A Thousand Words Per Day

[BlackShanglan]

I’ve been mulling over this old standard. Does anyone here follow it? How closely? Do you take days off or allow a good day to add its extra words to a weaker one?

I’m working on creating disciplined habits for writing, but thus far I’ve been using hours rather than words. My goal is as least forty hours per week and at least six hours each weekday, as this is now my sole employment. I count time spent on research, planning, and revision as well as time actually drafting.

I keep thinking about that thousand words per day idea, however. It seems like a good way to make sure that the actual writing doesn’t get buried in networking, paperwork, reading, and so on, but I’m not sure how to count things like planning and revision. I threw down ideas for a new project this morning and hit 4200 words, but I might never complete the project, and the words I wrote aren’t draft, just planning notes. When I revise, I’m inevitably working to cut words; I could put in ten hours of good, hard, useful work and end up with -1200 words written.

How do the rest of you “count” things like this? Does anyone use the “thousand words per day” standard or a similar one? Does it work well for you? If that’s not what you use, do you have some other standard or measure that you’ve found helpful to your writing?

 

[rgraham666]

I'm trying to do the 'profession' thing as well. I'm very uncomfortable with it, for reasons I've gone into endlessly here.

What I do is have my computer remind me three times a day that I must write, for an hour. No research, no stopping to check e-mail, just sit and write.

Can't really say it's been a success so far. I'm a lot less interested in writing than I was.

We'll see if that changes once I start taking my meds again.

 

[Vermilion]

At the moment I'm forcing myself to aim for 500 words a day. no matter if they're good or bad. the next day I revise those, then write another 500 odd.

on monday things went a bit mad and I wrote 4000 in a day, but I didn;t go 'phew, that's 8 days works done I can rest for a week'

of course... I don;t do much reserahc for my writing... but I prefer words as a measure, rather than time... I write, I can measure what I've achieved by what's on the page...

I think aiming for a thousand a day would quickly cause my muse to self-destruct...
x
V

 

[Liar]

A thousand words/day... That's approxiamtely how much I speak.

Since writing is my bread and butter, I have a certain productive diciplin that I follow. But the jobs I do require to shift between research and writing every other day. Get a commissiion for an article, deliver whithin a week. So that's one day planning, two days research, two days writing, and then weekend. (The last step is omportant. Never compromise away weekend.)

In the writing phase I have a quantity goal, measured not in words but in characters. I look at the comissioned length of the article and say that 2/3 of it shall be written on day one, and 1/3 on day two. Sometimes the article is short and it's a piece of cake, other times it's epic, and this is a 20 hour workday thing to complete. But the model seems to hold, research always takes 2 days, writing 2, although the subject matter varies.

But yeah, to set a goal in hours doesn't work for writing. If I do that I can sit and stare at the screen, hit a key every other minute and fool myself into thinking I'm productive. I don't get paid per hour but per article, essentially per character, so my own measure of progress is in characters of text.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Rob, I'm sorry that your model is making writing less of a pleasure. It sounds like an interesting one. I'm ashamed to admit that one of the most useful things I've done in terms of productivity is to disable the net until 5 PM. I'm staggeringly more productive without the temptation to go waste time goofing off.

Vermilion and Liar, I enjoyed your models for their balance of research and writing. Liar, I do see your point about hours not necessarily measuring productivity. So far that hasn't itself been a problem for me, but that's probably because even when I'm weak about not goofing off online, I'm strong on only calling an hour work if it was full-on hard work for pretty much all of it. Sometimes I don't meet my hour goal, but I think I'm good about only calling it work if in my heart I know it is work.

I like very much, Liar, your "2/3 first day, 1/3 second day" plan. The projects I'm working on are a great deal longer (screenplays and novels), but I think I will mull over ways to try to bring that approach to them. Right now I just have a vague sort of "be draft complete by the end of the month" goal.

 

[rgraham666]

It's not the model that's causing the problem, Shang. It's the idea of being 'professional'.

Being 'professional' means I have to meet other people's goals and standards, a thing I am extraordinarily bad at.

It also means, in my opinion, it will stop being fun. And writing isn't much fun for me now.

 

[slyc_willie]

I write every day. It's not always something that I will finish, nor is it always erotica. I consider my writing as a compulsion. I simply must do it every day. But I've never held myself to a certain number of words. Some days I can barely crank out a thousand. Other instances, I've written thirty or forty pages in a single night.

I believe that by giving myself fewer controls, I feel more 'loose' when I write. That way, it feels less like a chore and more like a hobby.

