how many words....

[preyer]

how many words do you estimate you've written (for stories, that is) in your life?

[johnzakour]

Not counting editing about a billion. ;-)

Words that have made it to print probably around a million. Though most of that million consists of a few thousand words I use a lot. (I use a lot of "the" I'm trying to cut down. I also use "said" a lot because it gets the job done. In my last novel I used "the" 4000 times and "said" 1200 times. So out of 90K words 5K of them were two words...)

[swvaughn]

John, let me know when you find a synonym for "the". I've been looking for years - damned word keeps showing up repeatedly, and I can never seem to replace it.

Great question, preyer! Don't know if I can answer. Lesse . . . at least 10 novels, one completely rewritten twice, one completely rewritten once, at least 6 started and abandoned, not to mention countless new inserted chapters and scrapped/rewritten chapters, several utter failures masquerading as short stories, a handful of flash fiction, poems of complete drivel . . .

About a hojillion.

Really: about three million. Give or take a thousand.

[johnzakour]

John, let me know when you find a synonym for "the". I've been looking for years - damned word keeps showing up repeatedly, and I can never seem to replace it.


I found one but it's spelled the exact same way! Just pronounced differently. So it doesn't help at all! ;-)

[a_sharp]

4,153,726, but who's counting?

I have NO idea. If the count is meant for completed final drafts, probably on the shady side of 500,000. It goes up with age, preyer, published or not, completed or not.

A more meaningful number to me, which is impossible to obtain, would be how many words I have written in the process of producing 2.5 YA novels and about three finished adult projects, plus two WIPs. In a way, that would measure where I spent the time and effort at the craft.

[David I]

Fiction? Hmmm. I'd guess about 750,000. Unless you count the fact that I type and back up and type and back up and type and back up and average about a page per hour. In that case. I'd guess I've written about 3 bazillion words of fiction. Of which about 450,000 are in final drafts. Of which about 120,000 have been published.

On the other hand, I've published three non-fiction books, and if I stack up the reports and monographs and theses and dissertations along with those three books, the stack of paper is taller than I am. Which would suggest to a sensible person that it's about time I shut up.

Hemingway's dictum on learning to write was, "Write a million words." But he never said whether it all had to be fiction. Hemingway's own pace was 250 words per day, which would mean about, what, eleven years (without weekends or holidays)?

And the estimable Johnzakour raises the problem of repeating the same word twice. And, though I know a lot of words, there are some--"furfuraceous" and "crepuscular" for instance--that I haven't yet worked into a story.

Does it count that I used them here?

[scarletpeaches]

Words of fiction? Lemme see...if I make a rough estimate of all the drafts I've written for every story I've ever written, somewhere around...800-850,000.

[Stormhawk]

A few million, I know I did around 500,000 back when I was writing fanfic >_<

I probably should start keeping a count.

[kristie911]

Even if I don't count all the essay's and papers I've had to write over the years, it's got to be at least a million. And I have the notebooks full of crap to prove it. :)

[swvaughn]

I found one but it's spelled the exact same way! Just pronounced differently. So it doesn't help at all! ;-)

Curses! Foiled again...

[johnzakour]

Curses! Foiled again...

It really is a curse when explaining to your spanish speaking nieces that "the" and "the" are spelled the same but pronounced differently depending on the speaker. Where "read" and "read" and "lead" and "lead" are spelled the same but pronounced differently depending on the meaning in the sentence. (Where one niece asked, "what if you don't know the meaning then how do you say it?") Then we get clothes and close which sound alike but are spelled different but close can also change how it's pronounced with its meaning.

Ah, English how we love you.

(These are all based on actual "this is English" conversations I have had with the nieces. There was also a "chicken" and "kitchen" one...)

[Linda Adams]

Not a clue. I've been writing since I was eight. It may be many millions of words. But it reminds me of a story my father told me. He's a computer programmer with 45 years of experience. One day this young programmer came up and started bragging about how he'd written thousands of lines of codes. My father said, "Come back and see me when you've written millions. Then we'll talk."

Practice, practice, practice.

[swvaughn]

It really is a curse when explaining to your spanish speaking nieces that "the" and "the" are spelled the same but pronounced differently depending on the speaker. ...Ah, English how we love you.

Ain't that the truth. :D Good on you for trying to explain, though! (I can just imagine the "chicken" and "kitchen" conversation... lol)

I suppose we could always try substituting the fascinating Internet word 'teh' (as in "that is teh sh*t" or "you are teh p3wnd") - but I suppose editors wouldn't be amused. They'd just think it was an extremely persistent typo... :)

[johnzakour]

Ain't that the truth. :D Good on you for trying to explain, though! (I can just imagine the "chicken" and "kitchen" conversation... lol)


I have variations of this conversation with a couple of the nieces and some of my wife's foreign graduate students especially when the two words are used together.

I've heard, "I'm going into the chicken to get some kitchen" on more than one occasion.