# For motivation :) - How many words has the novel you're currently working on?



## Viktor (Mar 11, 2013)

Write only the number.

23.819


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## Caragula (Mar 11, 2013)

91,666


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## Sam (Mar 11, 2013)

139,000.


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## Deleted member 49710 (Mar 11, 2013)

~99,475

(-20K probably getting cut)


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## dale (Mar 11, 2013)

31,741


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## squidtender (Mar 11, 2013)

92, 265 (after cutting 9k in the first edit)



Sam said:


> 139,000.



Dang, Sam. Get you some!


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## egpenny (Mar 11, 2013)

80,997 down from 102,045.  Busy whacking the heck out of it -  tightening it up, losing some trivial stuff.


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## Jeko (Mar 12, 2013)

12


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## Gamer_2k4 (Mar 12, 2013)

Was 195,000, currently at 175,000.  Shooting for 120,000.


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## kunox (Mar 12, 2013)

Which one I am currently working on several but I let you know soon.


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## Terry D (Mar 12, 2013)

I'm ashamed to say _Chase_ topped out at 219,000.  I'm 2/3 the way through the first edit and am not getting enough out yet.  My target is 140,000.


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## squidtender (Mar 12, 2013)

Jeez, TD . . . that sucker is a bit longer than _Legacy_. And you'd better let me know when it's done, 'cause I already got a place on my bookshelf for it 8)


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## Leyline (Mar 12, 2013)

1.

But it's _really_ killer.


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## archer88iv (Mar 12, 2013)

23,000


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## moderan (Mar 13, 2013)

749,244.


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## squidtender (Mar 13, 2013)

moderan said:


> 749,244.



Seriously? Is this a sequel to _War and Peace_​?


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## Aaron Tuckett (Mar 13, 2013)

21,254


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## Viktor (Mar 13, 2013)

squidtender said:


> Seriously? Is this a sequel to _War and Peace_​?



Maybe he posted the number of characters.


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## Sam (Mar 13, 2013)

Nope. That's a piece Mod's been working on for years. It doesn't want to end.  I have a similar one coming in at a puny 373,000.


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## moderan (Mar 13, 2013)

It's true. And it grew from a piece of flash fiction. I'm actually writing the end now. It'll end up just under 800k.


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## NathanBrazil (Mar 13, 2013)

Which flash piece?  Something submitted here?


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## Gamer_2k4 (Mar 13, 2013)

moderan said:


> It's true. And it grew from a piece of flash fiction. I'm actually writing the end now. It'll end up just under 800k.



Assuming it's published and nothing is lost in editing, that'll make it the eighth longest novel of all time.

That's quite an achievement.


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## Robdemanc (Mar 13, 2013)

125,000 ish


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## moderan (Mar 13, 2013)

NathanBrazil said:


> Which flash piece?  Something submitted here?


An older piece called I of the Storm. I'm not sure it's even online anywhere anymore. It used to be on my website.



Gamer_2k4 said:


> Assuming it's published and nothing is lost in editing, that'll make it the eighth longest novel of all time.
> 
> That's quite an achievement.



Thank you, but I dunno if it'll ever get published. Most likely scenario is cannibalism (really really likely, like already-planned-likely). It's a very experimental piece and I'm afraid that long sections of it are sleep-inducing. But I've promised myself to finish it and have been working steadily for a couple of weeks now. The end is in sight.
It'll be the fourth long-term wip to be finished this year. And THAT is an accomplishment, at least to me. Carcosa (the long novel's title) will provide scenes and material to future pieces. so I don't see the long labor as a loss despite it's unpublishability (and it is not publishable as is-the novel is entirely composed of the meanderings of a human mind that was implanted into the form or a virtually immortal sessile creature. It has no plot at all and the pacing is intentionally glacially slow).
The novel in queue after it exists at around 27k and will wind up as 60 or so. That's expanded from published material and might even be shopped to trad publishers. Fast-paced sf adventure with satirical elements, called Milk, torn down and rebuilt from my 2009 Nanowrimo novel.
The next is currently at 67k but needs to be entirely rewritten. That's the aquapocalyptic piece Blue Easter. It'll probably double in size.
There are also two in edits that I plan to release later this year or early next. They're part of an altworld/future-history series and are Identity Crisis, which deals with the aftermath of singularity and is @75k and Pennant Fever and Bad Medicine, at @55k.
My motivation is to turn most of my things into books. In terms of experience and skillset, it makes sense to self-publish, so I shall.


