a step back this month. I only read through the material and didn't hand in any assignments, mostly because I was focusing on...

- ... the first draft of the pilot episode for my TV-series. My goal was to finish it by the end of February and - I did it! I wrote "End of Pilot" at the bottom of the script on the 28th, at exactly 11pm. Which means I wrote fifty pages in February (8.425 words). Which also means that the script, at 82 pages, is at least fifteen pages too long. Actually, more like twenty.

Ergo:
- 15.781 words total
- including 50 pages of script

My goals for March are, in order of importance:
- Hand in two assignments for my Screenwriting Studies
- Revise the pilot episode
- Write and post at least three new ChamChron chapters
- Outline episode two, so I can start writing it in April at the latest
- Continue my UF novel

But today I'm going to kick back and celebrate the completion of a first draft. 

January Writing Tally

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to compile a tally of my writing achievements at the end of every month; what I worked on and how much I wrote. This way, I hope to monitor myself a little and see the progress I make. 



So, for the January 2013 summary:

- At least 50% of my writing time is spent on my screenwriting studies. Of course, that's a lot of reading and studying and not so much writing (yet), except for the assignments. This month, I finished two, which come down to about 1,000 words in total.

- 1 writers group exercise for the February Meet of Writers in Stuttgart. 444 words. 

- Blog posts: 3, which total 663 words. 

- Paranormal Romance novel: approx. 10,000 words.

- Pilot of a TV-series: 32 pages (7,550 words, just to keep to that measure of counting, though in TV I hear it's all about the number of pages. A script for a 1-hour show is usually somewhere between 40 and 50 pages)



All in all, I'm satisfied. It could have been a bit more, I suppose, but it's not a low count, by any means. Aside from the studies, I spent most of my writing time on the pilot for the TV series. If I keep up this pace, I should have it finished by March. *knocks on wood*