Counting words for fun
Feb. 18th, 2009 03:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Inspired by a remark in a discussion on writing, I just went and counted the words of all the fics I've written in the last three years. Result: I've written about 21,000 words' worth of fic in the last three years, i.e. my average word production per year is pretty much exactly 7,000 words. Sadly, much of that is in as-yet-unfinished fics...
ETA: That's slighly under 600 words per month. So... if I could actually work on only one fic at a time instead of flitting from one project to another like a frelling butterfly, I could actually - considering that my average fic is about 1,500 words or so - put out a new fic every two or three months. That would probably be hugely less frustrating to readers and to myself than my current practice of working in parallel on half a dozen things at any one time.
Of course, the reason I have adopted the many-fics-at-once strategy is that I run into blockages so often. Write 300 words on one fic; hit a block. Write 200 words on another; hit a block. Write 250 words on a third; hit a block. Return to the first for another 100 words; hit a block. Rinse and repeat ad nauseam.
I wonder if it's possible to just basically *force* myself through those blockages? Maybe I haven't been persistent enough so far, maybe I need to remove the option of 'taking a vacation' in another, less frustrating fic every time I don't know how to continue with the one I'm working on?
ETA: That's slighly under 600 words per month. So... if I could actually work on only one fic at a time instead of flitting from one project to another like a frelling butterfly, I could actually - considering that my average fic is about 1,500 words or so - put out a new fic every two or three months. That would probably be hugely less frustrating to readers and to myself than my current practice of working in parallel on half a dozen things at any one time.
Of course, the reason I have adopted the many-fics-at-once strategy is that I run into blockages so often. Write 300 words on one fic; hit a block. Write 200 words on another; hit a block. Write 250 words on a third; hit a block. Return to the first for another 100 words; hit a block. Rinse and repeat ad nauseam.
I wonder if it's possible to just basically *force* myself through those blockages? Maybe I haven't been persistent enough so far, maybe I need to remove the option of 'taking a vacation' in another, less frustrating fic every time I don't know how to continue with the one I'm working on?