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## cazann34 (Mar 13, 2013)

15,195


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## Whisper (Mar 13, 2013)

50K
(last time I check)

Each chapter is it's own file so I can mix, match, merge and switch around as necessary. Last last week I counted up each file and the total was just under 50k. I was about right where I wanted to be considering where I was in the story. When finished with the first draft, I want the book to be between 80K and 100k and I'm on pace for that. Preferably closer to 80K because I'll be adding backfill in to match what I've written about later.


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## Sam (Mar 13, 2013)

Current one is now 145k and counting. Going to be at least 250k before editing. My former publisher said they couldn't afford to publish anything beyond 175k, hence the reason why she's 'former'. I think I'll self-publish. Already started work on the sequel (first chapter and change totalling 12k). I'm also working on a horror story set in my hometown and it's currently 74k. 

Sometime I'm going to get around to finishing that 373k one. I particularly enjoy the story, but it has that many surprises and shock moments it might as well be an entry for how many twists you can put in a novel and still have it make sense.


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## Dave Watson (Mar 13, 2013)

Just hit 90k the other day. Expected it to be finished by now but it seems there's a ways to go yet. Damn characters aren't co-operating with me.


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## tepelus (Mar 13, 2013)

Wow. And I thought my 189k+ was long--actually, I'm splitting the story into four, possibly five separate books. The first book that sits at 189K I'm currently editing to whittle it down in word count without losing the story. I'm aiming for 150K by the time I'm done so it has a better chance of being picked up, but we'll see. I'm not far into the second book and once I get this round of edits done I'll work on book two. After another go through I'll be looking for betas.


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## squidtender (Mar 13, 2013)

Sam said:


> I'm also working on a horror story set in my hometown and it's currently 74k. .



Horror? I never knew you dipped your toes in that genre 8-[


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## Sam (Mar 14, 2013)

squidtender said:


> Horror? I never knew you dipped your toes in that genre 8-[



I'll give anything a go except romance and poetry.


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## VoidMoon (Mar 22, 2013)

So far I'm 26,000 words in. But I tend to not like to look at the word count as I'm writing, sometimes it is discouraging ><


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## moderan (Mar 22, 2013)

Sam said:


> I'll give anything a go except romance and poetry.


I've done those too.


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## Kyle R (Mar 22, 2013)

7,790 as of today. 

Dystopian SciFi. Huzzah!


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## moderan (Mar 22, 2013)

Carcosa, finished @814k. Milk, sf satire, @42k, nearing the finish. Blue Easter (horror dystopic postaquapocalyptic) teardown and rebuild @11k.


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## Angelicpersona (Mar 23, 2013)

48787. Considering my longest story before this came in somewhere about 20 pages I'm immensely proud of myself. I'm about 65% of the way through, so I'm aiming for somewhere between 75 and 85k words. If only I can stop being like an ADD do... Ohhh, shiny!


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## tepelus (Mar 23, 2013)

Heh heh! The shiny distracts me, too.


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## RaynaF.Allie (Apr 1, 2013)

76,486 To be exact...


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## SkyChive (Apr 5, 2013)

15. Then I realised that I still wasn't entirely sure of what I was writing!


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## Tettsuo (Apr 5, 2013)

currently in the proofreading phase of a 194K novel.


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## KRHolbrook (Apr 5, 2013)

Dang you people write a lot lol. My novel I'm doing for camp nanowrimo is only at 3k words so far. I get distracted by video games, so I've decided every time i reach a new level i write a page of my novel


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## moderan (Apr 5, 2013)

Milk, 61k, finished, second draft. Blue Easter, 24k, about a third, second draft. Fallen Earring, third draft, 4k, just getting started. If I did video games, I'd never have time to write or play guitar.


