Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

[alyse]

We currently have 80 81 assignments in, with another 29 28 either with extensions we know about or with pinch hitters. So thank you for that, and thank you as always to our marvellous pinch hitters.

Of course, the people who have yet to submit their stories, and our pinch hitters, need to write ::checks sums:: 6,138 words each.

Why? I hear you ask. Well, let me explain. At some point, moonlettuce and I were marvelling at prolific fic writing abilities of our participants. And the conversation went something like this:

moonlettuce: Wow. Do you think we'll hit a million words?
alyse: ... To the spreadsheet!

We're currently sitting at 822,000 832,500 words (using our best word counting in notetab and taking a little off for notes guestimate). And so far the average length of stories is around the 7,000 7600 word mark. So we have 29 28 stories outstanding, and 178,000 167,500 words to go to hit the one million mark.

Which works out at 6,138 5,982 [ETA: See? Someone's totally lowered the average for you already! *\o/*] words on average each for the remaining stories, less than the average length so far. Totally doable, people!

But, you know. No pressure ::g::

*\o/*

(In all seriousness, the important thing is to have fun, fun, fun! And while it would be cool to hit 1,000,000 words for the exchange, there's always next year ::g::)

Comments

[x-varda-x.livejournal.com]

LOL!

*smug grin*

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

Hee! Glad I could help with the word count!

I'm also kind of disappointed that all the stories in need of pitch hitters got them before I could think of a plot! On the other hand, how awesome are those writers that there's been competition for replacement stories?

[alyse]

We have awesome pinch hitters every year, including a few times when they've got it on Christmas Eve and had the story ready for Christmas Day.

Hopefully that won't happen this year :)

[alyse]

::g::

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

I already see you surrepticiously snipping out superflous words from fics in case you'd end up with more than a million words overall ;P

[alyse]

Nope. We want more than a million words. That's the finish line, not the maximum :) We can do as many victory laps after that as we can manage before we finally peter out.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Yes, well, Sacrificial Mage helped that total. And if Auburn hasn't finished her fic yet.... :D

[alyse]

Scarily, Sacrificial Mage isn't the longest story we've had submitted this time around.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Whoa. Seriously?

[alyse]

yes, seriously ::g::

[auburnnothenna.livejournal.com]

Lalalala, I fell down on the job this time, I guess. I said I'd pinch hit, but seems like others beat me to it each time.

But if anyone else in the McKay/Sheppard line bails, my Yuletide story is done and I'm available. I might not be able to come up with a fifty thousand word monster, but I'd give it a shot toward that million word count. :)

[gottalovev.livejournal.com]

that is IMPRESSIVE!! *claps*

=D

(and we all win!)

[alyse]

We've decided that the fairest thing is to offer pinch hits singly, one at a time at different times of day, because we do have quite a few people who are enthusiastic about doing it and disappointed when they miss it (one person so far this year tried four times before she got one ::g::)

And we're well on target, with the average length of story dropping every time we get a new story in :)

[alyse]

We do indeed! *\o/*

[lavvyan.livejournal.com]

Say, don't we have a master list placeholder/guessing post type thingy this year? Or am I imagining that there was one?

[alyse]

We do but at the end of posting.

[lavvyan.livejournal.com]

Ah. I thought I was mixing up the comms, thank you. :)