840,000

Yesterday was technically the anniversary of the Hopper. Four years ago I started it up as a way of getting into the habit of daily writing. Now, if I miss a day (a rare occurrence) I feel oogy. So I guess that experiment worked.

I also started it to help me kinda get my brain wrapped around this Hegel guy I was reading. That experiment didn’t really work. Or rather, it did, pointing out to me that Hegel is a cataclysmic waste of time. For me, that is. Your German Idealist Philosopher mileage may vary.

So … I’m almost at the million word mark. If I estimate 600 words per blog post, times an average of 350 blog posts a year, times four years, that yields (… click click click-click clack …) – wow! 840,000 words. 84 percent of the way there.

For reference, yer average science fiction golden age paperback runs about 90,000 words. So over the course of four years I’ve written, comparably, a little over nine average science fiction golden age paperbacks. Yay me!

Aside from the blog, however, I have not produced much writing. I did pen a 20,000 word novella two summers back and did re-edit both my 120,000-word novels. The latter entailed scrapping the needlessly verbose epilogue and rewriting a tight, 5,000-word closing. Yes, that’s a big closing, but I had a handful of storylines and a gotcha! ending to tie altogether. I think I did a good job. Literary agents, not so much.

The biggest accomplishment of the Hopper, and the most funnest, I think, are the book reviews. 118 at the time of this writing, with one more on the way this weekend. I’ve now reached the point where, if I finish a book and do not write a 750-1,000-word review, something feels terribly amiss in my world. It’s crazy, that little thing called habit – now make it work for you! I actually have visions of reaching my 500th review. Hopefully someone somewhere can find some use and amusement from them, in some small way.

840,000 words and counting … at this rate I’ll hit a million sometime around Christmas-time 2012. Maybe I’ll take the day off from writing when I do.

Probably not.