It’s been about a year since I picked up a scruffy notepad and wrote the first few scenes of a comedy novel while watching breakfast TV. One year later and it’s become an (un)healthy obsession. There have been times I’ve been blazing with creative fire, times when I’ve been poisoned by doubt, and times when I’ve got a little bit crazy with it all. It’s been a great year.
But that’s enough emotion. What are the facts. What are the numbers.
The Novel
The main writing event this year has been my novel ‘Somewhere In Between’ – a romance set in a beginners meditation class. Here’s how it currently stands:
- 87,251 words over 349 pages. It’s a proper book.
- 12 Parts and 51 chapters. Lots of small chapters which I think works.
- 8 drafts completed and I’ve work started on the ninth.
And here’s what it took to get there
- Highest word count was 94,280 on 24th November 2023. This was the completed first draft.
- Lowest word count was 74,177 on 1st April 2024. This was a wholesale restructure after feedback from Ally Blake. It was much better for it, but seeing my work evaporate into nothing was tough.
- 51 cut scenes, 29,452 words in total, and that doesn’t include line level edits and general tinkering. A lot of darlings have been slaughtered.
- 3 title changes (Softening, Love and Distraction, Somewhere In Between).
- 5 genres changes – Comedy to Thriller, Thriller to Romance, Romance to Women’s Fiction and back to Romance.
- 5 people have read parts of the book.
- 1 person (me) has read the entire novel.
The Words
I’ve written on most days over the last year. This is what I spent that time doing.
- 186,588 words written and edited (novel, blog, ideas, morning pages).
- 55 blog posts published and 5 scheduled.
- Number of days that I wrote my first novel – 253
- Number of days that I wrote a posts for this blog – 116
- Number of days that I worked on ideas for other books – 40
- Number of days that I wrote morning pages – 37
- Number of days spent outlining my second novel – 3
The Money
Pens and paper are cheap enough, but there is a heap of other stuff that can be bought to assist the writing life. Here’s what I spent my cash on this year – some were borderline essential, most were super useful, and a few were authorial luxuries.
- Membership fees to two writing organisations (Queensland Writers Centre and Romance Writers of Australia).
- 2 conferences.
- Flights to Adelaide for the second conference – and 3 days in an Airbnb.
- 3 face to face classes (a 4th was free with RWA membership).
- Scrivener (the best spend of the year and I would argue essential).
- 15 books on writing.
- 5 hours of mentorship from an established author.
- Amount of money spent on the above stuff – don’t wanted to think about it.
- Amount of tax deductions claimed – $0.
It’s not a business so I can’t claim back anything – but one day I hope to publish, and on that happy day, there will be a credit column sitting along side the all debits.
