Why 200,000 words?

I thought it might be a good idea to talk a little more about why I choose 200,000 words as my 2017 writing goal.  At first glance, it seems like sort of a random number.  To be honest, it IS a random number.  But I did put a little more thought into it that just picking a number out of a hat.  So here are a few points to make me feel better about this goal.

First, 200,000 is a lot of words.  It's not one of the goals that I won't have to work at.  I did the math, of course, before I settled on this plan and to reach my goal I would have to write 548 new words each day.  That's without taking a single day off, not my birthday, or Thanksgiving, or even a sick day when I can't get out of bed.  Also, during my December writing challenge (when I started writing daily) I averaged only 501 words per day.  I exceeded 548 words only 7 times out of 31, for a pitiful compliance percentage of 22.6%.  This goal wasn't going to be a walk in the park by any stretch.

Second, I want to write a book.  Several books actually, but before there can be many there need to be at least one.  I did a little research, and the average novel is around 60,000 to 70,000 words.  I knew that my goal needed to be more than just write a book because I have also heard many authors talk about success coming from continuing a series more than just releasing a stand-alone title.  Continuing to produce work after I have published my first book is going to be critical in calling myself a writer.  I am a writer; not I was a writer.  So by my crude math, I figure that if I can write at least 200,000 words in 2017 that I should be able to have three first drafts of novels.  Not necessarily finished books, but a good place to start.  And I am hoping that at least one of those three drafts will be worth publishing.

Third, I needed a big splashy number to get people's attention.  Saying I wrote a book is impressive.  Saying that I wrote more words than the population of the Territory of Guam (estimated population of 161,785 in July of 2016) is splashy.  It is also a bit more fun to track in a spreadsheet than a chart that shows books written at zero until around May, then only goes to one until September.  You get the idea.

Fourth, this is a stepping stone to larger word counts and more books written.  I honestly believe that I can write more than 200,000 words this year.  But if I just base my goal off of my December 2016 words written I should only have a hair over 186,000 written by the end of the year.  I wanted to push myself to do better, but also allow myself time to do other things related to writing.  Keep in mind; this goal is NEW words written.  I don't count words edited.  From what I have experienced so far, editing is a much more labor-intensive process (but I'll save that discussion for another post).

Can I make it?  Time will tell.  Having something to strive for is the point of setting a goal.