Today's Stats - 4/20/24

Novel - Space Necromancer (working title), also considering Of Asteroids and Undead Owls.

Total words written: 30,220

Total hours spent writing (estimated): 95

Total words written today: 150

Total hours spent writing today: 1.5

I've discovered that it's very hard to estimate how long it take me to write 1000 words. The problem is how do I count time spent world-building, planning, researching, taking notes, etc...? Do I count all of that? It certainly requires a significant time commitment. But of course, that time results in zero words written.

When I know exactly what scene I want to write, the time can go quickly. Yesterday, I wrote 1,069 words in 2 hours. At that rate (500 words per hour), I could finish my 120,000 word book in another 180 hours.

Today it took me 90 minutes to write 150 words, a rate of 100 words per hour. At that rate, I would need 1,200 hours to finish my book.

Which rate is the correct one? I don't think either answer is correct. But it does make predicting how long this journey will take very difficult.

Looking back over the past two months, it seems like I'm averaging around 320 words per hour. That's the value I'm going to use to estimate the time it will take me to finish my rough draft (although I may need to update that as I go along).

That means I have 281 hours left of writing.

Come join me next time on Novel Anatomy for more math and procrastination!