Oh well, I'm a little odd on score count. I'm like the "mother of all" writing. I set myslef a goal and usually try to follow it. But when I don't, I punish myself. For instance I set a goal to write and edit, 3 chapters one day, knowing, I had nothing on all day. It should be easy, right? Wrong! I procrastinated and messed up, leaving myself 2 chapters; day/goal behind. So I punished myself. You'll never believe the punishment. Aside from writing weird fiction tales, I also write poetry. So I force myself to write one poem as punishment. Needless to day, I have a lot of poems now. Ha ha.
I use either word count or time (depends on the necessities that take up the rest of that day - like the paying job ). But I write every day, whether it's a half hour/150 words or several hours/full chapter. I don't think waiting on 'the mood' or for inspiration is that productive (there's got to be some discipline involved), but that's JMHO.
completely agree, besides, I find the inspiration often strikes after you've been writing for a while...
Hi Writers, Just wondering how many words per day, week or month you all write? In the last month I've become more serious about writing and have forced myself to do a minimum of 2000 words each day even if it's not my novel and just short stories. I've found it tremendously helpful as the novel I was writing seemed an unsurpassable task, now it's much less daunting.
Not enough! However I find it quite unhelpful to measure my progress by word count, because it doesn't accurately reflect my output - I may actually reduce word count, but in terms of progress I have advanced the stage of my manuscript by editing and condensing. So, I tend to measure my progress by my level of completion - how many chapters I feel are completed to my satisfaction. Right now I'm still struggling on chapter 4 and have been for almost a week.
Once I got on a roll on one chapter and when I looked up it had ran on for 10,000 words and had to be cut up into several chapters, but I was really into it.
I wish I can write 2000 words a day, in fact, I wish I can write even 500. I have been struggling with motivation lately, that is why I actually came here. And, to be honest, I feel much better. I am yet to go back to my book, but at least I am learning things about writing while staying away from it. How do you manage your time? How can you do 2000 a day? do you work? Family? Maybe it is possible, but I might have to sort out my priorities.
It all depends on how fast you type and how well you know what you're going to be typing. If you're a quick typist and you have a clear idea of what you're going to be writing I think that 2000 words would be very little work at all (far less then an hour certainly). However, if you're trying to think of ideas as you go your writing is definitely going to drag along much slower. If you'd like to increase your word count I'd suggest having a well thought out plan of what you need to write in each scene before you start writing it, and I think you'll find your output will increase significantly.
I type fairly quickly, but I'm extremely meticulous. I will spend an hour on one page trying to get the last few paragraphs right. I'll even stop and read it aloud and see if it flows the way that I want it to flow. I learned early on, from those around me and from experience, that it's not the word count, but what you're saying. However, gauging your word count is a good way to measure how much progress that you are making. I've been trying to make a lot of progress lately, so I try to at least get a page in. That's about, hm, 600 words minimum that I'll write a day. Normally, I'll write from 1,600 to 2,500. On really good days, up to 6,000 words. On bad days, 500 or less. Every writer works differently though! And that's why threads like this are interesting! It's cool, imo, to see how your writing habits are similar to others' writing habits. It's neat.
My word count isn't huge- less than 500 words a day I'd say. I write for half an hour in my lunch break at work, then at home I'll transfer it to my laptop, rewriting it and fixing it up a bit in the process. I'd like to be able to write more, given the time, but I'm happy with what I'm doing now, given that I haven't gone through the course I plan to yet, and my storyline needs a whole lotta work.
I am journalist dear, so you underastand i have a restriction on words that i have to use in every article, just to make it more accurate. All though generally even if i do not write some Novel myself i write from 300-400 to 800-1000 every day. This includes at least 3-4 articles per day, or in weekends i go to 1000 to 1500 words cause the arcticles are over 7-10.
