Word count

I regularly use word count to find out whether the word limit has been reached but it never occurred to me that word count is something to keep me going through long nights of writing. Though, this is when my writing is flowing like a well oiled machine. It's a completely different story when your fingers don't jump so vigorously on the keyboard as you would normally expect. It happened yesterday and I found myself battling with the word count.

My expectation is to write 1,500 words a day. It doesn't sound like much but it certainly looked like Mt. Everest yesterday. I feel much better today exceeding 2,000 words with ease but it feels amusing and bewildering that word count can make you think so much. Shouldn't I be much more concerned about the WHAT of writing? Well, I am, don't take me wrong but the count itself sitting at the bottom of Word processors is always there constantly reminding me of the inevitable battle with words and time. Is this writing driving me mad or is that something every author is going through?

100,000

I also looked around to find out what successful indie writers are doing and accidentally discovered Amanda Hocking. She is a fabulous young writer and I finished reading Hollowland (The Hollows, #1) a few days ago. Anyway, Amanda is earning millions of dollars but to me it's more amazing that she's got a granny in Reading, England (I live here) and that she asked for an agent via her blog, referring to a book The Secret, months before she even started self-publishing her books on Amazon! The Law of Attraction clearly delivered. Why am I saying this? Because I read the book The Secret, in fact I read many more, and I believe in the law of attraction.

So, let me copy Amanda (I hope she doesn't mind) and let the Universe know what I want. Well, I want to sell the first 100,000 copies by March 2012!

Here we go, I've said it and to quote Amanda: "The Secret thing worked for Oprah and Ellen. I hope it works for me..." It worked Amanda, my sincere congratulations, you really deserve it but now I hope it works for me too...

My first novel

One might think I just decided to begin writing novels but the story is far more complex and mysterious. I always wanted to do some writing and the early beginnings can be traced to my primary school times but my writing adventures always stopped at about 50 words. Yeah, believe it or not but I just couldn't write more than a few sentences, and that was it. Looking at my bookshelves I never understood how could all these authors write hundreds of pages. That's like 70,000, 100,000 or even more words. It just didn't work out for me and envy was the only thing that remained with me for many years to come.

The real change started with my PhD when I was asked to produce a piece of work as large as universe or to a seasoned writer, somewhere around 100,000 words. God bless I said to myself but after three years of pain I actually managed to produce something to be proud of. More than 10 years later I got an idea to write a boring professional book about my frustration with the construction industry (Construction 2.0). I did, jointly with Prof John Bennett and I am really happy as the two of us work together like a Swiss clock. Well, the book eventually got a bit more digestible title (Construction Management Strategies: A Theory of Construction Management) but we're still pretty provocative and I'm happy with the result.

Then I thought to myself that now is the time to begin writing a novel and I did - last week. I've got 12,000 words so far and I am thrilled! Why? Well, it was a hell of a journey since my 50-word beginnings but I can now write for hours and even create a story. Don't laugh, it's a huge progress! It's a romantic novel about a student that fell in love with a girl, ends up in war and realizes there are people one doesn't even notice that can really make a difference. My plan is to finish it by the end of November and complete it just before Christmas - again, fingers crossed!