Seriously, anyone can ask and I'm happy to explain. Ultimately, if my process doesn't work for you, don't do it. Just find a way to achieve similar results. It's not the path that matters, it's the goalpost. I sit down somewhere between 4:30 and 5am and get straight to work. All of my books are outlined so I know, before I sit down, what I'll be writing. That doesn't mean there's no room for creativity but I don't have to sit there staring at a blank screen trying to figure out what to do. All of that is front-loaded. I write, on average, 2k words per hour. I don't necessarily time it but I've noticed that I average about 500 words every 15 minutes and I record my word counts on a separate document and that's about what it comes out to be. I get about 3, maybe 3.5 hours in the morning and I can produce 6-7k before I get ready for work. Do not remotely feel that you have to do the same thing. It's taken me years and years to get to that speed. Even 5 years ago, I was only hitting 2k a day. Set a goal, consistently hit that goal and push yourself to do more. Every single day, I'll set arbitrary goals, just for the heck of it, to push me forward. I also have goals to hit specific milestones in my manuscript, usually in 5k increments. I want to hit 100k by tomorrow, for instance. Right now I'm sitting around 96k so that's no problem. I will try, for instance, to skip milestones. I just did that Tuesday when I jumped from sub-85k to 90k by writing over 7k words. Do what works for you but never stop pushing yourself. I used to, and I honestly need to get back to this, but I used to go out to lunch at a local family restaurant, where they'd sit me in the back with my laptop, I'd pull the latest version of my manuscript off of Dropbox and write through lunch. I'd get in another 1500-2000 words that way. They're really nice people and know not to bother me much. Of course, Covid stopped all of that and I've not been back regularly since. Of course, Covid screwed me up completely. I only got 5 books written in 2020 and it's all my fault. I don't write on holidays or weekends when my wife is home. That's family time, I have other commitments. Of course, once Covid hit, we were all home all the time and I originally figured that it couldn't last more than 2-3 weeks or the entire economy would collapse so I'd take a short vacation. Three months later, I hadn't written a single word. I tried and then it was another month of nothing before I tried again and finally got back into the groove. It really sucked. My typical yearly output has been 6 books, I've had a goal of 6-7 but I hadn't ever done more than 6 until last year when, sometime in August, I looked at my schedule, realized I was finishing up book 5 and I'd have time, if I worked efficiently, to get through 8. That became my new goal. I could have just hit my 6 and stopped but I didn't. Pushing yourself is important. I figured that I could get through enough of the 8th book (I count any book that I write more than 50k in toward the first year, otherwise it counts toward the second year) so I could make 8 and I wound up writing the entire thing in 2021. It was a great achievement. I really have no interest in doing it again I'm back to shooting for 6 for this year and I don't write every day, all the time. I figure 20 days of writing time for a book. That's 5 days a week, 4 weeks, to get a 120-130k book done. I do write more than 5k a day, especially toward the end where you get into a solid flow state, you know exactly where everything is going and you can crank out 7-8k a day consistently. I even hit 10k on occasion. At one point, I had decided my ultimate goal was going to be 10k a day, I pushed my expected output to 7.5k and found it didn't work for me. It turned writing into a slog and I missed it as often as I hit it and the finished product just wasn't as good. Once I got back down to 5k a day again, things improved. I might push it up again sometime, this week for instance, I've hit 7k more than I haven't, but for the moment, I'm happy where I am. That doesn't mean that I write 12 books a year though. There has to be time for editing, for publication work, getting things ready for my beta team, etc. Generally speaking, I've set it up with a month of writing, 2 weeks of editing, 2 weeks of planning the next book, etc. Of course, a lot of that is happening at the same time, except for writing. I work only on one project at a time, then once I'm done with the first draft, I set it aside, go back and edit the previous book, get it into a state that I'm ready to get it critiqued and prep it to go out, then I sit down and plan everything for my next book, which, depending on the book, can take a couple of weeks, but mostly, since I know all of the books I'll be writing for a very, very long time, it's just putting all of the ideas I've had rolling around in my head and have jotted down, getting them into order and plotting out the chapters. Then I write and the whole process starts over. In a perfect world, I get through a book every 2 months, although, as I said, I'm juggling a couple of books at a time, each in different stages of completion, that it's not quite that cut and dried. I'm striving for efficiency because I know that if I don't, I'll slow down and I have far too many books that I want to write to risk that. At the moment, and I can't go look for the exact number at the moment, I know, approximately, the next 40 books that I'm going to write. That includes trilogies, series and stand-alones. Primarily I work in trilogies, but the book I'm currently working on, it's part of a "quadrology of trilogies", the second book in the third trilogy. I'll have this done this year and the last done next year, which is good because I have another 12 book series planned to start next year, plus a 13 book series that I'm currently working on (about to start book 4). Ultimately, it's all about what works for you. It's about setting goals and achieving goals. It's about constantly pushing yourself to get better. How you define "better" is largely up to you. I've been doing this for a hell of a long time. Nothing I say is meant to make anyone feel bad about where they are in the process, it's meant to show that you can do it if you have a goal in mind and the work ethic to get there. That's not to say that everyone can do this. Not everyone is cut out for it. Not everyone who wants to play in the NFL is going to get there either. You have to have realistic expectations. You just can't be afraid of hard work and holding yourself accountable. Writing, especially, requires self-discipline. Nobody is standing there with a gun to your head. You have to do it for yourself. You either do or you don't. It's your potential success on the line, you're not hurting anyone but yourself.
