It's a Numbers Thing.

I never used to listen to songs on repeat while writing certain scenes in my WIPs, but things changed during FOUR. A lot of things, actually.

In many ways, FOUR is a first novel for me. It's the first novel I've written that did not start during NaNoWriMo. It's the first novel that I approached with almost-professional dedication. It's the first novel that I outlined, and due to that, the first novel that I never hit a roadblock.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this recently, but I actually started writing FOUR in January of '10, around the same time I started this blog. When I brainstormed ideas with husband about it, it was originally intended to be a rewrite of the '09 NaNo novel, but soon took on such a life of its own that that didn't work anymore (thankfully--I've come up with a much better redirection for that novel).

For three weeks in that January, I wrote 2k per day, without fail. At the end of the stretch, I had 33,200 words. I can't remember now why I set it aside--I think I wanted to finish writing the NaNo novels I'd left hanging, which I did. Over the year, I kept reading through it from time to time, and each time I read I'd be pleasantly surprised by the content.

So, in early February of this year, I sent the 33k to two of my CPs and asked for their brutal opinions--was it worth continuing, or should I scrap it? Thankfully, the answer was yes--keep going.

Out of empirical interest, I kept a note beside my desk of how many words I added each day that I wrote. It's fun now looking over the list and seeing the numbers jump. I officially started writing again on February 10. By March 10, I'd added 30,000 new words. And by April 10, I'd added another 20k. And of course, I finished on April 21.

Now, I didn't actually write every day during those roughly 2 months. In fact, I had several long stretches where I didn't write at all, which is another reason I'm glad I kept the list, since I only wrote the days that I added wordcount. According to El List, I actually only wrote for 32 days. In 32 days, I wrote 63,263 words, an average of 1,977 words each day.

I'm proud of that. I feel like with this novel that I've finally proved to myself that I can do it--I can write a full-length draft without the hype and competition of NaNoWrimo, with just the BICHOK method and Taurean determination.

I got lots of practice telling my husband that I was going to be writing instead of playing video games or doing something with friends. Not always an easy choice, but one that you see dedicated writers making again and again.


Anyway, since this post is all dry and about numbers and stuff, I wanted to share the official repeat stats on my FOUR playlist. Unlike some of my other works, I actually listened more to iTunes than to Pandora for the writing of this novel. I just couldn't find quite the right Pandora station (though my Delerium station got a good workout).

The official playlist has 63 songs for 4.9 hours of playtime. I rarely listened to the whole thing, as there were songs on there that ended up not being quite right.

So, here are the top ten songs and their repeat numbers:

1. "The Day the World Went Away"-- Nine Inch Nails (38)
2. "Degausser"--Brand New (34)
3. "Undisclosed Desires"--Muse (28)
4. "Imma Be"--Black Eyed Peas (24--this was mostly for the awesome bass beat)
5. "Sabotage"--Beastie Boys (22)
6. "Dragula"--Rob Zombie (19)
7. "Knights of Cydonia"--Muse (18)
8. "Uprising"--Muse (17)
9. "2-1"--Imogen Heap (15)
10. "United States of Eurasia"--Muse (15)

Seeing a Muse trend? Me too. 

Thanks for suffering through this numbers post!

What's your number one repeated song on iTunes?