Words, words and more words

A moderately interesting exercise; this is a word-count of the books I’ve had published under the pen-names of Nik Morton, Ross Morton, Robert Morton and Robin Moreton.

Death at Bethesda Falls – 34,500

Pain Wears No Mask * - 96,000

Last Chance Saloon – 40,000

The Prague Manuscript * - 84,000

Blind Justice at Wedlock – 38,400

The Tehran Transmission * - 90,900

The $300 Man – 40.018

Assignment Kilimanjaro – 80,900

Bullets for a Ballot – 31,900

Old Guns – 37,250

Death is Another Life * - 81,200

Odd Shoes and Medals (biog) – 38,300

Write a Western in 30 Days (nonfic) – 49,700

When the Flowers are in Bloom (anthology) * - 39,900

Blood of the Dragon Trees – 79,800

Spanish Eye - 51,900

Sudden Vengeance – 58,500

The Magnificent Mendozas – 40,500

Wings of the Overlord (due September) – 106,600

Catalyst (due December) – 54,700

  

 [* = out-of-print]

 
Total word-count, 1 million, 174 thousand, 950 words – since 2007. That’s not a lot by the standards of many prolific authors. James Reasoner usually aims to write that many words per year!

They’re my published words in book format, of course. The actual word-count of books produced (including those discarded, and those not published [yet]) will doubtless add to another million.

A writer some years back commented that you really need to write a million words before you reach competency as an author. The search for the writer who said that is an intriguing one, and may have been Ray Bradbury or John D. McDonald; see this interesting article on the subject:

http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2014/03/one-million-words-to-competency-who-said-it-first.html

Naturally, in the above list I haven’t counted A Fistful of Legends (which I edited). One day, I’ll do a word-count of the published short stories, perhaps.

For interest, the three books that are works in progress (Catacomb, To Be King and The Khyber Chronicle), they clock up another 46,900 words!