Perhaps there’s an element of scale or fuzzy logic in the story side of things. For example, if someone wanted to write a funny or moving story then there is a grey area where it will be dependent upon the audience, but at the far ends it definitely won’t be the case. “Goodnight Mog” couldn’t be subjectively seen as high tension, for example. But you’re right, it’s good that there isn’t one way to judge things.
of course quality is subjective, but I think that commercial success alone has relatively little to say about it. I think there is an independent thing called quality, because there has to be.
If I recall correctly, Robert M. Pirsig drove himself insane over the notion of quality, but crawled back to the surface far enough to write an interesting book about the experience.
Thanks for the detailed reply. You're describing a level of focus and discipline that I find stunning. Unfortunately, I'm largely polar opposite in many ways, easily distracted and only procrastinate in the moment when it just can't be put off til tomorrow. I couldn't aspire to your level of dedication right now because it would be paralysing. But I do know I can do better and you've outlined a way towards realistic, yet challenging, targets that I can incorporate. My goalposts are different to yours, I'd suggest, but the pathway may have similar scenery. Time to break in these shoes.
I can't give you advice on that but I am feeling the same lately. I've made good progress on outlining my novel and then all of a sudden, I hit a huge writers block. I am currently not able to write right now. There are many things happening at the same time in my life and I guess that plays a part in it. However, I can relate, this is a state where I do not want to be in, because writing is something which gives me purpose. But right now. I just can't.
Personally, I know exactly why I don’t feel like writing at the moment: it’s like all my passion for this story dried up after writing the first scene. But I’m still writing it anyway because the deadline for this commission is approaching, it’s too late to start over with a brand new concept, and both the pay and publication credit will be nice.
I don't know what it is, but all this talk about not writing has brought me back to writing quite a bit. Thanks for the discussion and the jumpstart I needed.
It's not stunning though. It's pretty basic. Writing, especially writing for publication, is essentially starting a small business. There is a lot of hard work and dedication that has to go into it if you want to be successful. It's why a lot of small businesses fail because the owners either don't know what's required (and don't want to listen) or they're too lazy to do what's required. Being in the right place at the right time with the right product, that's important too but that's often beyond your control. Yet you get people running around with blinders on screaming "Noooooo!!!" They'd rather be spending their time screaming that it doesn't work, but here I am, having crossed over 100k words on my current book today and figuring I'll finish up either by the end of next week or just after (it's starting to look like a 150k book), proving that not only can it be done, it is being done. Take that as you will.
Cool. Go be successful. Those that can, do. Those that can't, complain. Get back to work. Best of luck.
At the end of the day so long as you're writing - 750 words a day is 273,750 a year if you do it every day, that's three novels and a novella which isn't too shabby.
Oh, yeah, I'm just being facetious. What Cephus does is incredibly impressive but it's not what I want to get out of writing - at least not at the moment. It's a hobby, and I want it to stay that way. Much like they said above, it's about setting the goals that work for you, and I don't think I'd find it relaxing if I was doing it at that kind of scale. I've managed one short story a month since October, and I'm pretty happy with that. The word count for each is less than what Cephus would do in a day, but they're all complete little things and some people I've never met have liked them. It'll never become a career like this, but it does what I'm after.
Do you read a lot of fiction in general, or perhaps have a background in history? I'm not claiming the ideas have to come from somewhere; people are just imaginative full stop, but I am curious if there is a particular raw wealth to which you at least partially attribute this degree of stimulation, where your mind has long since left your fingers in the dust two towns back.
I think its a really valuable point that not everyone wants a career, and even those that do may not want to go down the high production route... theres more than one way to skin the cat Personally i do pretty much like cephus only to a slightly lesser degree - i generally reckon on 2-4k a day unless i've got a day off in which case i might manage more like 10... i wrote 85k words in 9 days not that long ago, but that included a 4 day weekend. however i don't have kids and have a fairly flexible job, i'm well aware than not everyone has my degree of spare time, and that for some people advice like 'get up earlier or stay up later is just unworkable I wouldnt want anyone to feel bad because they can't commit four hours a day every day... writing an 80k book in a year means writing 220 words a day, about 30minute... which is probably more achievable for most people without needing to go to the machine like production..
