I can not do the whole structure thing. If you give me a structure, it will not get done. If you say "get it done" you could get 30 pages a day. I have the horrible curse of being most creative at 2-4 a.m. fortunately for me, I do not have to keep normal hours.
I really don't know how many words I cough up a day. If do it with a pen and paper I guesstimate two-hundred and forty a page. With Microsoft Works it's usually about four hundred words a page. Probably about fifteen hundred words a day. Some days I get distracted and I don't write at all. If I had to guess it would be about eight hundred woods a day on average.
I don't keep track of how many words I write per writing session. I write whenever the mood strikes and I write until I have nothing left to say for that time. I don't put much stock in word counts. I could mash my keyboard and get a high word count. It's how you use the words not the quantity of them.
Thanks! I've cut video games and TV and most social networking. I think I also should cut off my reading time. Cuz I read a LOT. So if I take out a lot of distractions so I can focus on writing I think I'll do better. Thanks!
Ok, yeah. That makes sense. I've got English finals today however, and I'm not taking any English during the summer. In the fall however, I might just take your advice!
I read that too Garball. I try to keep a minimal day at around 1200 if I'm not really feeling it, but if the days right and no ones bothering me I can pump out closer to 10,000 though I only get days like that every once in a great while. normally I'm at the 4-5000 range. course with school work and a kid my writing has to take a back seat some days.
Usually I write about 1000 to 1500 words per day if the work is going well. Rarely I do 2,000 words. I don't think I've ever hit 3,000. I edit as I go, so that slows me down some even as it improves the quality. People who can do 10,000 words per day or more kinda scare me. It's like they're eight feet tall or something.
you would be surprised how much time it takes me to fix those 10,000 words when i have those kinds of days. spelling sucks grammars terrible. its more like binge drinking. sometimes its great to get that f-ed up, but the next day your wondering why you didn't pace yourself.
I don't have a consistent amount I write each day. I just don't have a schedule that allows for me to make a goal of "write X pages a day" and stick to it. On Tuesday I managed around 9 A4 pages. Wednesday I wrote very little (on my phone - was out the house 6am-9pm and haven't had a chance to write it up yet). Thursday - had no time to write. I've a deadline for my novel and other tasks have set me back, so I've had to clear my schedule for this weekend (annoying because I had perfect opportunities for networking between a film premiere and an exclusive party) just to find the time to work on it. I'm going to need to work at a pace of approx 50 pages/day over Sat-Mon to finish the first draft on time. Not impossible, but it'll be tiring.
If you ask that question here you're gonna get fifty different answers. Each person's 'writing schedule' is unique, some work, some don't- but the laziest are often the loudest so I'd be careful. The way I work is through rigorous personal conditioning. I recognized that I enjoyed writing, but had an aversion towards productivity; that is to say I was my worst enemy, I would hamstring myself because I viewed writing as 'good for me'. Like going to the gym, takes effort but once you're there it's a good thing. I overcame this through the formation of strong writing habits, and drugs. Actually, it was mostly drugs. I recognized that I did most of my writing at coffee shops, creating within the various Starbucks and Peet's Coffees of my town an office of sorts. My typical habit was to drink a cup of tea and jot down a couple of words- not supremely productive but it was the best I had. Once I realized this I switched my tea for coffee so that I could become addicted to the caffeine, I wanted the headaches and irritability that followed because they were physically uncomfortable. Now if I go without coffee I become an irritable twat- my entire day is shot and my head hurts something awful. The upshot of this is that now I have a physical incentive to go to the coffee shop each day, which roughly translates into a physical incentive to write. This, coupled with a number of other little tips of tricks (the stayfocused app for chrome and writeordie.com) mean that my productivity has exploded. Of course, this works for me, but I've no idea if it'll work for you. And remember kids, drugs are bad- except when they're not.
It varies a lot for me. Sometimes I can't get past the first sentence and other times I just sit down and churn out a few chapters in one go...
I'm gearing up for a big day writing content for my WP-blog, and was thinking about my schedule. It's not written down anywhere but as someone who works from home I follow it pretty religiously. 9:00 - wake up 9:10 - breakfast ritual of 2x cups of coffee, 2xCigarettes. Have a chuckle at 9gag. 10:00 - Chat to partner before she leaves for work 10:30 - Watch the News/check blogs, email, forums 11:00 - Start writing/graphic designing/miscing PM 8:00 - Partner finishes work, so I start cooking dinner (unless she is getting take-away). 9:00 - Finish work, hang around with partner, usually watch a movie. Does anyone else work from home or have a schedule when they have the day free to write? Any strange rituals, like my breakfast?
I always do it on Saturdays since I have Judo practice on fridays, and because it makes me sore, I take today to rest and write. I also freewrite/draft in some of my classes if we're not doing anything important. On occasion, I might write even though I should be doing something else. Guess it shows how much I like writing.
I work from home the vast majority of the time. I'm a morning person, so I like getting up early; the latest I rise is about seven a.m. I have some breakfast and waste a lot of time surfing the net, then, depending on what I have to do that day, I get to work around eleven or so. I make dinner around seven or eight, then work another hour or two afterwards. Right now, though, I don't have any projects on the go, so I have a lot of time. I work on my stories; I study math, history, and so forth when I get a chance; and I help out my partner/roommate, who is disabled. Lots to do.
I spend all day glancing at the computer and fearing the daunting task of writing until the that garish light of day fades. Once the quiet of night sets in I write until the sun comes up. school, work, gf, kid, the rest of the week until my days off, and repeat. for some reason i only write well when a) the sun is hidden by a storm or b) its nightime.
Fatigue quietens the logic centre in the brain, so you feel more creative at night.... Doesn't explain the storm thing.
i live alone, so i can work from 6-7am to as late as i need/want... usually quit for the day by 7-8pm... first thing in the morning, i deal with whatever mail has come in overnight... then i eat breakfast while posting here and on the other 2 writing sites i currently belong to... after that, i take care of mentees' and clients' needs, followed by whatever i may be working on of my own... and i don't do weekends, holidays, vacations... just day and night...
At completion, I averaged about 6300 words a day. That's 120,000 words, in 19 days. Or, translated into "book-math", Harry Potter, book Four, in 19 days. I don't necessarily recommend it. It's a lot of sitting. 1k per day sounds like a good investment. About three pages or so? That's great!
At least 1,000 words per day. It doesn't matter to me whether they're for the same chapter or split across different chapters - or even different projects.
I'm not sure if it should be here or in the lounge, if it should be in the lounge, sorry! Every writer works in different ways and with different tools. I was wondering what do you guys and girls use to write a story? Do you use pen and paper? A gigantic cork board or a fancy writing program? And why? I shall start. I use a notebook to scrabble ideas in and some minor scene when I have no access to a computer. While I love writing in a notebook, I find it rather hard to change things in a text since it becomes a mess rather quickly. Especially since I have a terrible handwriting. I used to use word for writing, but it became too cumbersome. Every other chapter was in another file and I had a map for research. Opening up everything at the same time wasn't very practical. Now I use Scrivener (for Windows) and I love it! Everything I need is there! All my research, plotting, characters and writing in one single project! It's also very handy that you can save sites into the program and browse them from within Scrivener! I am a very messy and chaotic person, but I manage to organise everything a bit with Scrivener! While I think Scrivener is ideal for me, I am still curious what other writers use for their writing, plotting etc.