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## Sam (Apr 6, 2013)

171k as of this morning. Nowhere near the denoument. Still have to run the POVs to their logical end, merge them while tying up loose ends, and brainstorm the ending. This one's looking 300k pre-edit. 

Funnily enough, video games got me into writing. I don't play them much these days, but when I do I make sure I've reached a word quota beforehand. It's too easy to lose three or four hours on a brilliant game.


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## Gamer_2k4 (Apr 6, 2013)

Sam said:


> It's too easy to lose three or four hours on a brilliant game.



Funny, as I've grown more and more into writing, I've found truly brilliant games fewer and farther between.  Even with supposedly "good" games, it's too easy to find cliches, or note pacing problems, or pick out any other issues I once overlooked.


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## js1268 (Apr 8, 2013)

about 108,000


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## jayelle_cochran (Apr 10, 2013)

78,000 with a goal of being around 100,000


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## stevetaylor67 (Apr 10, 2013)

107,074


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## philistine (Apr 10, 2013)

Postponed in favour of my latest short story collection at the moment, though a scratch over 12,000. The finished article will be around 60,000-70,000.


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## moderan (Apr 11, 2013)

moderan said:


> Milk, 61k, finished, second draft. Blue Easter, 24k, about a third, second draft. Fallen Earring, third draft, 4k, just getting started. If I did video games, I'd never have time to write or play guitar.


Updated...
*
Blue Easter* @55k, almost halfway. Things are going swimmingly.
*Fallen Earring* @ 11k, stalled temporarily. I'm waiting for official permission to use a couple of things. That affects the order of events.
*Identity Crisis*  ( @7k, second draft.)  This is the first volume of a "future history". *Milk* is the second, and *Vermilion Dawn* ( @25k of maybe 125k)  is the third. This advances from a version of technological singularity through the colonization of the solar system.
Most of these are built out of previously-written material. I have a couple of dozen short stories that belong to either the Blue Easter timeline or the future history. There's a point where they're all multiversal, but that's way in the future writing-wise.


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## TWErvin2 (Apr 11, 2013)

52,919


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## Skodt (Apr 12, 2013)

52,349 of current novel. Finished one up not long ago, on the same story arch, at around 97k


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## Flith (Apr 13, 2013)

my current draft is at 34,000, with the pre-written summaries for future chapters at about another 6,000, if I follow my outline, I'm looking at about 210,000, might have to split it into two books


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## Gamer_2k4 (Apr 13, 2013)

Flith said:


> my current draft is at 34,000, with the pre-written summaries for future chapters at about another 6,000, if I follow my outline, I'm looking at about 210,000, might have to split it into two books



I wouldn't worry about that.  A 200,000 word rough draft is a 100,000 word final draft.


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## allyson17white (Apr 13, 2013)

20,731 
Am a very slow writer. I keep getting side tracked.


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## Flith (Apr 13, 2013)

Gamer_2k4 said:


> I wouldn't worry about that.  A 200,000 word rough draft is a 100,000 word final draft.



See though, that's something I've been accounting for the whole time I've been writing, there is literally nothing that is extraneous in my current draft. I've been keeping it as concise as possible.


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## Tiamat (Apr 14, 2013)

Around 14,000, which puts me up another 6,000 words from last week.  Quite happy about that.


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## Elowan (Apr 14, 2013)

73,000


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## Shiloh Irons (Apr 14, 2013)

40,000 out of 90000 for book 1. overall it looks like ~450000. 

threw down 10k in 24 hours but spent the last 3 days 5x editing it and am quite happy.


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## PiP (Apr 14, 2013)

75,000ish


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## Jeko (Apr 15, 2013)

Update: 0

That excitement of starting something new...


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## Gamer_2k4 (Apr 15, 2013)

Flith said:


> See though, that's something I've been accounting for the whole time I've been writing, there is literally nothing that is extraneous in my current draft. I've been keeping it as concise as possible.



