I’ve written rants on the word counts of IFs and the expectations some readers have around that before, and after seeing hate against other authors, I feel the need to do so again. So buckle up.
Here’s a fact to put word count in perspective:
William Shakespeare wrote about 900,000 total words across his 38-ish plays, 154 sonnets, and two long narrative poems—900,000 words in his lifetime of work.
Remember that the next time you demand an author write 200k, 300k, 400k+ words in their update or chapter or demo or whatever labor of love they are sharing with you for free.
Writing is a joy, yes. But it is also hard. It’s emotional, it’s time consuming, it’s laborious, and it’s intrinsically a solitary venture. Writing any amount of words should be looked at as an achievement and celebrated.
To be clear, I’ve never experienced word count hate from my followers, and I appreciate you all so much for that. But it saddens me greatly to see other authors having to deal with this.
So to all my fellow authors, I am immensely proud of you. Whether you write 100 words or 10, whether you write daily or weekly. You are gifted and talented and deserving of every praise. Keep writing, and know that we appreciate all that you do. ❤️
