Here is a little writing thing for you. Let's see how many words you can write in an hour. Start your hour, then at the end tell us how many words you wrote and how many you wanted to write in that hour. Please don't tell fibs about your words per hour. Let me start; In the last hour I have written: 600 words I wanted to write: My goal for an hour is usually 1,000 words, most of the time I can achieve this but I am starting a new project so it takes more time to write. Amanda
I never measure words per hour. It's far to fine a unit of measure and hence it results in too much pressure and crap writing. I don't even usually think in terms of words per day. Words per week, or even words per month are better measures for me. I get to stare off into space a lot when I don't feel pressure to fill a page before lunch. Speed just isn't my thing, I guess.
Can they (it) be the same word over and over again? Would repeatedly writing 'a' be cheating? I reckon I could knock out a lot!
Hmm. I'll play this game. I call it a game because, like @minstrel, I do not think of my writing output as words per hour, except maybe for short stories. Still, it's perfectly 10 PM here, so I'll see how much of my novel I can write from scratch. Will edit this post to let you know. EDIT: 956 words. Not bad at all, I usually take longer to get that much down, though it's because I let myself be easily distracted by social networking, forums, movies/serials alongside. This time around, I did check them alongside, but not as much, because my focus was just writing stuff down. Also, I didn't need to do much research, except for certain terminologies. So that was in my favor too.
You know what? I thought I'd take the challenge for shits and giggles. This is a tale knocked out in a bit under an hour. 53 minutes and 1187 words. No need for criticism. It's obviously in need of a lot of extra work: I marched towards the front without a care in the world. A concierge, in a sharp black suit and red silk tie, opened the hotel doors. I entered the foyer, flanked by tall marble columns, and followed the red carpet up the grand central staircase towards the elevators. I stepped inside the first one that opened, and hit the top number: 23. Quick jerk, smooth ride, ‘bing’. The doors opened, revealing a long corridor with only a single door at the end. I marched towards it, reaching in the pocket of my coat. Quick stop, swipe card, ‘Bzzzzz… click’. The door opened, revealing a large, ornate room. A white piano to the left, a dark oak bar to the right, and right in the middle a beautiful 18th century dining table with eight matching chairs. Fancy. Behind that was a drop in the floor to another level. In the dark haze, I could barely make out a large TV in front of a black leather couch and two arm chairs. Modern. Boring. Nestled between two massive bookcases on the left was an open fireplace—lit, and crackling. It cast a hot, red glow across the room to the massive windows on the opposite side. Standing floor to ceiling, they were veiled by thin curtains hiding me from the glowing city night. In the centre of the lounge room, in front of the fireplace, between the furniture and the television, a large fur rug was sprawled over the polished marble floor. On it lay a slight figure masked by the darkness, one side glowing from the light of the fire. A woman. Short. Slender. Long brunette hair. She rolled on her stomach to look at me; her back to the flames and her face hidden by shadow. I grabbed two martinis already prepared on the bar—one without olives, the other with three. I strolled down the steps like Clark Gable would, or Humphrey Bogart, or maybe even Cary Grant. Those guys were cool. Smooth. And usually a lot older than their conquest. The woman rose to her bare feet; revealing a silhouette of perfect curves lined with glowing red. She wore an elegant black dress; tight around her waist, low on her chest, with a single cord on each shoulder as thin as a thread. Long black gloves covered each hand, running along her slight arms and stopping just above the elbow. Her eyes were hidden by a black Gothic masquerade mask, and all I could see were her thin pink lips, while a cluster of diamonds around her neck sparkled like a galaxy of stars. Placing the drinks on a 17th century pine and teak coffee table inlaid with silver and gold, I slid both my hands around her waist and gently pulled her close. Fingers from one hand felt the long spine of the zipper on her tight dress, and slid to the very top. I pinched the tiny handle of the zipper, and then slid my hand back down her spine. Her dress peeled open. My fingers, all four, touched the bare skin of her back, gliding towards her neck. She shuddered, dropping one strap off her left shoulder and slipping out her arm. I slid my hand back down. She pulled her other arm through the strap, keeping up her dress with her left arm against her chest. A knock on the door. Strong, clear knocks on solid wood. The woman peeled away from me as we both turned to look. The dress fell down to her ankles. She stepped out of the crumpled cloth and then, dressed