Bisky's Twitterling's Scribbles! discussion

When we were writing our first novel we set a goal of 1500 words of new content per day. Some days we didn't make it, some days we exceeded the goal but it wound up being pretty close to our average.

Yesterday despite having errands and an appointment in the afternoon I managed 2300 words and today when I had the whole day open I did 3600 words (so far...)

How much do you write on average?

I wrote a nice reply to this then GoodReads went down for matinence *sigh*

Anywoo... I think it depends on how you write. I write to get the content out of my head and onto the page. That means its probably illegible to anyone other than me as its full of typos and grammatical errors. I can't read back while I'm writing, its demoralising for me. Also why it takes me so long to edit haha.

I started writing A Dance With Fury in July. I wrote the first draft in three weeks. The spell checked (to the best of my ability) first draft's first chapter was on my site in the beginning of august.

I never set a goal. I just kinda write until I fall asleep :p

Personally, I have no clue. I didn't learn how to count the words until I was in the edit mode. So I know how much I cut off but not how much I write. :P

To be honest, I wouldn't count anyway. It's too demoralizing and I'm afraid that it only entices you to type more words, but not words that will stay in the final version... (too much descriptions etc)

Interesting. I don't find quality suffering because of having a word-count goal, but people are different. Mind you, I don't obsess over a word-count goal either. Some days I don't make it, some days I don't write at all. But we've found having the word-count goal helps keep us on-track when we are on a deadline. When our publisher asks, "When can you have this done?" we have some basis for a realistic estimate.

I also find keeping track of the count isn't discouraging to me; it actually helps. I celebrate just a little when I reach milestones every 10K words. Some of my author friends and I report milestones on our facebook pages and 'cheerlead' for each other when we hit milestones.

Thinking about this I realize that I short-changed the thread on 'process.' Hmmm...

Back in the day, my goal was writing 2,500 on days that I wrote, but nowadays I really don't have a word count goal---just to get something on the page.

I only recently started tracking word / day output, I only knew that although I may think and visualize scenes, I don't get much on the page each day. Now that I am tracking, I know that I really struggle to get 800-1000 words /day down.

I have been working to change this, particularly because I have a big project planned for NaNoWriMo and the only way for me to get it done is to get myself a routine and stick with it. So I've spent this whole week working on short stories and trying to get 2k wds/day written. I have succeeded at this now for 3 days in a row. So far it's going swimmingly, if this works perhaps after NaNoWriMo I can increase my output to 3k/day during the week and take weekends off.

We'll see how it goes.

If I'm not crawling then I'm doing it wrong.

I set a goal for the final work, but not for every day. I don't even write every day, so it would be pointless. Some days I write from morning to evening and I end up with about 5000 words. Other days I'm not inspired and I get not more than 800 words on the page. Sill, as I write mainly short stories or novellas, they get finished quite fast even if I write little each day.

On a first draft I usually shoot for 1000 words per day if I have to work that day, and 2000 if I don't. It doesn't always work out that way. I get distracted by outside forces (twitter, facebook, blogging, etc.). Now that I am editing I have found that I gloss over some important things.. well I should say that they are important to my characters. I have some large sections of info dump. Instead of saying a character spoke with another, why didn't I type out the conversation? In the current chapter I'm editing I added 1500 words last night, and I only got about 1/3 of the way through the conversation. Playful banter is breaking apart the exposition, and making it much easier to read. Not sure on how many words are about to be cut out once I finish the conversation.

My goal is to write a chapter a week. That has given me ample time to write and get my thoughts out.

It depends on my mood, inspiration, and goals but the average is between 2,000 to 4,000 words, and I think the most was around 10,000 on a single day. But I try to set up blocks of time to write, because I really can't write during "work" hours, even though I work at home, I'm still bombarded with phone calls and things I need to do during the day, so I end up needing to write on the weekends or at night and when I get the time I really try and go for broke, because I know that if I don't it might be another week before I get my next chance

When I write, I shoot for a chapter a day. Of course, my chapters average around 2,000 words.

Not fast enough.

I can manage 2500 in a day. The most I've ever done in a single day was 6,000. But I give myself a 2,500 word count/day goal that I try to meet and try not to stress too much if I didn't get it done.

When Im not in school I tend to bust out a chapter (approx 3-5k words) a day. When I am in school I tend to do two-three chapters a week :(

Michael wrote: "When we were writing our first novel we set a goal of 1500 words of new content per day. "

That's what I aim for when on days when I'm writing, along with an overall goal for completion. I usually end up going over that a bit, but I find it's a good guide to work to.

I try not to focus on word count goals but rather on spending the time writing. I have a 45 minute train ride to and from work, so I usually plan what I'm going to do that week around that. At least once a week, sometimes two or three times depending on my schedule, I can squeeze in an hour lunch at work. But that totally depends on what's going on with my projects and what meetings I have to attend/prepare for.

So basically, I say, "OK, I'm going to spend the morning commutes CP'ing and the afternoon commutes writing this week. And I got behind on writing last week, so I'll use my lunch hours for that." Usually that equals about one chapter of 2,000 words per session, but it totally depends.

A dictation app is helping me out tremendously. I used to handwrite and then type that into computer. Waste of time. Now I just ramble into my phone then copy and paste...and edit later.

Eric wrote: "A dictation app is helping me out tremendously. I used to handwrite and then type that into computer. Waste of time. Now I just ramble into my phone then copy and paste...and edit later."

I prefer to type straight off - I tend to kind of 'edit' as I go, collect my thoughts, go back over stuff, and so on - I'd have so many crossings out if I hand-wrote, and so many 'no, deleted that' bits if I dictated, that it wouldn't be worth it!

Yeah I hear you on that. I used to straight type, but then I found myself often drifting over to the internet—the bottomless pit of distraction.

Sometimes I like to grab a notepad and go outside away from the Internet to write. When I was writing my old novel back in 2008-2009, the Internet didn't distract me nearly as much as it does nowadays. Darn Facebook. xD

I don't think I write much daily - maybe two pages of very rough notings which I then spend a long time polishing. On one novel I spent four days getting a single paragraph the way I wanted it and now I wish I had spent five. Researched novels can delay it further. Everyone has their own way of reaching the end - mine is very much one step forward and two steps back, but it works for me - eventually.

You all really churn out the word counts. Impressive.

Personally i have no target, I tend to write as it flows. Some days it flows well and have inspiration diarrhea, so I get out page after page, others I may barely get out a paragraph in a week. My life is pretty hectic and barely organised so it is no surprise that that is pretty much how i write... LOL I would say I am a slow writer as when ever I am having a mental fart, I tend to go back to the beginning and start editing, which often kicks something off and write some more.

Sophie xx