The Numbers...

I'm a numbers girl. Even before I taught math, I liked numbers. It's the engineer in me.

During the first book, I kept a spreadsheet with the chapter titles, the word count and number of pages for it. After every chapter I completed, I'd update this spreadsheet. For whatever reason, I didn't do that for book 2. I take that back, I think I know the reason - I just wanted to WRITE. The mini-accomplishment wasn't in updating the spreadsheet with new numbers, but in continuing the saga, the next chapter (or jumping to another place in the book to write that chapter). I have so much story to tell, I just kept typing/writing.

I honestly thought that I didn't even start my "stats" spreadsheet. Now that I'm almost done with Book 2 (I'm writing the ending now), I thought about it. I went to Book 1's folder, copied the stats sheet and pasted it into Book 2's folder and discovered that I had already started one. The last time I updated it was last year - 11 months ago! The "start date" I listed for Book 2 was 10/5/09. I am in such disbelief that it's been about a year and half since I started this book. It doesn't feel like that at all!

Before I update the spreadsheet, I wanted to remember some stats from my last update in June, 2010. Of course, now that I think about it, I could just start a new worksheet in the file to keep my original data. But I'm sick and coming out from end of science fair season and am a little slow at the moment. Regardless, I still want to share this information, because it intrigues me.

Started 10/5/09. Last update 6/3/10.
25 chapters (2 officially listed as "not done" but started).
4 "chapters" were partially done. These were more scenes I wrote that, at the time, may or may not be included in this book. They are included in the page and word count.
Word count: 161231
Pages (double-spaced): 596

I wrote 161,000 words in 8 months? I knew Book 2 would be "long" but I had no I idea how long. I'll find out soon when I update the stats... There was just so much story to tell! So much more story to tell.