The book I'm currently working on has taken years. That's not a sign of constant writing - I've ditched the project several times. The idea came in 1999. I wrote it out and set it aside, not wanting to interrupt what I was working on. I finally decided to flesh it out in 2004 and wrote the first draft in four months. Didn't exactly like it - but oddly enough out of three drafts it's the most solid. I left it, came back to it in 2006 and reworked it in the first person. Didn't like the results and reworked it again. This time I tried to imitate Vladimir Nabokov - big mistake. I was so frustrated, I set the book aside and worked on some screenplays. Between the years of 2007-2012 I didn't do much work on it but personal issues helped change the direction of the characters, resolving some major hinderences. Had I not gone through this personal dilemma, I think the book could've stalled out for good. In the summer, I resumed work on it. After six months of lousy beginnings, I read something that helped me - know the mood of your character. In like three days I had a ten page first Chapter, that I am finally pleased with.
Writting is the emotional job, not some rocket science where you have to spend the night or you won't solve the puzzle. Its like you want to seduce good looking women. You have to be ignorant enough to look cool, but be encouraged as well.. or how to say that in English. Writing is not a bitch you might just rape
28 days and 332 pages. But that's not the story I worked hardest on - it's just the one that answers your question. The story I've worked hardest on is my current WIP. The first draft was planned over four months and then written in nine. It reached 740 pages in total. It took me a further eighteen months of evaluating, reconstructing, further research, and planning after finishing the first draft to reach the point where I felt I was prepared to begin work on the second draft. I began work on the second draft on February 1 - you can see my progress (and my goal) in my signature.
Okay. Ed: Yes, I am interested in personal answers from legit or non legit novelist on their scale of time in the different divisions process that it takes to make their book. Just a curiosity I'm not necessarily interested in the opinions of the question and if it really reflects a "hard worker". I'm interested in the lifestyle of working authors and they schedules or writing routines. I want to have a sense of how to gauge myself next to the hardest workers in the biz. I said that i did not believe anyone gave any honest answers because the posts I read had no one giving a personal answer about either a project of theirs or it's process. Darkkin: I didn't mean to disrespect anyone the question was egoless in nature. I don't see how I implied people were lying. More or less I thought their answer was on a different tangent. If you think the question needs rephrasing then fair enough but theres no need to be even mildly conflictive. Yoshiko and Peachalulu: Thank you for your posts it was concretely detailed and interesting and a good contribution to what I wanted the thread to contain.
Yow! Who on this site is a "non legit novelist"? There are as many different writing routines as there are writers. John Steinbeck, working on the first draft of East of Eden, wrote about six hours a day. I read an interview with John Irving, who said he wrote two to three hours a day when beginning a novel, up to twelve hours a day in the middle of it, and back to three hours a day at the end. James Michener would work up to eighteen hours a day on his books (which were, admittedly, enormous). Isaac Asimov said he wrote about seventy hours a week, on the average (that's what it takes if you want to publish about 500 books).
Okay, fair enough. But understand that writing is a field much like that of the professional athlete - those who are most successful usually make it look easy. That can be very misleading, and in the end, irrelevant. So, the following is offered by someone almost 60 who is still looking to publish his first novel: gauge your work not by the amount of sweat or hours expended in getting it done, but in 1) the final product and 2) the standards you applied in getting there. By standards I mean did you make it the very best you knew how to make it? Did you refuse to let even the smallest error slide? Did you do the very best you could within the limits of your life and ability? Because life does hand you curve balls at times, and there isn't anything you can do about it. In the end, assume it will take all you have to give, and even then it might not be enough.
Hmm...According to these numbers I'm a major slacker... The downside of having a full time job...Darn required items: Rent, insurance, cat food... I know several simple truths: I write more than I sleep. I have entire worlds complete with histories, genealogies, maps, and languages. I spend more time with my characters than I do with actual people. I have choreographed massive battle sequences and brought fabricated realms to the brink of destruction. I have followed my protagonists through the course of the hero's journey too many times to count. I've had villains I've liked better than my MCs, who have gone onto become MCs and MCs, who have gone on to become the villains. But I don't have numbers to quantify my work. All I have is the finished product...The only numbers I have can be found in my signature line. Each project is a snowflake, singular yet similar, but none are identical. When at last they are added together, you end up with a massive drift.
This thread is to discuss the usage amount of words you use per the following days, a simple discussion. For me, I try and use at least a thousand word per day and for free weekends... I use definitely a lot more than that. I'm hoping to get to 2000 words a day, that would definitely boost the speed of each chapter. So anyway, what's yours and how you wish to refine it?
For me it depends on how I'm feeling that particular day. If I'm tired or I've done a lot of other things that day I can't write anything, and if I try to force myself I just end up with garbage that I usually have to delete again later on. On the other hand, if I'm in the "zone" I can write in excess of 5000 words a day, and just keep going. I also cut myself infinite slack when it comes to writing, cause if I "must" write x number of words every day it send my imagination into hiding and I end up with food for my trash can. Not having to write anything if I don't feel like it relieves that pressure, and actually tend to make me more productive. It works for me, so I see no need to refine it.
The same works for me, if I'm having a crappy day or just dimply just tuned into the world I created... then I obviously know I'll make a ton of garbage in a part of my book. Thankfully, I have music referring to what my novel may be attach to, in order to motivate me to write more. I find writing fantasy series too hard, there are too many rich details to produce and cover.
depends on the day, some days none, as i cant get a feeling for writing, others, 200-300 some more, its low, but because i write by hand i get fewer words per min down and process my thoughts more
Every day is different - plus I don't go by word count, I usually count pages or paragraphs even a line. On good days - three pages which is approx - 1200 to 1500 words.
With my latest project, I've tried for at least 1000 words a day. Lately, I've tried to ramp it up to 2000 because I want to get as far as I possibly can into my story before law school, but this has proven extremely difficult. But, as someone else said, the problem with this approach is my imagination gets shot to hell. On the other other hand, I might not get into the groove if I didn't force myself to write...
I try to write a poem a day, approximately 50 words. I used to do 2-4 per day though, and I also used to write 500 words a day, typically in a journal format.
Hello all, Im new to the forums. I recently joined because I've really started buckling down to write a fantasy novel. I've created a world, I have new races, a pretty sweet plot idea that's really original and I love to write. But, it being the summer of my Junior year and I'm dual enrolling at a local JC, it seems that I don't have a lot of time to write. I'm wondering, for those of you who write and are in school, how do you lay out an effective schedule for writing? I'm kinda lost and overwhelmed at this point. I've been staying up late brainstorming and writing but it's been stressing me out and stuff. So I'm open to ideas! thanks!
You need to make choices, sometimes hard ones, about what to cut in exchange for writing time. A great way to do this is to wake up early and write, and go to bed earlier, because people tend to waste more time on the computer/ watching TV at night. If you wake up in the morning to write, you'll write.
Take your English- classes early. You'll be having to write some papers. Maybe you can combine your writing with your assignments. Comp1, Comp2 were mandatory and gave me a lot of latitude in what I wrote. Creative Writing was just the icing on the cake.
I'm proud of myself - I managed 3000 words today. It's a really good beginning of a new chapter as well.
During my first draft I wrote over 5800 in one day (one chapter) Today, during my rewrite, I realized I might have to cut the chapter because it is all back story and gets kind of job specific. ....I guess it's good it did not multiple days to write that chapter after all
