“The first million words are just practice.” - David Gerrold
A million words?
That's ten 100,000-word novels.
I won't go into how many shorter works it takes to get to that million words or how long it takes to write that many.
But something else happens when you get to that million words. You write better, more economically, and tell a better story.
Consider, too, that it takes those million words to gain a "voice"—that unique combination of words in a sequence that allows the reader to hear the writer's voice on the page or a particular character's or narrator's voice.
Have you reached your million words?
Are you still struggling to get to that million?
Or have you set the writing aside because it's summer and you figure to get back to writing again after Labor Day?
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