As a man who holds a physics degree (kinda-sorta two, but that’s a long story full of sighs), I like numbers. A live a lot of my life by things that can be specifically quantified and measured… things like “how many words have I written today?” or “On a scale of 1-to-10 how good is this game?” or “How many hours of guitar practice have I done this week?”
Numbers are important to me. I have a father who imposed a very rigorous set of conditions on my success, and coupling that to an understand (albeit a limited understanding) of mathematics means that I like numbers. We don’t always get along (hello partial differential equations and Matlab), but that doesn’t displace how important they are.
In my transition to a writer, some of that has bled through. Those of you who have read my work know that I frequently include some rough calculations in my books: Tintian and Millesabord, for example, the first time they meet have some quick mental calculations to determine both their rotational speed and the velocity at which they are approaching a crash landing on the moon. But this also comes across in my goals: I have a specific yearly dollar amount that I need to make in order to consider myself a full-time author, I have specific numbers of novels I want to release every year (four a year for this year, and eventually down to 2 or 3 a year when I have a bit more breathing room and time), and I track how many visits my website gets multiple times a week.
I think that there are people who live without this hyper-focus on the numbers in their careers. People who don’t need to know exactly how much money they’re making (for example, my job I work to pay for my writing, I don’t actually know how much I make a year or per hour. I have a kind of vague idea, and every week money appears in my account as a result of my work, but I don’t really care how much since I know it’s “enough”). I suspect that those people are probably happier, in a general sense, but by the same token I don’t really want to be one of those people (although if you are one of them, more power to you!). I like seeing how far I’ve come, and that involves, in some way, counting the steps I’ve taken.
Anyway. I saw that I landed two unsolicited sales in the last couple days, and that was a really nice feeling (one that I hope picks up pace by a lot some day, but I can still appreciate it right now!). Made me think about numbers.
I’m going to get back to writing my first novel of 2021! I’m really excited about this one, even if I think I have to completely re-write Chapter 2 already… but that’s okay! That’s what first drafts are for!
Hope everyone out there is healthy and safe!