I Wrote One Million Words. Where's My Ticker Tape Parade?

According to Malcolm Gladwell practicing anything for 10,000 hours will make you a master.  (Though lots of people agree that's bullshit.)  For writers, the goal is a little bit different.  According to Ray Bradbury, once you hit a million words, you're a master.  (Though lots of people agree that's bullshit, too.)

I agree with the dissenters that assigning an arbitrary number of hours to mastery is probably pointless.  Christ, Mozart died at 35.  He didn't do no damn 10,000 hours of practice.  Nevertheless, a million words is the agreed upon (arbitrary or not) level of mastery for my craft, and I'm happy to announce to anyone who even slightly gives a shit that I've reached that goal.

I try not to talk about the craft of writing too much on this blog (because it's BORING) but I do like to share my successes and some people are interested in this sort of thing, so here you go.  In this non-scientific analysis I'm counting just work on novels that exceeded 10,000 words.  So, I've disregarded all of my screenplays, short stories, games, and anything that was basically me writing a chapter and getting bored.  If anyone's really interested in a breakdown of every word I've ever written, I'll get back to you on that at a later date when I can hire a team of analysts to work around the clock.

I've also broken this list down by categories which are mostly self-explanatory.  However, if you don't know, "trunked" is a reference to old-timey days when an author would stick a mansucript that no publisher would buy into a trunk at the foot of the bed.  I have put some of my trunked manuscripts up right here on this blog (I call it "burning" them.)  Hence the title of this blog.  And now you know!

Title	Last Edited	Wordcount
Published
BRAINEATER JONES	Jul-13	70000
GORE & PEACE I: THE GHOUL ARCHIPELAGO	Oct-13	118000
BILLY AND THE CLONEASAURUS	Jun-14	50000
Complete, to be published
THE HYENA SERIES I: BLACK SUN, BLOOD MOON	Jul-14	103000
BROKEN-DOWN HEROES OF THE WESTERN NIGHT	Jan-14	60000
THE TWO AMERICAS I: EVERY KINGDOM DIVIDED	Nov-12	89000
Incomplete, to be published
MODERN BLOOD I: HUNTER OF THE DEAD	Jul-14	23000
KINGDOM	Nov-13	38000
GORE & PEACE II: NOTES FROM THE UNDEAD	Nov-12	50000
Complete, trunked
LIFE AND DEATH	May-11	140000
GRAVEYARD FLOWER	Jan-10	78000
THE LAST WAR	Nov-09	111000
HELL AND BLOOD	May-09	32000
ETERNITY BURNING	Feb-07	39000
Incomplete, trunked
THE IRON CROWN	Sep-07	45000
LOVE AND HATE	Dec-06	27000
		1073000