 

[impressive]

500 words per day, here. No exceptions. No days off. It doesn't get whittled down to 300 during edits, though, 'cause I don't write in draft mode. Makes the writing process slower, but my OCD won't let me sleep if my words are sloppy.

Hell, it barely lets me sleep if Bel's words are sloppy.

 

[jomar]

Just popped in to say I sincerely wish all you pros the very best success.

 

[Eroscribe67]

I never write with a specific word count in mind, and since I don't have the luxury of having every single day to just write, I try to at least get a few pages done. However many pages that may be. I remember reading something an author once said, and it went something like this: if I get five pages of crap or one really good page written, I'd rather have the one page.

Hope this helps...

 

[BlackShanglan]

It's not the model that's causing the problem, Shang. It's the idea of being 'professional'.

Being 'professional' means I have to meet other people's goals and standards, a thing I am extraordinarily bad at.

It also means, in my opinion, it will stop being fun. And writing isn't much fun for me now.

Perhaps you can just write to your own standards and then submit the work to editors with the thought that publication would be a happy coincidence, but not your goal? Your standards are so wonderfully high that you'll be a shoo-in anyway.

 

[BlackShanglan]

500 words per day, here. No exceptions. No days off. It doesn't get whittled down to 300 during edits, though, 'cause I don't write in draft mode. Makes the writing process slower, but my OCD won't let me sleep if my words are sloppy.

Hell, it barely lets me sleep if Bel's words are sloppy.

*laugh* I suddenly feel a deep pity for Belegon.

I know that if I let myself, I will revise individual sentences until the crack of doom. I do a draft / whittle process because otherwise I'm the man in The Plague - revising the first sentence over and over until I die without completing it.

I like playing with the pretty words too much, and I don't enjoy drafting - so I force myself to do all bare-bones drafting before I get to play with the shiny pretties. I know it sounds bizarre, but I'm always most "into" the whole process when I'm doing the sentence-by-sentence polishing and revision. That's the part of my own process that really feels like writing to me; I'm too impatient with my drafting stage to savour it, and it's all loose and scrawly. It's like a heavily detailed version of planning notes.

I wish I had your perspective. The other reason I do a draft-then-revise system is that I really cannot see my work objectively when I've just written it. It's a bizarre blind spot to have, but it's as if I can't turn off the mental image of what it's meant to be and see what is actually there unless I put it away for a week and come back later. I confess that I am frankly envious of those who can see what's on the page!

 

[MagicaPractica]

I need to work on this myself but at the moment I prefer time spent as my unit of measure. I know that I am usually most productive in the morning so that is when I should sit down and write but then sometimes I end up writing late into the night. Right now I'm editing heavily and creating little that is new so the project takes precedence over my need to create.

 

[Belegon]

*laugh* I suddenly feel a deep pity for Belegon.

Don't worry about me, horsie... it works for us.

I don't always get 500 words in... but I often get 850 or 900 or 1200. other times I get 300. With all the upheaval and uncertainty in my life, I feel lucky to get that many some days.

The feeling of responsibility I have for achieving something when writing with Imp makes me get to things I might otherwise put off... and helps me avoid deadline panic syndrome.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

BLACKSHAGLAN

I cannot write from an outline. It doesnt matter how good the outline is; in a page or so the outline is a blurred memory and I've wandered off the reservation. I require scenes.

I write scenes. And the length of the scenes vary. I write one scene a day, sometimes two. Mostly I write humor or porn.

I think everyone has to find what works for them.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Don't worry about me, horsie... it works for us.

I don't always get 500 words in... but I often get 850 or 900 or 1200. other times I get 300. With all the upheaval and uncertainty in my life, I feel lucky to get that many some days.

The feeling of responsibility I have for achieving something when writing with Imp makes me get to things I might otherwise put off... and helps me avoid deadline panic syndrome.

I was just teasing. I can see that you two have a wonderfully successful partnership. The publication credits attest to that!

I'm working with a writing partner now (*blush* ahem sorry I'm a little late this week ... I swear I'm not wandering off into the far pasture!), and I like just what you say, as well - the feeling of steady deadline to meet to keep me going. It helps give some structure to my schedule.

I think there's a lot to be said for writing something every day, however much or little. It gets that habit ingrained and keeps the mind working away. And, as you say, it helps avert the deadline panic.

 

[Varian P]

I'm not even vaguely disciplined in my approach to writing. Among worse sins, this goes for daily quantity of time or output.

