2013 by the Numbers: Writing

I have already written about this in more detail here and here, but as a final end-of-year recap, I wanted to provide some interesting charts that summarize my fiction writing for 2013. I wrote a total of 274,373 words of fiction in 2013¹. These numbers come from my automated writing tracker scripts for Google Docs, which are available on GitHub for anyone who wants to use them. What made up these words? Well…

• A novel draft, totaling 95,000 words, but which included some false starts of perhaps another 30,000 words.
• A 5,500 word  epic fantasy story which consisted of 3 complete drafts.
• A 6,300 word science fiction story which consisted of 3 complete drafts.
• A 1,200 word flash story which consisted of 4 complete drafts.
• A (so far) 8,000 word novella which has consisted of 3 previous false starts totaling around 20,000 words.
• About 10,000 words of nonfiction articles (including drafts)

I ended 2013 on a 163 day writing streak, and having written 306 out of the last 308 days of the year. Here is what the monthly word count looked like for 2013 beginning in March (where my data begins):

If you combine this to my blogging for 2013, you get a chart that looks like this:

All combined, I wrote more than half a million words. That seems remarkable to me, just looking at the numbers, especially considering that I have a full time day job and two little kids that keep me busy. Here is what my day-to-day writing looks like for the last 308 days:

At a more practical level, it’s easier to look at the 7-day moving average over the last 308 days. I’ve added my daily goal for comparison so you can see where the 7-day moving average is above or below the goal:

A few other interesting writing-related numbers:

• My longest consecutive streak: 164 days, and counting
• Longest streak where I met or exceed my goal: 33 days
• My best day: August 15, where I wrote 5,384 words in a single day

See also

• 2013 by the numbers: Blogging