only in little black briefs, long black gloves, a Gothic mask and a galaxy of stars, started towards the door. I watched, hypnotized by her hips gracefully swaying with each step. After folding one of her slender arms across her chest, she opened the door. It was room service, delivering my chilled champagne and smoked salmon on crackers. A silver trolley rolled through the door; a man at either end dressed in black pants, white shirt, and red vest; one much taller than the other. Heads bowed, they steered the trolley near the piano. Then, with their backs to me, they set up some flutes and popped the champagne. The woman turned to me and smiled as they lifted the lids to the silver serving dishes and put them aside. What happened next was in slow motion. They spun towards me holding black Beretta’s... both a 93-R, if I know my Italian gear... Fuck. But I was better than them; and prepared. As the girl panicked and scrambled behind the piano, I dove behind the couch and swiftly drew my Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistol from the holster inside my coat. I clean it every morning after brushing my teeth. Quick draw, lock and load, ‘click’. The fireworks began. Shorty fired several shots at me while Lanky raced for the girl. The bullets ripped straight through the couch, but that didn't worry me. I casually spun from cover, kneeling, and fired back. Two bullets ripped through Shorty and he flew back against the wall, sliding down to the floor with his face still frozen in shock. I stood, turning to see Lanky holding the girl by the hair, pistol pressed hard into the side of her head. He threatened to shoot her if I didn't drop my weapon and surrender. So I tossed my gun to the floor, raised my hands in the air, and slowly edged towards him. He spat and swore and growled all manner of profanities, but I kept a watchful eye on his movements. When I was close enough, he threw the woman aside and aimed the gun at me. She tumbled to the ground, lying there watching as I approach the killer. She was terrified. I was calm, like a shark in a pool of herring. Within a meter Lanky thumbed back the hammer, like it mattered, and grinned… Shorty groaned, not quite dead but bleeding out quickly. Lanky glanced to him, for just a second, but long enough for me to jump forward and grab the pistol. He fired. The bullet snapped past my head. We wrestled for a moment but I was quick to take control. I buckled his elbows, twisted his arm, and with his hand still on the grip, rammed the pistol under his chin. BOOM! Lanky’s brains sprayed all over the ceiling. In an instant, he was nothing but a lump of dead meat that crumpled to the floor. Dumb-ass. Blood poured from his open head onto my hand-made Italian shoes. It was slowly soaked up by the rug. Nasty business, that. Taking off my blood-spattered coat, I sipped on the olive-free martini while the beauty came to my side. Face covered and hair flowing, she took me by the hand and led me through tall glass doors hidden behind the curtains, onto a wide balcony that overlooked the city lights. She turned and lent back against the railing as I wrapped my arms around her waist. We kissed, just like they do in the movies…
Hahaha that was actually pretty good for a 50-minute drill. I think you started strong, in fact, though it began to falter later on. Not critiquing, just musing on the effectiveness of such strategy.
This is really just a way that can probably motivate some people to write more in an allotted time frame. It works for me, maybe it will work for others here too. My latest hour 7.30pm-8.30pm (hour just ended) 1,148 words, which is not too bad for my averages, it is definitely one of my higher scores.
That's pretty good. I'm just wondering, if the quality suffers because of it or not, because quantity may take precedence over quality. So yeah, otherwise it's a useful strategy it seems.
I'm not completely sure if it was an hour per se... but my word count of my current work is 618. It's not much, as I literally just starting writing...
It certainly would, with incredibly rare exceptions. In my opinion, racing to get a word count is probably the worst writing strategy around.
My strategy has always been write now edit later. I can usually tell if the quality isn't that good, I make a note of it if it's not too bad (I will come back and fix it later), otherwise I go back and change it at the time otherwise it might stop me writing later. As it is I wrote 500 words in my lunch break today then I deleted most of them, only to write another 300 before I had to go back. My first draft is all about getting the story onto the page and has nothing to do with the grammar unless it stops the writing flow. This strategy might not work for others, but it definitely works for me, at least so far anyway.
I usually do my primary edit as I formulate the story and chapter in my head and then as I write it out initially, so I would probably not do well in this challenge. I'm prepared to switch that editor off though and try... but can I make every word "a"? I'm sure that would increase my score considerably.
