This is the sort of post I don’t imagine many people will find interesting, but I’m a little bit of a numbers nerds and thought that, this year, I’d really like to keep track of a lot of little details and lay them all out at the end of the month to see how I did. It helps to put things in perspective: sometimes, it feels like you haven’t done much, and cold solid numbers will help either prove you right or highlight that you’re underestimating yourself. January was a pretty rough month for me for several reasons, but a lot of the bumps and bruises are going to pay off soon, and it’s always a good chance to learn from your mistakes, get rid of what’s giving you issues, and stick with what’s been going well.
Books Sold: 5
My goal is one book a month, so, no, it isn’t much, but I’ll happily take it.
Stories Completed in January: 10
Stories Sent Out: 15
Stories Accepted: 3
Stories Rejected: 19
Stories Published: 1
My goal to send a story every day clearly needs a little more work, but, as I mentioned, January was a rough one. I’m hoping February is better.
Books Finished: 2
Books Finished for 2017 only: 0
I haven’t had much time for reading, and I’ve got a pretty big backlog of books started in 2016 that won’t count for my 2017 total to get through, too. I was hoping to finish Eating Animals soon, but it’s a hard book to binge. Depressing as hell, which couldn’t possibly have benefited my productivity…
Weight on January 1: 170 lbs
Weight on January 31: 167 lbs
My weight fluctuated between 169 and 166 for most of the month, but thankfully never hit that 170 mark again. The progression is slowly, slowly going downhill, so I should look at my diet a little more closely to get things moving a bit faster. I’ve been doing a set of 20 sit-ups every morning, too, so I’ll just pretend some of that is new muscle weight, right? Honestly, I don’t think I’m seeing much of a different physically or on the scale, but I feel a difference already, and that’s the most important part.
Those are the numbers I’m most interested in looking at and observing to help give me perspective on how things are coming along. It wouldn’t hurt to get a kick start on February with a book purchase, so if you get the chance, visit this page and consider picking something up. I’m slowly getting around to adding links to my short work on this page as well. I really, really need to focus on getting something out to the market every single day, as well as finishing some new material that isn’t just fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants flash fiction( although a few of those have been successful!).
Really looking forward to wrangling things back into order and getting to report much better numbers at the end of this month.
L.S. Engler 
Thanks for sharing your numbers with us. I like numbers, too. I’m a spreadsheet junky. But I’m trying to get away from that because keeping up with my word count was depressing. I started looking at time spent instead of words written. But that still involves numbers, doesn’t it? LOL
Btw, you got tagged on my blog. LOL
https://lauralynnelliott.com/2017/02/01/first-day-first-paragraph/
Oooh, thanks for the tag! I love any excuse to post some WIP stuff, so I just hope I remember when March first rolls around!
Word count is the one number I can’t really be bothered with, because I still do everything long hand. Once I’m transcribing something, maybe, and time is pretty hard for me, too, especially with working at my other job more these days. My three hours a day have been reduced to only two, and, even worse, I keep sleeping in because I’m overworked and exhausted, cutting into those precious two hours! Sometimes, though, I can get a lot done in those two hours, and those are very good days, indeed.
I think numbers just help me feel like I’ve retained a margin of control over that which really is uncontrollable. They provide a sort of center for me to focus on amid all the chaos and uncertainties, I think.