Today is a bit of a personal milestone. On 21st August 2014, I wrote the first words of A Gathering Of Fools. 180k words later and numerous rounds of redrafting, the book hit Amazon in January. Sales have been a little slow.
But this post is about words written rather than books sold. And since deciding to write every day, I have:
- Published two books in the Vensille Saga – 385k words
- Written the third book in the Vensille Saga – 200k
- written half the fourth (and final) book in the Vensille Saga – 100k
- Two short stories – 17k
- Published three RMSC novels, co-written with my brother – 150k words
- Written two and a half novels in an urban fantasy series – 80k words
All in, that’s getting on for a million words typed. Plus six books published. And two more planned. And maybe another ten or twelve next year. I’m comfortably pleased with this, although it’s a lot less prolific than many authors.
Everyone always says that the most important advice for a new author is “write”. That’s true, as far as it goes, but if you want to finish a book and see it sell, I advise “write every day”. More on this topic later.