Power of the Digital Pen

The Power of the Digital Pen

How much can you write in a year? I decided to find out. This is how I arrived at my conclusion. For 

those who are not mathematically minded just skip to the bottom.

There are 365 days in a year. I subtracted 65 days (36.5%) for holidays, sick days etc.

I worked out a average typing speed of 25 words per minute and subtracted 25% for thought and 

word corrections. That leaves 18.75 word per minute.

If you typed for four hours every day you would get 1,200 hours of work done in a year. 

18.75 word per minute times 60 =1,125 words per hour. Bear with me.

1,200 hours per year times words per hour 1,125 =1,250,000 words typed in a year. But I didn't stop there.

My softcover edition of The Fellowship of the Ring, first book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, is 8" tall and 5" long. I roughly estimated that there are 12.6 words per line in my book and 37.75 lines in an average page. There are 378 pages in my book not counting covers and introduction. Those pages all together are 1.5" thick. 

So 12.6 words per line times 37.75 lines per page equals the words per page, so 12.6 (37.75) =475.65 words per page. 

Next lets take our words per year and see how many pages we can type. 1,350,000 divides into 475.65 to equal 2838.221381 pages per year. And 2838.221381 divided by 378 pages that comprise the Fellowship of the Ring equals 7.508522172 or about seven and a half volumes every year (7.5) 

The thickness of the book, 1.5" times number of volumes, 7.5 equals 11.25" of writing. Given books 8" high and 5"wide one could turn out nearly a foot of books every year.

If one wrote poetry one could probably get even more.

That is 8" times 5" times 11.25" =450^3 cubic inches of literature.

As always I enjoy your comments so please tell me what you think. And thanks to my mother for the typing speed average.