I was relieved when I crunched the numbers a couple of days ago.
I set myself ambitious writing goals for this year. Among other goals, I wanted to write at least 225,000 words of fiction, nonfiction, and/or poetry this year, more than I have ever written in any year to date, and make my daily writing quota (see below for the explanation for “Daily Writing Goals Met”) at least 80 percent of the time.
How well did I manage to do with these goals? I’m by no means well free and clear regarding those goals, especially since only half the year is gone, but I am on pace to meet them.
Before that, lets talk last week’s numbers and the month of June 2025:
Writing statistics for the week ending 28 June 2025:
Words: 6,990
Days writing: 7 of 7.
Days revising or planning: 0 of 7 for 0 minutes.
Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 6 of 7 days.
Writing statistics for June 2025:
Words: 17,272.
Revising/Planning: 1,620 minutes.
DWGM: 86%
So, one of the better writing weeks I’ve had (the highest total in the year to date), but only the fourth best out of six months I’ve had during the year. I’m truly surprised at how productive I’ve been this week, especially since I’ve been stressing about when my book The Yank Striker’s Journey is coming out (I’d thought it was going to be ready at the end of June but it’s looking more likely to be after the Fourth of July at this point.)
I needed to have written at least 112,500 words to keep on pace for that 225,000 number. So, drum roll for the numbers1:
Writing statistics for the first half of 2025:
Words (total): 113,755.
Words (avg.): 18,959.
Revise/Plan (Total): 6,825 minutes.
Revise/Plan (avg.): 1,365 minutes.
DWGM: 89%
Fun fact, since I’ve been keeping solid track of word count back in 2018, this is the third best numbers I’ve had for the first part of a year and my fifth-best six month period overall. However, I can now say my total word count from July 2024 to June 2025 now stands at 232,553 words, my highest ever 12-month period of writing. Amazing.
So, I am about 1,200 words over pace to meet my goals, and I’m above my average for getting my daily writing quotas done. All good news. As for what I am writing2: Thankfully, I have several items I can work on now to get productive. There’s:
- The sequel to The Holy Fool, set in the present day. I’m at 7,000 words into the rough draft. I want to keep this no bigger than 70,000 words, I think.
- A short story that might wind up in a collection… I’ll let you know about it when something gets published. It’s close to being done, hopefully in the next week.
- Some more work on the Kayfabe Stories series, even though I don’t have a solid deadline or or even a hint of a schedule of when I’ll be working on this issue.
- The minute Journey gets published, I’ll start planning and writing The Yank Striker 3 . I’m hoping to have it ready to go next year.
Good news, but I’m not getting complacent. Hope everyone is doing all right.
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- Note that the “Average” numbers are the monthly averages. ↩︎
- I won’t go into the long list next time, promise. ↩︎