Ever more often, I find myself bragging about the magnificent shape of my magnum opus, but I have kept all the relevant figures out of sight so far. The approaching end of the year offers welcome opportunity to change this practice. And how. If my writing project is indeed shaped like a brontosaurus, as I am prone to declare with growing gusto, some credible evidence needs to be provided sooner or later (“Brontosaurus,” April 13, 2012). Well, below is all the evidence required, where the number of pieces is listed together with the number of words in parentheses for each year since my writing project’s inception forty-four years ago:

1976 - 19 (21,100)
1977 - 32 (16,700)
1978 - 58 (25,500)
1979 - 44 (29,600)
1980 - 49 (26,000)
1981 - 57 (22,400)
1982 - 88 (49,800)
1983 - 42 (25,700)
1984 - 37 (11,200)
1985 - 34 (9,000)
1986 - 33 (22,400)
1987 - 19 (12,900)
1988 - 39 (19,100)
1989 - 64 (24,000)
1990 - 58 (16,100)
1991 - 55 (12,000)
1992 - 55 (16,500)
1993 - 68 (18,500)
1994 - 163 (49,600)
1995 - 238 (67,600)
1996 - 268 (55,900)
1997 - 314 (52,000)
1998 - 569 (87,100)
1999 - 749 (120,700)
2000 - 792 (138,500)
2001 - 806 (159,600)
2002 - 708 (110,300)
2003 - 598 (100,400)
2004 - 590 (107,200)
2005 - 705 (133,600)
2006 - 602 (117,100)
2007 - 609 (114,400)
2008 - 670 (125,900)
2009 - 706 (131,200)
2010 - 926 (172,600)
2011 - 1173 (202,100)
2012 - 1397 (239,100)
2013 - 1092 (211,800)
2014 - 1400 (317,300)
2015 - 933 (206,700)
2016 - 533 (126,900)
2017 - 279 (69,400)
2018 - 207 (49,400)
2019 - 189 (48,200)

Over forty-four years minus nine days, I came up with 18,069 pieces of writing and 3,693,700 words, not including this piece. Between 1976 and 1993, my yearly output never reached one-hundred pieces; between 1993 and 2010 it gradually grew, but it never reached one-thousand pieces; between 2011 and 2014 it not only topped one-thousand pieces but reached the maximum number the software behind the Residua website allows, which is one-thousand and four-hundred pieces; and between 2015 and 2019 my yearly output precipitously fell from close to one-thousand to below two-hundred. Behold, the brontosaurus in all its glory! But the future is even brighter, for my yearly output will drop below one-hundred pieces in just a few short years. The beast’s neck will get thinner and thinner for a number of years, and its head will crown my writing project when it reaches its serene end (“Tiny but Brainy,” July 9, 2019). Alleluia!