"I wanna write someday. Just can't understand how you get all the words down." I don't either, to be honest.
If that were the case all of my books could have been written in under two weeks! Man, I wish. On a good day I'm like Moose and can churn out 2-3K, but there's definitely days where I struggle to break 1K or even 500. Not to mention the days I don't write at all. Realistically I can crank out about a book a year at this rate; I wish I was more prolific, but it's the pace that fits in with all the other things I have going on in my personal and professional life.
I have definitely written 2k in an hour or two, max. This response was under a minute and is already way more than 4 words.
I have done as much as 5-7K in a day, but that was on shorts. WIP that is novel sized needs more time and averages around 1-3k a session. Though I too have days where I barely manage more than 300-500 words.
I've heard that before. At the minute I'm cranking out 8k words a day but I'm working close to 18 hours a day (got an imminent deadline to hit). This is my maximum, without a doubt.
"You don't need to do a second draft, just type it up." Bless them. I think they were still in primary school, where "second draft" means "the same thing, but in neater handwriting".
Just got this gem from an old acquaintance: "I couldn't write a novel. I'm not that damaged." You and the horse you rode in on, pal.
[Enid] "...Blyton's daily routine varied little over the years. She usually began writing soon after breakfast, with her portable typewriter on her knee and her favourite red Moroccan shawl nearby; she believed that the colour red acted as a "mental stimulus" for her. Stopping only for a short lunch break she continued writing until five o'clock, by which time she would usually have produced 6,000–10,000 words."..."... she describes how in just five days she wrote the 60,000-word book The River of Adventure..." "...in 1983, [Barbara] Cartland wrote 23 novels, earning her the Guinness World Record for the most novels written in a single year..."..."... Her 723 novels [written in the 78 years between 1923 - 2011] were translated into 38 languages..."..."...[she] left behind a staggering 160 unpublished manuscripts, that are being published after her death..." Makes NaNoWriMo a little under-powered!
If you write 10 hours a day, it's probable you'll have 6k to 10k at the end. Not everyone can do that, but some can. I've had to fight to not compare myself to people like Blyton, because I'm not them. My goal is to do the best I'm capable of, and there's enough room for improvement there to keep me preoccupied until I'm pushing up daisies.
Yeah. They have a lot of resentment towards her. And let's not forget her books were devoid of pretty much all character development.
I read Mallory Towers and St. Clare's because I love school stories, and I thought that the girls were either bland or (at other times) complete arseholes.
Yes. All her books are great for what they are - entertaining stories for young children - but there's no meat to them.
I think that what happened with me was that I read St. Clare's and Mallory Towers after reading Elinor Brent-Dyer's Chalet School, which was for slightly older readers. It's more challenging (at least for a girl of the time) and continues to be an inspiration for my writing.
I think @Radrook was saying that's something people say to writers. I've had people ask me similar questions.
All self published books are crap / Its impossible to get a deal unless you have a following (depending which side of the fence they sit) No one will publish/buy a book with that much sex/violence/swearing (no, by 'no one' you mean you, but fortunately not everyone is that same) Shakespeare/Bronte/chaucer/other famous author didn't have to swear in his writing (when people say this to me i'm always tempted to give the Eminem response as in "Will Smith didn't swear in his rap to sell records, well I do, so fuck him and fuck you too" ) I don't want to read about sex and violence (so go read a miss marple book then..FFS ) Why can't you write something nice ?
Writing group lead: We don't want any excessive gore, violence, or sex. (followed up later with) Well since you are working on a sequel, you will need to get us copies of the first book so we can understand what is going on.- (Last week Monday). Yesterday I handed out three copies on disk, and I note the irony.
