50k in 30days Starts

Yes, it's that time of year again. 50k in 30days is run every June by RWA. Along the lines of Nanowrimo, we pledge a goal for the month and then write our socks off to meet it. There is plenty of support and sprints are run regularly (I lurv the sprints *grin* - and have blogged about them previously).

This year I'm going for broke and am aiming high. I don't think I'll get there (life invariably gets in the way) but I firmly believe the higher I aim the better the outcome. Besides, even if I don't reach my goal I will have a lot more words come the end of  June then I would have otherwise.

I'll be updating my word counter regularly throughout the month - nothing like keeping it in the public eye to feed my motivation *grin*.  Wish me luck!!

Word Counts

50,000 words.

That is my goal. 50,000 words. My work in progress is aimed at Harlequin Mills and Boon Sweet so the size of my ms is already determined.

But how do I tell just how many words I've written?

I know there are two different ways of calculating word count.
1. The actual word count
2. The number of pages x 250 (when your page is set up to hold 25 lines).

Originally I'd been following the first method. But then I heard on the grapevine that publishers were more concerned with the number of pages in a book, so I switched to option 2.

Last night I celebrated breaking the 20,000 mark. But then I was told that Harlequin tend to just want the actual word count these days, back to 18,000. Bang. Just like that.

So how am I supposed to count my words?