Hit 50,000 words on my novel draft last night and I'm shook

I've been writing this sci-fi thing for like 7 months after work in my tiny studio, just chipping away on a laptop on my coffee table. Last night I hit 50,000 words exactly and I honestly didn't think I'd get past 10,000. That's longer than a lot of published books I've read. Has anyone else hit a random milestone like that and had it change how you saw your project?

3 comments

3 Comments

grantadams1mo ago

Oh man, that's huge. I remember when I hit 40,000 on my own thing a couple years back, sitting there at 2am with my eyes burning and suddenly realizing I had actually written something real. It changes everything when you cross that invisible line, like the project stops being a hobby and starts being an actual book you're gonna finish. Hope you got to treat yourself to something nice after that.

king.andrew1mo ago

What kind of sci-fi we talking about here?

julia_miller2415d ago

Respectfully, @king.andrew, I'm going to push back a little here. Crossing 40,000 words is a big deal, sure, but it doesn't automatically turn a project into a real book for me. I've hit that number before and still ended up abandoning the whole thing a month later because it just wasn't working. What really matters to me is whether the story has a solid ending in sight, not just a word count milestone. Getting past 40,000 words feels good, but it's not some magical line where everything changes. A project stops being a hobby when you start actually believing you'll finish it, not when you hit some random number.