Word Count – August 2021 – Sol Vera's Blog

I know it’s almost October, but I couldn’t add the word count on my last update, so I decided to make a separate post and it became one of my goals for this month.

And here we are! I’ve made some graphs to help me keep track of my word count!

Line graph on a purple background that looks like someone used a paint roller on a lilac wall. On the x-axis, 5 different dates appear: November 2020, January 2021, March 2021, June 2021 and August 2021. The number of words appears on the y-axis, which ranges from 0 to 150,000. There are 8 lines with different colors and all of them but one overlap.
Blue: It's the highest by far, since it starts from the 100,000 line and rises a little more before stabilizing.
Gray: Starts as the second highest, around 25,000 and goes up quite a bit from January to March, then stagnates, then goes up again.
Turquoise: Starts as the third line, but immediately stagnates and is overtaken by all of the rest except one.
Orange: Very stagnant. It overlaps with the turquoise at the beginning and with the green before the end, then becomes the last project according to the number of words.
Green: It overlaps with several at the beginning and with the orange one before the end, then has a steep increase and goes from the last position to the fifth position, overlapping with the yellow one once more. Yellow: It overlaps with several at the beginning, then it stagnates, but it rises a lot later on and ends up together with the yellow one.
Brown: Overlapped at the beginning. It is not known where it comes from, but it ends up in fourth position. Violet: Goes from the last position to the second position. — Made with Canva

As I mentioned on my post about Burnout, last year I decided to change my goals from writing as much as I could to writing 100 words per day to avoid feeling overwhelmed and getting stuck. And it’s been working pretty well, I think! I used to hate word counting, but being able to check how I’m doing every 2-3 months has helped me realize I’m writing more than I think.

Oracle already had a very high word count because it’s my oldest project and I’ve been adding words for over 10 years, but take a look at the others! Remember that I count all the words because research and outlines are part of writing, so the number of words is not the same as in the manuscripts, but they all count towards my goal.

Sanctuary is my newest project and it’s already ahead of the rest. Brothers is probably the second project I started, over 6 years ago, so it’s normal to see it in third place. Alcalá has seen an increase this year because I’ve done a lot of research for that project. Feathers and Fireflies keep intertwining in a beautiful pattern, with Fireflies’ word count greatly increasing in recent months thanks to a related short story I was writing. Academy has seen a slow increase, but it’s not doing that badly. And the last one, Heroes, still has way more words than I expected before I started counting.

You can see more about my projects here.

Vertical bar graph on a purple background with flowers outlined in a darker shade of purple. On the left, one can see the names of the projects. Below, the number of words. The bars grow towards the right and have stripes with different shades of blue representing the different months.
The bars go from longest to shortest.
Oracle: Either doubles or triples the length of the others, but it is because of the first stripe, the lightest one.
Sanctuary: It has five distinct stripes and has managed to surpass 50,000 words. The first to achieve it after Oracle.
Brothers and Alcalá: usually very evenly matched, but Alcalá has a very wide third stripe, while Brothers has a fifth stripe that helps it go a little further, managing to get third place at the last moment.
Feathers: It does not have a second stripe, but it has a very visible fourth stripe because there was a month in which I only added words to this project.

Fireflies: Used to be pretty even with the Heroes Project, but has a much wider fifth stripe that makes it more even with the Feathers Project now.
Academy: Very narrow third and fifth stripes, while the fourth is nonexistent.
Heroes: has a wide first stripe, but not many more shades of blue afterwards. — Made with Canva

And, in this second graph, you can see how words got added to each project. The darker the colour, the closer to the present. But please keep into account that the lightest colour can cover several years in projects like Oracle and Brothers.

So now we all know how my writing is going, and I got to visualise how I’m writing more now that my daily goal is just 100 words. I just hope I can keep it up!

Would you like to see more Word Count updates like this one?