But I write every day, and have for the last few years, out of sheer desire. I find my mind off crafting scenes and plots and lines of dialog when I should be focused on other things, and on lucky days, the words sort of spill out of me, onto the screen when I actually sit down to write. Other times, it can be a struggle to write the scene, and I feel like I'm wrestling with every phrase, every word. So, my productivity varies rather drastically.

I have, however, surprised myself twice, participating in NaNoWriMo and actually meeting the goal of writing 50k words in the course of a month. I couldn't do that, or even hold myself to a thousand words per day every month of the year, even with weekends off, but it's been both fun and productive, for me, shifting gears and pushing myself for those thirty days.

 

[sr71plt]

I write in muse-inflicted short-spurt frenzies on shorter pieces--and I tend to write to promised deadlines on longer works, always fitting the time in around editing deadlines for other writer's books. If I ever settled down to write on a regular schedule, it would be by the hour, though, not to wordage. Section/works that need to be finished at a setting aren't based on wordage for me.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

BLACK SHANGLAN

When I was in grad school I got in the habit of writing a little every day...paragraph, whatever. But I found that I did best when I concentrated all my thinking on one idea. And when the concept was clear in my mind, I wrote it down, beginning to end. When youre writing about molecular biology you have to do it that way. Then assemble it like a necklace.

 

[English Lady]

I get up at 6am or earlier every day. I check email, pop in here then I sit to write. I usually get 1-1 1/2 hours of writing time and generally I get betweeen 800-1500 words written in that time. I do that everyday with the occassional rare exception. If I miss my moringg writing time I may try again later in the day, but my best work happens in the morning

 

[BlackShanglan]

If I ever settled down to write on a regular schedule, it would be by the hour, though, not to wordage. Section/works that need to be finished at a setting aren't based on wordage for me.

I definitely agree with you and others who have mentioned working in scenes or similar chunks. It would take an act of sheer will or exhaustion to step away mid-scene. I don't generally sit down planning to write a specific number of scenes at a sitting, but I draw my work to a close by closing the scene on which I am working. I find that it sets the next day up nicely, as well; often while I'm doing other things in the evening, I'm also mulling over options for the scene I'll be starting the next day.

I get up at 6am or earlier every day. I check email, pop in here then I sit to write. I usually get 1-1 1/2 hours of writing time and generally I get betweeen 800-1500 words written in that time. I do that everyday with the occassional rare exception. If I miss my moringg writing time I may try again later in the day, but my best work happens in the morning

Ah, I'm with you on that. I was very much that way when I was employed full-time as well; if I knew I had a great deal to do, I'd go in early. I was nearly always the first person there. Now I don't have to start quite so early (huzzah! 6:30 AM is wretched time to be looking at a clock in your office), but I find that I do seem to have the most energy and focus early in the day.

Unfortunately, I do not have your discipline. I cannot, under any circumstances, start the day by logging onto the Internet. It is a certain write-off of the remainder.

 

[English Lady]

Ah, I'm with you on that. I was very much that way when I was employed full-time as well; if I knew I had a great deal to do, I'd go in early. I was nearly always the first person there. Now I don't have to start quite so early (huzzah! 6:30 AM is wretched time to be looking at a clock in your office), but I find that I do seem to have the most energy and focus early in the day.

Unfortunately, I do not have your discipline. I cannot, under any circumstances, start the day by logging onto the Internet. It is a certain write-off of the remainder.

I log on first thing because otherwise I can't concentrate for wondering what I might be missing So it's not really discipline *L*

 

[Selena_Kitt]

For a while there, I was doing at least 2500 words a day. That was last year during Survivor. Which, as you can imagine, burned me out pretty hard. I didn't write much this year. (Is it October already!?)

Plans are to go back to every-day writing, though. 1,000 words a day, 5 days a week. (Weekends optional... if I'm feeling creative and have the time, I'll write).

Starting... soon. Really soon.

Maybe today. Who knows?

 

[sr71plt]

I don't generally sit down planning to write a specific number of scenes at a sitting, but I draw my work to a close by closing the scene on which I am working. I find that it sets the next day up nicely, as well; often while I'm doing other things in the evening, I'm also mulling over options for the scene I'll be starting the next day.

I've heard John Grisham say he breaks a writing session midpoint in a scene so that he comes back in the middle of something. I couldn't do that, I don't think. I know his writing routine, which permits him to establish exactly when he's going to write nearly every day and he has others guarding his writing time. I have no idea when I stop writing when I'm going to be able to get back to it--so I have to stop writing at some sort of wrap-up point or I might be thrown off the rails.

 

[sr71plt]

6:30 in the morning? I usually manage to get to bed by then.