Tuesday, December 01, 2009

A Million and Counting

Around the middle of the day today, I passed the million-word mark for this year. That makes five years in a row I've written at least a million words. I don't say that to brag. I've been extraordinarily lucky to have had the opportunity to write that much, and I owe it to the readers who buy the books and the editors who've had faith in me, and I want to thank all of them for making it possible.

Still . . . a million words a year . . . five years in a row . . . I'd be lying if I didn't say I think that's pretty cool. (And no, before you ask, that's not Livia and me in the picture.)

19 comments:

Matthew P. Mayo said...

Hi James,
Congratulations of the highest order to you. By any measurement that's a heck of an achievement.

Gives me something to shoot for!


Cheers,
Matthew

Laurie Powers said...

Congratulations, James. That's really remarkable! Like Matt said, it gives me something to shoot for too.

Rittster said...

Wow.

That's about the only thing I can say, except for this:

Wow!

and this:

WOW!!!

and this:

Wah-Wah-Wee-Wah-Wow!

Regarding Matthew's comment, I'd probably shoot myself in the head before shooting for a million words-a-year.

As today's youth would say: much "props", brotha!

B.Ritt

Rittster said...

By the way, that dame in the photo has some pretty nice, uh, calves.

Evan Lewis said...

Awesome. That's an average of 2,738 words a day.

I just averaged 1,1704 a day for NaNoWriMo, and I'm damn near dead. I'll need a month to recuperate.

Of course, a million a year is only 114 words an hour, and less than two words per minute. If I eat my Wheaties and give up sleeping, I might have a shot at it.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Congratulations! I can appreciate if not match the dedication this has taken. They make them tougher in Texas.

Brian Drake said...

Well whoever the couple is in that picture, the girl is kind of cute. As soon as I get my time machine working you know where I'm going!

Richard Prosch said...

Wowzer! I have it on good authority that you're paid a dollar a word in the trade, right?

Jerry House said...

It's not only pretty cool, it's super cool!

Unknown said...

Congrats to a great wordsmith!

Scott D. Parker said...

[mouth hanging open] Day-um! Impressive. Most impressive.

David Cranmer said...

Impressive and a half doesn't even begin to describe it. Congrats!

Vince said...

An amazing accomplishment. Congratulations.

mark said...

I was all proud of myself for pounding 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo last month, and here you are doing that and more every month...

What doing that last month is give me a real idea of what an accomplishment that is.

Incredible, James...just incredible.

Charles Gramlich said...

I guess we could say you're a "wordy" dude eh? Lol. Congrats!

RJR said...

Congrats, James. Them's a lot ofwords!

RJR

Juri said...

You will surely beat Max Brand, Charles Hamilton and all the other wordsmiths! They will pale in comparison!

Cap'n Bob said...

Whoever she is, she has great stems. Now, what was it you were talki9ng about, James? Oh yeah,a million words. I don't think I've spoken a million works in my lifetime. That's an amazing achievement (the writing, not my taciturn ways) and you should be very proud. Moreso by the fact that they're put together in such a way to creat some mighty entertaining books.

Rittster said...

Cap'n,
I think "gams" was the word I was searching for. I wish there was a way to edit these comments. I'm no first-draft kind of writer. I even find myself wanting to rewrite emails after I've sent them.

B.Ritt