Besting Shakespeare & Conquering Graceland…
The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. Most word processors can easily do automatic word counts. Different word counting programs may give varying results, depending on the definition of “word”, and on whether words outside the main text such as footnotes or hidden text are counted.
Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words. Word counts may be also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds. Another application of word counting is to categorize documents by length. For instance, the American Writers Association uses the following criteria to categorize written works;
Novel: Generally any work of prose fiction over 45,000 words.
Novella/Novelette: Short novel averaging 7,000 – 40,000 words.
Short Story: Prose fiction of about 2,000 – 7,500 words.
Short Short: Prose fiction under 2,000 words.
Flash Fiction: Prose fiction under 1000, 500, or even 99 words.
Why should you even remotely care about these numbers? I just thought it was interesting and did some quick figuring. Today’s post makes a grand total of 80. My posts always run between 600 and 1500 words, so as an average I took 850 words, then multiplied by 80 total posts…. give or take a few – I have written over 68,000 words just in this blog alone, I’ve written the equivalent of a Novel. I found that kind of cool. Of course, this doesn’t include any of the ad copy writing I do at work or any of the creative writing I do on my own or all the charity copywriting I do…. basically I guess you could say I’m the most prolific writer who has ever lived….
OK, way way off – but it feels good to look back and think of the time and effort I’ve put into this little hobby and what I have to show for it. A festering pile of nonsense and frequently incoherent musings…. but hey, it’s still words on paper – so to speak….
It got me to thinking, in a couple of days I’m turning 43, other notable 43 year old accomplishments – JFK elected at 43 – RFK assassinated at 43 – Martin Luther King at 39 – Elvis died at 42…
It doesn’t feel like I’ve been wasting my time but Cheese Louise how the hell do you become leader of the free world at my age. How can two paths diverge any further than that? The King of Rock and Roll, same thing… living on into immortality….
Cripes if I plan on doing anything big, anything with mass market repercussions I better drop the hammer and get on with it. Keep an eye on this post because when and if I make the move I’ll put it right here and you’ll be amongst the first to know. I’m not saying I’ll be taking over at Graceland or anything like that but who knows what happens next, certainly stranger things have happened… take a look at this list of people who made it big AFTER 45 years old…..
Tommy Lee Jones, Willie Nelson, Peter Jackson, Simon Cowell, Steve Carell, Billy Bob Thorton, Barack Obama, Morgan Freeman, Jeff Foxworthy, George Bernard Shaw, Mother Teresa, Bill Clinton, Samuel L Jackson, Ricky Gervais, Matt Lauer, Albert Einstein, Carol O’Connor, Ed O’Neill, Margaret Atwood and quite a few others so don’t count my chickens just yet….. That makes no sense….. you know what I mean…. I can still make a splash, which I’ve always felt I was destined to do — worst case scenario I become a serial killer, voila, infamy… mission accomplished….
Have a Great Day