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I’ve been trying to find a way to work novel writing time back into my days. I keep telling myself it wouldn’t be that difficult to squeeze 1000 words in, or 500 on a bad day. Given that it’s a very unpolished rough draft, that shouldn’t be hard. Yet something else always comes up.
I was curious last week about how much I was already writing in a day to get a better feel for what another 1000 words would be like. On one blog alone, on a single day, I wrote about 3600 words between the post and all comments (it was an active discussion). I was shocked. I still wrote two press releases on top of that, and my posts on this blog.
How could I write that much on a blog but not manage 1000 words in the book? Easy. The blog was “effortless.” It was just a discussion. It was like writing an email to a friend. It was also a debate (which I love for the heck of it), so there was always something else to provoke more conversation. Now if only I could make other writing processes feel more like that – I can’t help but wonder how much more I would get done in a week.
What about you? How many words did you write today, and where did you write them? Where does most of your writing go, and if you could make any writing project go by faster, which would it be and why?
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About the Author: Jennifer Mattern
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I’ve calculated that between jobs, my blog, IMs, and internet forums that I’m averaging at least 10,000 a day. It’s funny that you mention it because I was calculating a per-word count on a gig I won, and almost rejected it because the average was somewhere below .01 per word, until I realized that it was all forum discussion, so I took the job anyway. I haven’t been happier!
I didn’t even think about forums and emails in there. We really do write more than we think, don’t we?
I was thinking about it after reading somewhere that you should target 1000 words per day on your book, and the motivation is that as soon as you reach it, you’re done for the day. If I only wrote 1000 words a day, I’d probably feel like I were doing nothing. For some reason though, those 1000 words feel so much longer in the scope of a book than in other things. It’s just 2 500 word client articles, 1 blog post with a few comments, etc. It’s funny the way our minds can make things seem more difficult than they actually are.
Wrote about 930 on my fiction. Didn’t write as much for my latest blog post. And like Clint mentioned, I write WAY more on forums.
And Jennifer, Stephen King did advocate that in On Writing, at least as a starting point. (also to read for 4-6 hours a day, but I’ve got other stuff to do! :V )
The reason why it is easier to write 1,000 words through blogging and other work, is that we see them as manageable packages: 300 words for that post, 100 for that comment. 500 for that release, etc. When we think of book writing, puddles become oceans and it becomes daunting. Instead of writing a book, people should envision creating a blog series. Although we know we are capable of writing 1,000 words a day, our minds throw up roadblocks.
Ed–
Great point. I was just kicking together a book idea today, and realized I’ve already written 2,000 words on it because I’ve got three blog posts I’ve done as a seed to start it. I took some great information from Zenhabits.net on motivation. I break my entire life into miniature micro-goals every day, and it’s so much easier to get things done. I don’t think of the mountain, just every step on the path I must take to get to the top.
This is very relevant for me right now. How do I find the time!?
But I like the point you bring up about how easy it can be to write our blog posts. Maybe when I’m working on my novel, I can have it in mind that what I’m doing is ‘easy’ and ‘inconsequential’ like a blog. That might make it easier.
One thousand words a day, five days a week should be the ideal goal for working on your fiction. That works out to about three pages a day, fifteen pages a week, and a book a year counting time for editing, revision. It is an obtainable goal we all should strive for. I do enjoy reading your posts and the comments.
I love to read, a couple of books a day, and I love to write, but don’t always feel up to it everyday. That may not be the answer of a novelist, but until I finish what I have started, I’m not one am I? I am sitting on 8,950 words written, about 17 pages, and 3 chapters, and I am proud of my success. I have been writing for about a week now, and I do not have time to write everyday, nor do I want to write everyday. I want my book to be the best I can do, especially for a first attempt, so I choose not to write on days when my mood is anything but willing. Being sad, or angry, rushed or annoyed can all change the story line, or the creativity behind it, so I say don’t worry to much about how many words you write a day as long as you don’t give up writing.