Do they all have to know the word count when I am not on my last draft

They do sound too concerned, and make me think that maybe I should stop doing the other things I do, like the housework, shopping, etc. or think I have all the time n the world. I am not like the other writers who can sit at the computer all the time, and do not have to get money some other way or have someone coming in with the pay check. I doubt none of us are that way.

Those are kind of strange questions for friends to ask, as far as I am concerned. My other half never asks me about what I am writing, or the length, or anything for that matter. If I choose to show him what I have written for work, then he is happy. Otherwise, he doesn't ask, as I do make very good money writing. He knows I am working on a science fiction short story I plan to submit to Analog, but I only consult him occasionally on matters of dialog. Have you tried asking your friends why they care? How many of them counted the words in the last book they read? You can have a million word novel that stinks, a 100,000 word novel that's amazing, or a million word novel that's amazing. Word count doesn't matter-- the writing and plot matter. Look at Stephen King :-).

They seem to not realize that by being too concerned, they are hindering my ability to write effectively and perhaps want me to hurry up and get it done, but if I do, it might be not good enough to get published. Right now it is not and I only have so much time during the day. I have to make more money besides what I am getting from the pensions and survivor benefits because of this talk of entitlements that makes me feel I have to. Also I lost a few chapters on the conversion from Lion to Mountain Lion on my Macbook, so now I have to retype them again and I sort of changed the chapters made less instead of more so I have to find when the last chapter that was lost ended. Of course, it could be my flash drive, so that means now I have to get a new one and put everything in it since I cannot afford to upgrade ICloud, and unless I really watch my food budget, cannot get a new word processing program.

Perhaps one other person or group of people that should know about the book is your investors, if there are any. If they have money invested in you, I think they should be able to know this sort of information. For anyone else such as friends, though, I would just tell them to wait patiently. Not knowing anything beforehand will make the novel more enjoyable to read when it's published, anyway.

I do not mind telling them that I am writing a novel, bu do not want to tell the word count. I also do not want them to read it before it is published, unless one of them is going to help me by critiquing it. IU do have a friend who is an English teacher, but he is rather busy nor do I want to tell them whom I am going to publish it. Really I do not want people to think I am just writing for a hobby and get them the idea that I am writing with a fancy font and I really do not care that I am serious.

I know for non-fiction writing, they have to know the word count, or if I am writing a short story. With a novel, it is different. Implying that I have to limit myself to perhaps 2,000 words per chapter and perhaps 20,000 words in the whole novel, would limit how much my character accomplishes, so since this is a fantasy novel, he might spend much of his time going from the original place to the other place and that would be the whole plot, not that he spent time in the other place, fighting, adventuring, going against horrible enemies, etc.

I think they think that one can write a novel and do not do any revision, and presto it is published. I told them that it is not the last draft, and I still have some work to do on it. Really, when I first started, I was so concerned with how many words I am writing, where to start the chapter, that much of m time was on these details instead of writing, so in reality putting down the word count every time, slowed me down.