Saturday
Jan012011
Happy New Year's, all!
I've posted a new comic over on Writer Unboxed. Title: "New Year's Resolutions."
One of my New Year's Resolutions: To post in Inkygirl more often.
Another: to write a minimum of 500 words a day. As I mentioned before, I know that 500 words isn't a lot, but I've been doing a LOT more drawing lately and have been neglecting my own writing.
I'm secretly hoping that I'll find that once I get into the groove of regular writing again, I'll be able to aim for a higher wordcount goal.
What about the rest of you? Anyone else willing to join me in aiming for 250, 500 or 1000 words a day?
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Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 12:17 PM
Reader Comments (17)
I'm in for 1000 words a day (though I might make it 7000 words a week, which is slightly different!)
I reached my 50,000 words NaNoWriMo goal but was left with an unfinished novel. January is my month to finish the first draft completely and get it to 80,000.
Thanks, as always, for being an inspiration!
Thanks for this! I am signing up for the 500 words a day & hope I can actually do more!
I write a minimum of 3000 words/day. But it's divided between non-fiction, and the current novel. The more you write, the easier it gets to pump out words.
Of course the question is, are they good words?
Need to do this. 500 words a day, EVERY day.
Thanks for the inspiration, Debbie!
I suppose I should set word count goals. I just set goals to get novels written. But that is more specific.
I'm in for 500! I've let some emotional drama stifle my writing, and its been hard to push past. No more! This will help me move on.
I'm in for 500 words a day! I thought about doing more but I've been focusing more on art lately.
I used to be writing 500 words a day, but I've been burnt out ever since hitting 70k for NaNo last year (yay, I can say last year, now) and haven't written anything all of December. I'm going to try and get back to 500, but I'll probably start with 250 for now. Eventually, I hope to do 1000, but I've got a ways to go before I get that far. ^_^
Count me in. I'm going for 1,000 a day for 365 days.
I finished my NaNo novel in Dec and need to edit now so maybe 250 at the moment, great inspiration tho TY!
This is a great idea! I definitely am in for 250 words a day every day!!
Hi Debbie,
Thanks for the inspiration. I have just finished my first novel which is now complete @98.611 word count. I am starting my second. I'm in at 1,000 words a day.
I gave up on Nano in 2010 as life got too busy but am up for the word count challenge. A great way to start the new year. I hope to do at least 250 a day.
I've tried setting a word count goal, but I usually fall off it quickly. Some writers are amazingly prolific. R.F. Delderfield, the English author of family sagas, wrote 33 pages a day, and he wrote until four in the afternoon, and if he finished at novel at three o'clock, he began the next novel. Charles Hamilton--who used 25 pseudonyms, the most famous being Frank Richards--wrote a million and a half words a year, which is about 20 pages each working day (assuming 250 working days a year.) Erle Stanley Gardner, author of the Perry Mason novels) wrote a millions words a year. Samuel Johnson often produced 40 printed pages a day. But most authors settle for far less. Jack London wrote between 1,000 and 1,500 words each day. Stephen King writes 2,000 words a day, "and only under dire circumstances do I allow myself to shut down before I get my 2,000 words." Graham Greene, without crossing out a single word, wrote five hundred words each day, taking an hour. He stopped at 500, even if he were in the middle of a sentence. Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full has about 370,000 words, and it took him eleven years to write it. "My children grew up thinking that was all I did: write, and never finish a book called A Man in Full. That many words divided by that many working days in a year indicates he averaged 134 words a day. Some days I can write 1,500 words, most days its 5-700. For me, dialogue is much faster to write than narrative.
Raymond Chandler said, "The faster I write the better my output. If I'm going slow I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing the words instead of being pulled by them." And Stephen King said, "If I don't write every day, the characters begin to stale off in my mind--they begin to seem like characters instead of real people. The tale's narrative edge starts to rust and I begin to lose my hold on the story's plot and pace. Worst of all, the excitement of spinning something new begins to fade. The work starts to feel like work, and for most writers that is the smooch of death." But my favorite quotation about writing pace is from the great boxing writer A.J. Liebling: "I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better."
I'm in for 500!
I just committed to writing a story a week , and intend to draw more comics as well this year, so this should help me get started.
Thanks for the idea.
I'm still in for 500 words a day with, um, some leeway. I'm really aiming for "500 words about 5 or 6 times a week" since that's more realistic.
I really love this kind of goal since it meant that a) I did write more over the last year than ever, and b) after the madness that is NaNo I didn't stop writing for the next two months but have been very slowly working on my pre-NaNo story again.
And I've told about a dozen people of the challenge...