Measuring words

This is May and maybe the first time since November last year that I've had cause to look in my writing logs. Mainly because I haven't been writing since then, and when I have been writing I've been editing. But this week I have been writing a bit of something different and brief, so it has finally been time to throw together a spreadsheet for 2010 and tidy some loose ends for 2009. Adding the word count for Shadow of the Empire to last year's summary brings the number of words of fiction I wrote in 2009 to 43,367. I finished three stories last year. This year it seems I won't be doing nearly as much and that bothers me. I think I've not been as dedicated as I want to be. It is true I want to put more effort into learning coding as well, but so far I still believe I could devote more effort to each and still be doing better than I am now, plus having time still for relaxation too. I don't know how to measure coding activity beyond 'do I feel like I made a decent effort? did I get any steps done?', but figuring I write about 500 words a day on days I'm actively writing, then if I want to match or do better than last year I really only need 88 writing days in the year. Doesn't seem so many like that, just need some stories to use them on. Lately I have been feeling at a bit of a loss for what to do when I've finished editing the Epic Fantasy that is my main writing focus for now. Then I remind myself that one reason I'm editing that story is as part of an overall project to clean up and get done (or going with) my backlog of older projects in a professional sort of way. That isn't going as effectively as I'd planned, but that's what happens and we keep on trying. Anyway, that means my next writing project will probably be something like finishing Sparkle. And so on in accordance with the write / edit cycle laid out long ago which hopefully with long practice will become more efficient. It was a slight disappointment to remember I do actually have plans for what to do next, as I'd finally had an idea tonight for making an old epic fantasy idea a bit more interesting by having it try to do something I'd been wanting to find a story for. Still, I can use that one, or a zombie apocalypse story, or tSOW which I'd intended last year for NaNoWriMo this year. Otherwise I'm not sure where there'd be room for writing much this year. Sparkle will probably be ~15K all up unless something happens. Then I'd be editing A Library Fox,/i>, which given how long Epic Fantasy is taking will probably occupy a long while too. And then, probably an installment of a serial story which would take us to the end of 2010 if we aren't there already. From this distance that looks like probably 20-25 thousand words this year plus whatever I manage in November which, huh, is actually what I did last year too. I guess if I keep that up I can be satisfied that my writing is keeping steady progress. Hard to be satisfied when there are all these stories unwritten but, stressing myself about something beyond my capacity just doesn't help I think. Anyway, optimism!