When one idea leads to another, it's easy to get lost in the work and "strike while the iron is hot." In the 10,000 word chapter for example, they discover a cave that has the remnants of primitive people who lived there. But, this is in the Caribbean where hurricanes can stall for days. They would go through their wood or by trying to conserve it would be thrown into utter darkness perhaps for days. This would mean that they had to know the cave extremely well and move around by touch alone. This gave one of my main characters the idea to learn to sail their ship without lights to attack at night under complete darkness, the first "stealth" fighter. A very small amount of light can be seen far at sea. Learning to move about the ship, work the rigging to steer it and load the cannons and fire them in the pitch dark below decks took some doing, then came the attack. I will write fast and furious while the ideas are flowing, then go back and edit and correct the mistakes.
I have absolutly no pattern what so ever, I write when the need comes. That can be a few hours to a few weeks. But when I do write it is about 4000 to 6000 words.
you shouldn't concern yourself with how much anyone else writes! every writer has his/her own specific situation... living conditions, time available, writing style, demands of a 'day job' and all kinds of other parameters will determine how much each one writes per day/week/month/year/lifetime... a great writer may turn out only one page per week of timeless prose, every week for decades, while a hopelessly bad one may churn out 20 pages of garbage a day for months and then try something else when he realizes how bad it is... it's really a futile question to ask also, because the answers can vary anywhere from the smallest amount of words/pages imaginable, to the largest... so what is gained by asking? all that really matters is the quality of the writing you turn out, anyway... not the amount...
Exactly right. I remember reading somewhere that Ernest Hemingway (usually) only managed between 500 and 1,000 words per day.
I work full time 2 to 11ish 5 days a week. All I am doing at the moment is saving money for college next year. No kids. So I have extra time to wring as much creativety as I can out. Also I write in the moment and don't edit until days later. 2000 at the moment is a bout a once a week occurance on work days. On days I'm off a.d don't have anything to attend to, I can sometimes hit up to 10,000 in a few hours. As far as motivation goes, I usually don't have much of a problem. If I'm not motivated to write, I will sit with a cup of good coffee with no distractions besides a notebook and think and make notes. Sometimes I do this at work on break and find myself exited to return home and start typing. Hope this makes sense. I'm typing awkwardly on my kindle. Please forgive mistakes.
Hi everyone. Just wondering how often people take breaks in their writing. I mean anything from short breaks to long breaks (ranging from a few hours to a few days or weeks, maybe months). What are the reasons behind it? What causes the need for a break? Lastly, what do you do when you're not writing to fill the time?
Well i'm actually on a one week break right now, I just finished the first draft of my novel so i'm giving myself a week to get my head out of that story before i start rewriting and editing. what do I do when i'm not writing... mmm i write music, i skateboard, and i just read the first harry potter book. (probably also going to read the second this week). I watch movies, watch tv shows (breaking bad ''best show ever''). and i try not to think about my book, which is quite hard.
Hi Louis1. First of all, congrats on finishing the first draft! Yay for Harry Potter, and I definitely agree with Breaking Bad. It was an amazing show and I learned a lot. May I ask how often you take breaks in between your writing though? For example, do you usually write for 3-4 hours and then take an hour break? Do you sometimes write for a few days straight, or do you take breaks in between the chapters?
I usually take breaks if I am sick, or stressed out, or can't concentrate or don't have time to write. So my breaks are fairly regular, at least 30% of the overall writing time. Sometimes I won't write anything for weeks or months, but in that time I'll still be developing the characters and the plot, doing research, writing non-fiction, stuff like that. I have another job, I work from home, so there is plenty for me to do. Also, in my breaks I read books, both fiction and books on writing and I do quite a bit of photography.
I only ever have a real break from writing when I get to the point where I've finished a novel and don't immediately know what to start on next, or if I have a slight writers block, but that usually last for only a couple of days. Otherwise i write.
Sometimes I take week from writing my main project to work on short stories, than I go back to working on the manuscript. This helps me notice mistakes from typos, to poorly written paragraphs and bad plot lines. Also, from creating original short stories you stack ammo in the form of metaphors and other imagery that you can apply to a larger project. Taking several days away from writing? Even if I tried I would still find myself tweaking rough chapters at night.
