Word Count Wednesday

As part of my resolution to make time for writing, I said I would be posting my word count once a week so that you could wag your finger at me if I wasn't living up to my promises.

Since I set my goals this Monday, and I wanted to write 1,000 words per day five times a week... a reasonable number of words to have achieved in 2 days would be somewhere around the 2,000 word mark.

And drumroll...

I wrote: 1848 words

Not too shabby.  It's tougher than I thought to get in 1,000 words a day.  It takes me a good chunk of time to get rolling, but hopefully getting into a rhythm will help.

And a little writerly tip I learned from author, Scott Westerfeld:

You can use the website www.wordle.net to check your writing for repetitive/overused words.
Wordle generates "word clouds" or a graphic based on word frequency.  Copy and paste your text, click create, and voila!  Here's a sample one that I created using the text in the ball and balcony scenes of Romeo and Juliet:

Any word that is big was used A LOT.  Small words were not used often.  So character names will probably be big, but other less critical words shouldn't be.

So if I pasted my first chapter into Wordle... A word like say... "dimpled" should not be very big.  It would mean I overused the word dimpled when describing my character... Which I totally didn't overuse...  *cough cough*  And my critique partner totally didn't catch me using "dimpled smile" over and over...

Sorry Bonnie... I'll try to remember to Wordle my draft before sending it to you next time.

I wonder what words would show up in a Wordle of Twilight?
Tousled Hair?
Golden Eyes?
Murmured?

I have a feeling Stephenie Meyer doesn't know this little Wordle trick...

Wordles are totally fun to play with even if you aren't writing!  Check it out!