Here are the writing stats for Sprig at the end of January 2020. To see my progress in other months click here.

This Month

• Words Written: 30,225
• Words Published: 13,974
• Chapters Written: 12
• Chapters Published: 6
• Last Published Chapter: 7.4 Rest
• Last Completed Chapter: 9.7

Total

• Words Written: 145,681
• Words Published: 110,456
• Chapters Written: 62
• Chapters Published: 47
• Backlogged Chapters: 15

Notes

Best month ever! No really, January was my best month of writing yet. Check out the solid blue and green lines on the first chart! My previous best month was April, my first month writing Sprig, when I wrote just over 20,000 words. At the time, I didn't think it was reasonable to ever write that many words in a month again, at least not while I still have a full-time job. It was a ton of work, and my daily goal was around 500 words back then. This month I wrote over 30,000 words and I'm pretty sure I spent less time writing than I did in April. My daily average was 975 words. It was closer to 1200 for most of the month but I took some time to work on editing Issue 2 later in the month. Also, I wrote twice as many chapters as I released this month, so I'm happy to report that I "crushed it."

There are two main strategies I used to increase my writing speed so much. The first was planning. Each time I finish an arc, I make sure I have a plan for the next two arcs. The plan could be as simple as a sentence for each chapter, but I usually like to have at least a sentence for each scene. Sometimes I need to stop and plan things out as I write, like figuring out character goals in a heated discussion, but usually, it gives me just enough structure so I always have an idea of what I'll be writing next.

The second major contributor to my increased writing speed was writing in sprints. Now, every time I write I set a 15-minute timer. While that timer is going I try and pump out as many words as possible. And after I'm done, I record my word count into my website and let it calculate how many words I wrote per minute. I added a word count tracker to my website so that I can see my daily word count, average writing speed and all of those things. If you want to do something similar, you could always do it in Google Sheets, or an Excel document.

Being able to see those stats made every writing into a little mini-game. I would push myself to write faster than the time before and keep my daily WPM average up. And since I was writing in sprints, I was able to throw in another chunk of words on my 15-minute break at work or before I went to bed at night.

My best session ended up being about 546 words in 15 minutes. I averaged around 450 for the month though, but even still, that means I was writing about 1800 an hour. My best day was over 2300 words and that only took about an hour and a half of actual writing. Before using these two tactics, I was writing about 450 words an hour.

So, with all of this added time, I'll be a little more flexible with my releases. Once I've finished getting out the first three Issues of Sprig (Issue 2 will be out soon and Issue 3 is due in March), I'll be working on more bonus chapters for Patrons, Discord server members, etc. as well as new stories altogether. I'm excited to see where 2020 takes us!

News

Issue 2 of Sprig will be available soon! I just finished all of the editing, so all I need to do now is upload the files, order a proof copy, and give it one more look before it's available. If you're looking to buy a copy, make sure you sign up for my mailing list. For the first week the book is out, it will be available at 60% off the normal price for my subscribers. Sign up so you don't miss out!