The Word Cloud

OK, I'm not sure I hold with a Tea & Typing group that includes non-tea drinkers, but I suppose this is the 21st century and we need to be inclusive (humph).

Anyway, let's try this for a non-inclusive topic. How economical are you as as a typist? In a long day's work, I'll probably do about 1800 words and drink somewhere between 6 & 8 cups of tea. My mugs take 3/4 of a pint, so that's between 4.5 and 6 pints all told.

That equates to a WPG of 2,400 and 3,200 (*). I'd say I'm more productive than average on the wordage side, but a lot thirstier than average on the tea side. How do you folks all rate? And NO, I don't count camomile!

* - Divide your daily word count by the number of pints, then multiply by 8. Easy, huh?

Do you have to divide by half for half decaf, Harry? (We use one bag of ordinary, one bag of decaf in the pot. I call it transvestite tea; it's neither one thing nor the other.) Very refreshing though...The tea, not transvestites.

Harry- that sounds suspiciously like the evil mathematics I had to do for my hnc.
Things like;
If a boat is travelling at 30 knots in an eastward direction, with a wind resistance of 1.2 mph, what colour underpants is the skipper wearing?
I avoid anything of that nature if I can help it...
I probably average 20 cups a day and I've never written more than 800 words in one sitting.
That makes me quite rubbish, I think...
Donna

Donna, that sounds like a very globe-unfriendly average. How big are your mugs?

Just the usual size....I do have an enormous 'Tigger' mug for special occasions though...

Donna, that's spooky. I have an gigantic mug of 'Pooh' every morning.

I used to have a 'bagpuss' one but I dropped an ashtray on it and killed it.... never could find another one, very upsetting

Wow, Harry. I'm not sure my maths is up to this. Nor my tea-drinking, which seems pathetically modest compared to yours. I write anything between 500 and 3000 words a day, and normally drink three or four normal-sized mugs in the afternoons. I have no idea what WPG that gives me. Perhaps I should drink more tea?

Hmm, Spangles. Let's say 1500 words and four 1/2 pint mugs per day ... that'll equate to a Words Per Gallon of 6,000, which sounds like a pretty good fuel economy to me.

Donna, I'm worried. 800 words. 10 pints per day. That equates to a WPG of just 640. That's not good. I mean, don't you care about the planet?

Gosh. I suppose it would be even better if I drank green tea! Ha ha

Thanks, Harry....now I feel guilty.
My wordcount has started going up (1600 yesterday!)
Still need the tea though; when the novel is finished I'm going to celebrate with a bucket-full...

I'll do maybe 1,000 words a day, and drink 4 cups a day. My cup holds 1/2 a pint, so...4,000 WPG.

On a good day?
Hmm...........
Each cup holds 250ml

Very Good Day:
3 cups of ignored, stone-cold tea + 9 half-eaten plain digestives (per day) = 1,200 words [not edited]

Very Bad Day:
10 cups of fiercely imbibed tea + 30 chocolate hobnobs (per day) = 500 words [edited and re-hashed several times with many long, procrastinating breaks]

That's terribly generalised, but if I'm writing well, I drink less tea and eat fewer biscuits. (Thus leaving me much happier.)

I'm a bit confused. Would the pitchforks and torches be got out if I converted to the metric??

Okey doke. I can get to 800 words with about min 4 max 7 cups of tea. (Depending on whether or not there's biscuits in the house and how nice they are.) So lets say 7 (On a day with Chocolate Bourbons). My mugs hold 300ml aprox.

2100ml of tea for every 8oo words.....em....thats gives me.....maths come back to me (that's the summer holidays for you)....oh 2.1 litres rounded to 2 litres (or we could say there were only rich tea biscuits) into 800 words gives....

400 words per litre (WPL)

Does anyone know what that would be in gallons???

I found out!! 4.5 litres to the gallon!! So....thats 400x4.5 which is 1800.

So my WPG is 1800.

Is that good or bad??

I have to apoligise first as I don't really drink tea in the house. However my habit is probably worse for my health, and mean a shorter life expectancy, so to get value for words my word count has to be higher to be able to get in the words before my life ends.
I drink on a good day 24 can of full fat coke. 330mls each. 7920mls lets say 8000 as I also drink other things. 16 pints
I average on a good day about 1500-2500 words, so mean is 2000.

2000/16 = 125 x 8 = 1000WPG

How do you manage to sleep with so much caffeine and sugar coursing through your system?

Just habit, been having coke and chocolate for breakfast since I left home a 17. an average day is slightly lower, if I'm at work then i drink tea, but don't write :(

I don't sleep with all that caffine. But I find that I can get a lot of writing done at two in the morning when there's no one bothering me for things in the house. It's nice and quiet. :)

Nightwriting. My favourite kind. I'd love to write during the day, but the only day I have sans offspring is Saturday, and my boyfriend usually has things planned for us. We're going charity shop hunting shortly, him for vinyl and me for oddities.

Anyway, yes - words per gallon. I drink an awful, awful amount of tea, but like Loon Scribe the amount I drink seems to be indirectly proportional to how much I write. Getting up and going to the kitchen means I'm not busy enough with words.

As for the maths, I just can't do it, it'd be like being unfaithful to myself. The day I did my last exam in anything other than English, I swore blind I'd only touch numbers again if I *had* to. They frighten me. So, I'll just stick this out there and hope that you get the general idea:

Average tea consumption during a 5 hour stint of writing would vary between 4-7 cups, each holding about 400mls (my mug is black and says STARTER FUEL in big white letters). During said stint, I usually produce around 1000 words minimum. But, in saying that, I then go back the next day and slash it to pieces, leaving the word count at around 700-800.

So where does that leave me?

I prefer coffee than tea, yes I have one first thing in the morning, taking a cuppa to Mum as it is anti carcogenic but now they proved also that coffee helps to keep Althzeimer's at bay unless some crazy group of medical scientists suddenly change their mind.