One Million Words

Last week in the workshop there was talk about what it takes for a new writer to become published. One measurement was that it takes a new writer on average one million words to get to a point where their stuff is good enough for the market.
I took a look at the 'official' stuff I've written since deciding to work on publishing. I've got about 80,000 words, or 8% of that million word mark. I haven't included a 18,000 word story that I wrote 8 years ago and another 'big' story that's about 4,000 words. One is scifi humor, and the other is a vampire novel that needs a lot of work to make it a unique contribution to the genre. Even so, it pushes me closer to 10%. So if I estimate 100,000 words in a three month period, it will take 30 months, close to three years, to get to that point.
Sobering thought.