My writing app said I hit 50,000 words on a single story and I felt sick

I opened Scrivener last night to check a scene, and the project stats box popped up like it always does. The word count at the bottom just said '50,127' in plain black text. I stared at it for a full minute because I've never stuck with one idea long enough to get past maybe 15k. This is just a weird fantasy thing about a clockwork city, and I guess all those little 500-word sessions added up. It's a huge number, but now I'm scared to actually read it back. Has anyone else gotten paralyzed by their own word count?

2 comments

2 Comments

mia_scott7715d ago

Wait, does that sick feeling come from the size of it or the fear it's all bad? I get that freeze-up too (like, what if I just wrote 50k words of nonsense?). The trick is to not think of it as one huge thing. Pick a random chapter you sort of remember liking and just read that one. It's way less scary to look at pieces.

patricia_rodriguez15d ago

Hold up, you wrote 50k words without reading it?