So, I'd seen a few other of my author friends do this, and it seemed like a good way to take stock of what I'd accomplished this year, writing-wise, so... I thought I'd just make a brief post with a run-down of my word counts and various writing achievements for 2021!
Novels & Novellas
86,548 words of Macchiatos, Faerie Princes, and Other Things That Happen at Midnight -- Book 1 completed!
26,213 words toward the first draft of Fate Rising
2,611 words toward the first draft of The Extraordinary Escapades of Tangled Terrestrials in Space
20,725 words of A Shift in Fate -- completed the novella! (But have since decided to expand it into part of an upcoming trilogy.)
Macchiatos, Faerie Princes, and Other Things That Happen at Midnight is currently publishing weekly on Kindle Vella, and is doing well there! It's gotten great reader feedback from those who have read it, and I'm excited to keep this series going. I'm starting Book 2 this month!
Total words written in Novels & Novellas for 2021: 136,097 words
Short Stories & Flash
Note: I can't give titles of all of these because some of them are at anonymous contests for judging, or under submission places, or simply don't yet have titles.
Total words written across all flash stories in 2021 (~2k or less in length each): 11,073 (some of these will be expanded into longer stories later)
Total words written across all short stories in 2021 (~3k or more in length each): 45,969
And for the first time, in 2021, I actually sold two of my short stories! One was published by DreamForge Anvil in October 2021, and the other is under contract to be published sometime in 2022.
Total words written in short stories & flash for 2021: 57,042
Contracted Non-Fiction Writing
This is something I started doing late in 2021, and will be doing more of in 2022 (I'm already under contract for one major project and beginning work on another early next year).
Total words written across all copywriting/other non-fiction paid writing contracts in 2021: 5,960
Total words written in 2021: 199,099
(This total does not include my weekly Patreon posts, newsletters and emails, social media posts, blog posts, etc. -- just my fiction and contracted non-fiction.)
Wow.
So, though I was thrown quite a few curveballs in 2021 (including getting injured and getting Covid, among other things), and I did not accomplish all my writing goals for the year (not even close!), I can at least say I accomplished this:
I wrote 199,099 fresh words in 2021.
And that feels GOOD.