This year, I wrote a little over 230,000 words in fiction, non-fiction, and journaling. The figure might be a little higher, because my record keeping system was crap for much of the year, so I think some titles didn’t counted properly. I had no word count goal for the year, so even though I feel like I could’ve done more, 230k is a win.
On average, I wrote 630 words per day during 2016. In December, I averaged about a 1,000 words a day. Today is day 571 of writing every day in a row, which makes it week 82. This is the first year I managed to write every day for a calendar year, January to December.
I published 17 titles under two pen-names. I started up an erotica line called Siren’s Garter. And no, the erotica pen-name isn’t a huge secret, but I won’t talk about it much. The digital trail is there, and if I continue doing what I’m doing, the trail will grow wider in the next year. If I truly wanted to bury the name in the internet, I’d start up another publishing company. But I don’t feel like doing that.
Under my D. Anthony Brown name, I published one short urban fantasy story:
The Best Wizard This Side of Frogstown
It’ll be free to read on the blog next week.
For my erotica name, I published 16 titles total. Three novellas:
Never Marry the Femme Fatale
The Other Kind of Big Sleep
The Billionaire Cougar’s Day Off
And then ten short stories:
Creatures of Habit
The Glowing Satisfaction of Pancakes
Gone to the Dogs
After Hours on the Full Moon
Would You Like Cherry Pie With That?
The Birthday Sandwich
Friends With Batteries
Taming the Billionaire Dinosaur
Pink Taco Tryst
Molly the Adult Dolly
And three collections: Siren’s Garter, Issues One, Two, and Three.
What’s next? I plan to keep writing every day, for as long as possible. Day 600 will come about in January, but I’m thinking about day 1,000 in the not too far off future.
January’s word count goal will be 40,000 words total. So about 1,300 words per day average. For 2017 I want to write 500,000 words total. Why? Because I want to try, that’s why. I need 300,000 words to fill Siren’s Garter, the remainder can be anything else. So overall I need to up my average word count to 1,370.
If I continue Siren’s Garter all the way through 2017, I should be able to add 36 or more titles to the catalog. That’s six collections, six novellas, 24 short stories. Plus by then I should be able to put together themed collections, we’ll see how that works out.
I also want to publish more fantasy and science fiction titles. That’s what my story-a-week challenge is for. The first five stories slated for 2017 are backlist, so I need 47 more stories to fill out the year. I’ve been terrible this month about finishing some, which I meant to do. Again, we’ll see how that works.
The Friday Morning Pages, I’m pretty well set for that actually. I have topics written and scheduled out to April. I learn by writing things out, so I’d like to continue with those for as long as I can.
And there we have it, 2016 can’t end soon enough.
Onward.
David Anthony Brown 