In 2021 I started keeping track of how much time I spent writing, and how many words I got. This really helped when it felt like I wasn’t making progress on anything. It showed that I am moving forward. In 2022 I continued with this process and surprisingly the numbers were similar to last year. So lets get into my Writing in Numbers 2022.
Books Published
I’d known going into 2022 that I was probably only going to publish the last and finally Ernie Smith and the Seven Deadly Sins story. This was because most of the year was going to be spent editing Rift Bloodlines. I was right, especially after Rift Bloodlines changed from Novella’s into full length novels and took so much more time than I’d thought they would (and still going).
This year my hope is to bring all the Ernie stories together, including all the free and published stories as well as a new unseen bonus story, into a collection. If all goes to plan, it will be the first book I have in print. So watch this space for more on this in the next few months.
Free Books
Of the stories I have published, currently two of them are set to permanently free. Finding Death’s Scythe is free when you sign up to my newsletter, and it was the first of the Ernie story published. In the Cards in the second Ernie story published, and it is free on all resellers (Amazon, google, etc).
If you fancy checking out a grumpy old god living in a retirement home, then this is the series for you. Its a bit of fun, and doesn’t take itself to seriously.
In the Cards – https://books2read.com/u/3JXO8K
Finding Death’s Scythe – Newsletter Sign up
Words Written in 2022
I started the year editing the first book in the Coalition of Seers series, but at some point I realised that splitting my time between multiple series was only making it take longer for everything to be ready. So, I decided to work only on the Rift Bloodlines Novella series, and focus on getting them out since they were shorter…. Except it did not stay as a novella.
Book 1 went from 27k, to 41k to 69k during the edits. Book 2 went a similar path, so I was forced to revised my timeline. l still planned to work on the Rift Bloodlines series, but it was going to take a lot longer to edit 70k books than 40k books.
Going into 2023, I expect most of the year is also going to be edits, but I am hopeful that I will have the time to get books 1 to 3 ready for publishing next year.
Time Spent Writing in 2022
Early on when I started writing again, I become obsessed with tracking time. I have a Notion database built around being able to easily track how many sprints it takes to get a certain amount of words. This year I broke the number down into an average time per week and it comes in at 11.5 hours.
This is only writing time, I have other things like social media, covers, blurbs etc that I spent time on that isn’t included in this, but its fascinating seeing this number. But also seeing how it changes, or can be changed year to year. Now I know that was my average I can increase or decrease the time depending on what I need to do.
Who else likes to track? Or is it just me in my weird little obsession?