Stopping Point

[_Lynn_]

I think I actually got more writing done when my life was regimented with full-time job(s) and children at home.

I can see where that would be true. Having too much time available to write in makes it difficult to stick to it. At least, for me that's a problem.

 

[Bianca_Sommerland]

I work whenever I have a spare second when the ideas are flowing. When they're not I'll try and think through outlines and see what I come up with. There's really not limit, I stop when I've drained my brain and try to feed it something to get it going again. Music works best, but sometimes random things on youtube, pictures, paintings, a conversation I overhear...

I'm miserable when my muse is silent, and elated when she sings. It's kind of like a drug.

(feel free to tell me I'm nuts. A lot of people do )

 

[slyc_willie]

I can see where that would be true. Having too much time available to write in makes it difficult to stick to it. At least, for me that's a problem.

I get practically no writing done if I have more than one consecutive day off. Work is a nice distraction for me, giving my brain time to let ideas foment.

 

[Boota]

I operate lossely on the 2,000 words a day principle, but I do mean very loosely. And I generally look at that as a minimum. I write in scenes, and rarely stop before a scene is complete. In my next book the average scene is probably 1,500 to 2,000 words long, so I wonder if subconsciously I have started to squeeze my scenes inside my arbitrary numbers. I'm not worried about it, they still work as I would have written them without the word count goal, it's just something that I took notice of while editing.

 

[ishtat]

I find that getting words onto the screen to be just a process. The scenes /story/plots etc. are fully formed in my head in detail, even dialogue sometimes weeks or months ahead. Writing them is a process and I generally try to get 2000 words plus done each day. I then leave them for at least a week and come back to edit. It's amazing how much genius turns to dross only a week later. Editing is my trial, it takes much longer than the first writing.

One of my daughters has been a full time television scriptwriter for eight years and has recently published children's books. She also works at home where she has a 20 month old child to distract her. She can turn her writing on and off like a tap whatever the distractions and never seems to miss a deadline. She claims that the discipline of producing material to order makes writing much simpler.

 

[sr71plt]

She can turn her writing on and off like a tap whatever the distractions and never seems to miss a deadline. She claims that the discipline of producing material to order makes writing much simpler.

I think there's truth to that. I was in crisis journalism for a couple of decades, and I too can just sit down at the computer, switching from anything else, and start striking away on demand and deadline.

 

[Tx Tall Tales]

I write for a longer time when the words flow well. If I'm struggling, I stop. There have been times I stayed up all night to get the words out of my head. Others I quit after a sentence or two. The only time I aim for a set number of words per day is with NaNo.

My stopping point is when I close the document; mid-sentence, mid-scene, or mid-paragraph.

Ditto. 100%. Including NaNo.