2025 writing stats and 2026 writing goals

Happy New Year!

Well. 2025 sure happened, didn’t it.

Instead of dwelling on…all that, let’s talk about writing. I’ve been tracking my writing for…gosh, almost 15 years now, ever since I read this then-viral blogpost by Rachel Aaron about how to write 10k in a day. (Note: I have never done this, and I’m okay with that, but I still highly recommend reading that post. Someday I’ll write about how her third point only really landed with me in 2024, when I wrote my favorite novel I’ve ever written in two (2) months.)

The major reason Rachel suggests tracking your writing is to get a sense of when and where you are most productive: morning vs. afternoon vs. evening, home vs. coffee shops, long sessions vs. short ones. This isn’t really data I can use, because I have a day job. Even if 11 am on a weekday was my most productive time, there’s not really anything I can do with that information. But I still appreciate the dopamine boost of logging my progress, and being able to look back over the year and see some basic takeaways.

So! In 2025:

• I wrote 120,801 words (approximately; word count is hard to track when revising).

• I had 158 writing sessions.

• Tidily and unintentionally, 58 of those were for what I’ll call the fog book and exactly 100 were for what I’ll call the dragon book.

• I drafted the dragon book in just under three months and revised it in just under two.

• My most productive week was probably my annual writing retreat in Cape Cod with two of my besties, which is a strong argument for always being on vacation with friends.

• The most I wrote in a single day was 4,881, which was the day I was absolutely determined to finish the first draft of the dragon book (check).

• My average word count for drafting days was 1,170 words, which feels about right.

All in all, I’m pretty pleased with those numbers. Or maybe I just love a spreadsheet.

My biggest takeaway from the year isn’t something that can be deduced from this spreadsheet (well, technically an AirTable), though. This is the year I learned that I actually like writing every day. I’ve always hated the common writing advice that you must write every day to be a real writer, and I still disagree with it, along with any other prescriptive writing advice (except for being a staunch Oxford comma adherent, the only right way to live). Write whenever works for your schedule and your brain.

But I found that giving myself 30-45 minutes a day to write a thousand or so words really helped me keep momentum going and live in the world of the book without ever (okay, rarely) feeling like a burden. And when I was in that flow, the days that I didn’t write left me feeling at loose ends, itching to get back to the characters. It’s a good feeling, and one I want to maintain in 2026.

Which brings me to goals, which are pretty simple. I’d like to get the dragon book off to my agent in the next month or two. I’d like to untangle the mess I made of the fog book and get that to my agent as well. (That will take…more than a month or two. That’s okay.) And I’d like to draft something new, probably…oh, let’s call it the tides book.

Onward!

What’s New?

Over at Book Riot, I wrote a requiem for my two favorite DC comics of 2025, both canceled in December: Birds of Prey and Green Arrow.

And in case you’re starting your year by digging two graves, I had a chat with Matthew and Riki over at Superhero Ethics about the ethics of vengeance. (This is a bit of an older episode but it was formerly members-only and is now available to everyone!)

What I’m Reading

Books: KJ Charles is an auto-buy author for me, and her latest, All of Us Murderers, is an absolutely bonkers (in a good way) Gothic romance, light on the romance and heavy on the bonkers. Please understand that this is not a complaint; I stayed up until 1 am because I NEEDED to know what the deal was with this horrible family and creepy-ass house. The epilogue is immensely satisfying.

What I’m Watching

Oh, you know it’s been Heated Rivalry. I’m not sure I have anything to add to the discussion that hasn’t been said already, so I will just say: 1. what a good adaptation, and 2. Hudson Williams has talked about playing Dick Grayson and I think we should let him.

Friends, I hope 2026 treats you kindly and brings you all the good things. Let’s make this a better year than the last, together.

<3

Jessica