Word count alone is not necessarily representative of time spent on the business of writing. Much of my published work is non-fiction and science oriented, which means a good portion of my "writing" time is devoted to research and note taking. A 2,000 word article may require several hours of research, depending on the topic. I could write and edit an article on prairie dogs in about an hour and a quarter because I have a good working knowledge of the subject. I just began an article on mountain bluebirds, a critter I know little about. I've already spent a couple of hours doing research, and will spend another hour pulling what I need from that research. Only then will I write the article. By the time I'm done, I will have invested a good half dozen hours or more on the piece.
Hell yeah - i used to write non fiction articles for magazines, nature, small holding, boats that kind of thing... they were far more time consuming than writing a novel. I can sit down and knock out 3-4k of gun fights, explosions, car chases, and sex scenes in the time it would take to write an 800 word article on chicken keeping, or the relative merits of log burners. I more or less knocked the article business on the head because i just don't have time with the day job
Tons. Last year, close to 100 books. I watch a lot of movies. Lots of stuff there. I go places. People do things. Lots of ideas there. There's ideas in the news, ideas in YouTube videos, it's impossible to get away from them if you just pay attention. You just need to look at what's going on around you and ask "what if?" It's not hard.
Counting writing, I have four paid part time jobs, and one volunteer position with the sheriff's office. Retirement is not working out quite the way I envisioned.
It depends on where you are in the process. Before writing was a habit, it was difficult. I'd have to make myself sit down at the computer. A few things helped... 1) An inexpensive laptop that doesn't connect to the internet, doesn't have games...basically, a glorified typewriter. (I don't know why, but it's psychologically easier for me to pick up the laptop than turn on the desktop computer.) 2) Writing every day in the same place. 3) I would make a ritual of making tea when I first got home and the tea connected to writing.
I think its ok to not write sometimes. Because if you force yourself to do one, you will just produce a story you won't come to like. Well i even write fanfictions on instagram, and i wanted to be on hiatus for a while because it became overwhelming. I chose to be on hiatus because my top priority is me. And i think it was the best decision i ever made. i took a break of nearly two weeks and found myself writing more creative and wonderful stories. It's okay to take a break because believe me, it for sure benefits you. Don't be sorry if you procastinate. And like someone said,"A writer never procastinates because their head always imagnes different stories and feelings while on a break."
That's an excellent point. It becomes so much easier when writing is a habit and that takes repetition over a long period of time before it just becomes part of your day. You don't have to have a laptop that can't reach the Internet but you do need self-control, something I see that not a lot of people have these days. I've had to fire people because they couldn't stay off of their phone for 5 minutes and do their job. I don't have to force myself offline, I usually have an online thesaurus open in the background but I don't do anything else when I'm working unless I need to do some quick research or look something up. It's all about making sure you get the job done and if you can do that, it becomes very easy to keep going.
i usually write with the laptop connected because its handy for research...when I suddenly need to look up which are the bad areas of Manaus Brazil, orhow to undo a brewery sealed keg or whatever. the only time i find it actively distracting is if something is kicking off here that needs my attention... fortunately instances of that are now much rarer than they once were
Lately I have been working on some non-fiction. Doing research and field work has put the actual writing to the side. The topic is the state of the environment, and sometimes the things I am learning are depressing. I do have a little science background so know how to tell the wheat from the chaff in my research. I spend too much time throwing my ideas down various social media holes, following the ample prompts it provides, but getting me off topic. I'm old and with me it was always "maybe I could be a writer." I was sixty before I actually tried it. I can string words together in ways most people will understand. I had to do it professionally, but that was always instructional or technical stuff, so I had to practice at being clear. I read a lot of fiction when I was younger, so finally said why not? I scanned most of the comments on the first page and there was mention of pen names. My real name isn't Vince Higgins. It is a satirical play on the pronunciation of my actual name. That name sounds nothing at all like Vince Higgins. It is the explanation of how it is pronounced that inspires the name. I think it's clever but can't explain without revealing my real name. Maybe after I get famous.
Typing is not writing. I still don't understand this obsession with word count. If you want to succeed, sure, you have to work at it, but the idea that in order to be successful in the modern climate you need to churn out half a dozen books a year with half a million words is ludicrous. There are plenty of successful writers (most), both commercially and artistically, that don't. Stephen King is an outlier because he is so prolific, but many fans, some I know, are getting bored because it's not as good as it used to be. Quality has been mentioned, but not often enough. And Sure, it would require a lot more typing to push out 12 shit books to the same sales volume as 1 really good one. Both may take just as long and just as much effort to write. One just has less words in total. Ditch the word count BS. Yes, you gotta work at it, but there's a lot more to it than mere statistics.