Believe me, I thought I was doing the same when I wrote my first draft.  A third of the way through editing, I've already chopped out 20,000 words with nothing lost.


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## LambertLover (Apr 16, 2013)

Really? That publisher publishes anything at or below 175k words? I thought no publisher in this world would even consider a novel below 150k words, and that would have to be epic fantasy!


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## LambertLover (Apr 16, 2013)

Sorry, I'm still learning to use the functions of this forum when posting. I should've used the 'reply with quote function' when I replied to that user that said 'Their publisher said they couldn't publish anything over 175,000 words'. Oops! Oh, and I forgot to answer the question, too.

My novel sits at 63,000 words and I have no idea how long it's going to be. We'll see how many words I hit by Apr. 30. It's Apr. 16. I got 15 days left and I'm trying to do 5,000 words per day, but I've got another work I just started last Thur. from the same series currently at 22,000 words but I'm not behind on it at a 5000-per-day word count because I didn't work on it on Fri.


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## Flith (Apr 16, 2013)

LambertLover said:


> Sorry, I'm still learning to use the functions of this forum when posting. I should've used the 'reply with quote function' when I replied to that user that said 'Their publisher said they couldn't publish anything over 175,000 words'. Oops! Oh, and I forgot to answer the question, too.
> 
> My novel sits at 63,000 words and I have no idea how long it's going to be. We'll see how many words I hit by Apr. 30. It's Apr. 16. I got 15 days left and I'm trying to do 5,000 words per day, but I've got another work I just started last Thur. from the same series currently at 22,000 words but I'm not behind on it at a 5000-per-day word count because I didn't work on it on Fri.



5000 per day...damn...do I lack ambition, or do you have it in excess?


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## moderan (Apr 16, 2013)

He has plenty of time, I'd guess. My problem too.

Blue Easter 75k. About halfway (I did 30k of this last Tuesday night). Fallen Earring 20k, getting going again, permissions obtained.  Identity Crisis 21k, about halfway. Vermilion Dawn 31k. I worked on each one day last week. The other was reserved for articles and whatnot. At around 65k for last week, it doesn't even equal my highest one-day total. But it's all usable stuff. I'm pretty happy with that.


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## Gamer_2k4 (Apr 16, 2013)

LambertLover said:


> I thought no publisher in this world would even consider a novel below 150k words, and that would have to be epic fantasy!



You've got it backwards.  Most publishers don't consider new novels that exceed 120k words, regardless of genre.  If you're not doing sci-fi or fantasy, the cap is even lower.


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## LambertLover (Apr 16, 2013)

Flith said:


> 5000 per day...damn...do I lack ambition, or do you have it in excess?



It's not about ambition. It's just my characters literally won't leave me alone. I have their stories in my head all day long and they won't get outta my head until I write it down, and when I start writing, I literally can't stop unless I'm too tired.



moderan said:


> He has plenty of time, I'd guess. My problem too.
> 
> Blue Easter 75k. About halfway (I did 30k of this last Tuesday night). Fallen Earring 20k, getting going again, permissions obtained.  Identity Crisis 21k, about halfway. Vermilion Dawn 31k. I worked on each one day last week. The other was reserved for articles and whatnot. At around 65k for last week, it doesn't even equal my highest one-day total. But it's all usable stuff. I'm pretty happy with that.




Ha, ha, that was epic funny!! :lol: I'm a woman!! Yes, I do have plenty of time because I'm unemployed. I've applied for a job in five different places, but it is hard to come by. Did I read that wrong or did you just say you did 30k words in one night, though?


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## moderan (Apr 16, 2013)

LambertLover said:


> It's not about ambition. It's just my characters literally won't leave me alone. I have their stories in my head all day long and they won't get outta my head until I write it down, and when I start writing, I literally can't stop unless I'm too tired.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



"He"..sorry, I didn't know. But yes, I did. I couldn't sleep and just kept on going and going. It isn't all that unusual, the insomnia or the productivity. I guess I'm what you call an overachiever


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## isaiah (Apr 16, 2013)

4400.


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## Olly Buckle (Apr 16, 2013)

48918


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