If you do that seven days a week, you can turn out the first draft of a 100,000-word novel in less than four months. Do you seriously consider that to be a problem? Now that is a problem. What are you asking for here? A supply of discipline to be sent by UPS?
Ernest Hemingway used to write 500-600 words per day. If he wanted to take the next day off and go fishing in the Gulf Stream, he'd push himself over 1,000 words. That doesn't sound very productive by the standards of some people here, but it got him huge sales, a fortune, and the Nobel Prize for Literature. It's all about what you write, not how fast you write it.
Hemingway also tended toward tiny books If Asimov had written at that pace, we'd've had three of his books to enjoy.
Love those books! I cannot imagine writing those three books (or what they were in draft form) in long-hand. Yikes!
I work 40 hours plus a week, have to travel internationally for my job for up to 12 weeks a year, I'm studying a degree level course part time and also have a wife and 4 year old boy I would occasionally like to see.
You (and others) might enjoy this: http://www.c-span.org/video/?165823-1/Foote I have to correct a factual error I made earlier. While writing the Civil War trilogy, he averaged about 500 words a day, not 150.
Let me recommend this book. See Chapter 12, "The Ticking Clock -- Fitting It In. His answer is worth considering.
Nobody has enough time, that's part of what it mean to be human. Between '93 when I first started writing seriously and '13 when I went into high gear, I read three thousand plus novels. How? I literally didn't watch TV for twenty years. I'd come home from work, grab some food and sit down with a book. My friends know I'm in serious write mode now, so they understand that I limit social visits to once a week and only in the evening. I don't waste any time 'browsing' while shopping, I go with a list, get it done, and get home. I deliberately started writing at the worst possible times, when I knew my family would interrupt me, to develop my skill at writing any time, anywhere and to be able to get right back into it right away, no matter what interfered. I avoided clubbing and going to bars, saving them for special occasions only. Doing all of that, I'm consistently able to find time to write 1500+ words a day. I sometimes hit my goal of 3000, but not always.
I'm not sure if there's a thread regarding this subject matter, so I apologize in advance if there's an existing thread. There are a lot of things in the world that distract us from writing, but what do you do when you write? Do you have a ritual? Habit? Listen to music? Write in silence? For me, personally, it depends on the scene that I'm writing. If it's an emotional one, I like to put easy to listen music on. For small talk, random conversations and prose, I can write even if there's ambient noise. What about you guys?
We have a thread that deals with this kind of thing right here. Feel free to continue the discussion in that thread.
I try to write daily and when I do, I usually go 300-500 words each time I write. I want to be able to sit down and spend longer trying to write. What about you? Do you have any tips for sitting down and writing loads?
Check this thread... https://www.writingforums.org/threads/how-much-can-you-write-in-a-day.130426/#post-1194342 Why start a new?
The only thing that will allow you to write loads is sitting by the computer and write for as long as it takes to write them.
1500 words a day? 3000 WORDS A DAY?! Some days I cannot do much more than look at the pathetic 200 I wrote the night before.
If those two hundred words are good, what's wrong with that? You're in excellent company. Some literary giants wrote only a few hundred words a day. My goals are specific to me, to my needs. Don't compare!
I read an interview with John Banville (who has won the Booker Prize) in which he said he sometimes only manages 100 words in a day. This is a guy who's a contender for the Nobel Prize. As I said earlier, it's what you write, not how fast you write it.
It's also about how you measure it: you could count each word as you're writing it, at the end of the day, when you've reached the end of the story or when it's published; and the numbers may in some instances be very different. People write differently, and people also have more or less time than others, and many manage to figure out schedules that fit with their writing speed and preferences. I've heard of people who start and finish a book on a plane, while others barely manage finish their lifelong work before dying of old age.
Personally, I wouldn't be concerned about this issue AT ALL unless you're on a commercial deadline. Some people write an even amount every day, some people skip a day or two, some people skip months, some people write thousands of words a day, most days, some only manage 50, most days. The only thing that matters is that you do actually write, and don't just THINK about writing, or just PLAN to write, or just SAY you're 'going to write.' Just write ...whenever you manage time for it, and however much you manage. There's a saying here in Scotland: How long is a piece of string? That principle also applies to: 'how much can you write in a day?'
I listen to music while I write I specifically the music that is sung by the country music duo Thompson Square, there singing style is quiet soothing and listening to it helps quiet all the other crap in my mind and allows me to just concentrate on the writing process.
I can't understand how people can listen to music while they write. I always thought I'd need two brains to do that...I can't concentrate on the lyrics of music and write at the same time!
Two of my favorite books - The Newton Letter and Mephisto. That man writes some of the most beautiful prose I've ever read.
I need to hear my words in my mind, so no, no music. No distractions at all if possible. However I have worked on outlines in go-go bars and the like
