# For Those Who Write 5,000+ words/day



## noodle24 (Dec 11, 2012)

If you're a fiction writer who consistently writes 5,000 words/day or more, I'd love to hear your answers to the following...

1) Briefly describe your typical work day, such as when you write, how long your sessions are, and how many sessions you typically have.

2) What was a key breakthrough(s), if any, that really exploded your word counts? A turning point in your writing career where your productivity really took off.

3) What is your top suggestion(s) you'd recommend to a young author who also wants to reach 5K+ words/day consistently?

Thank you SO much in advance!


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

1) I write randomly, really. I try to get in at least four hours a day when I want to hit 5000 words, but I do it in spurts. I'll write for 10-15 minutes, and then do something else, then come back and do another 10-15 minutes. I can easily knock out 1500 words an hour, more if the story is flowing, less if I'm really distracted.

2) Key breakthrough - just writing a bunch. With every book I write, it gets faster and faster. So, practice is the answer. And, before I ever started writing fiction, I was an academic writer, where I wrote papers for people. I did that for years, and that was part of my training, too. 

3) See above - just write. If you write a lot, you soon will get to the point where you get faster. 

Oh, and if you're a plotter, you might try picking up the book "2,000 to 10,000." I've heard that helps a lot of writers. It didn't really help me, because I'm a pantser, but it might help you if you're not.


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## JV (Nov 12, 2013)

anniejocoby said:


> 1) I write randomly, really. I try to get in at least four hours a day when I want to hit 5000 words, but I do it in spurts. I'll write for 10-15 minutes, and then do something else, then come back and do another 10-15 minutes. I can easily knock out 1500 words an hour, more if the story is flowing, less if I'm really distracted.
> 
> 2) Key breakthrough - just writing a bunch. With every book I write, it gets faster and faster. So, practice is the answer. And, before I ever started writing fiction, I was an academic writer, where I wrote papers for people. I did that for years, and that was part of my training, too.
> 
> ...


When you say you wrote papers for people do you mean college students paying you to write their essays and take online classes for them? If so, I did that for awhile (still do from time to time), it's really good money, especially if they're getting grants, they don't usually have a problem paying top dollar.

If you meant a different sort of academic writing them excuse me for assuming that you are as unethical as me


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## 31842 (Jan 11, 2011)

I was about to recommend 2k to 10k, too!



There is a very easy-to-adopt system in there which makes writing 5k-a-day a breeze (basically, it comes down to pre-planning. Spend three miserable days outlining everything and figuring out all of your characters, and then when you sit down at the keyboard, your fingers will fly.)

I also use the Fly Lady technique (I think there's some other guru who does this... something about a tomato or something...?) ANYWAYS! The Fly Lady technique where you write in fifteen minute segments. There is an old saying that you can do anything for fifteen minutes a day. You set a timer, you don't let anything distract you, and you write for fifteen minutes. If you want to keep going, you can, but you can get up guilt free after that. But you have to keep coming back to the desk and writing for fifteen minute segments throughout the day until you reach that word count goal.


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## Stewart Matthews (Nov 21, 2014)

KateDanley said:


> I was about to recommend 2k to 10k, too!
> 
> 
> 
> There is a very easy-to-adopt system in there which makes writing 5k-a-day a breeze (basically, it comes down to pre-planning. Spend three miserable days outlining everything and figuring out all of your characters, and then when you sit down at the keyboard, your fingers will fly.)


Nuts! I was gonna say that too!

I work a full time job, but I'm lucky in that I really love to write. When I get home, I don't particularly care if I spend my entire evening writing. It's really enjoyable for me. That said, I'm not currently working on a draft, but when I am, I'm usually hitting about 6k a day. I probably average around 1200 words an hour.

No way would it be possible without an outline. Having a guide to what I should write that day is a huge help. There's no need for me to slow down and think about where my characters are heading, or what should happen in a particular scene, which is a tremendous boon to my daily word count because I get to focus on hammering out the words as fast as I can--which leads me to my next point.

Don't sweat the first draft. Let it be bad. That's fine. You'll never show it to anyone, so there's no harm done. Just make sure that you take your time in the revision process. As I write, I like to keep a list of things I _know_ I'll want to revise. It's usually pretty long, trust me. 

I'm still a young author myself, but I've found the trick to hitting big word counts is planning and putting in the effort.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

anniejocoby said:


> 1) I write randomly, really. I try to get in at least four hours a day when I want to hit 5000 words, but I do it in spurts. I'll write for 10-15 minutes, and then do something else, then come back and do another 10-15 minutes. I can easily knock out 1500 words an hour, more if the story is flowing, less if I'm really distracted...


I don't write 5k or more a day because I write at the same speed as annie does or roughly 1,250 words per hour give or take a few hundred depending on how much of the story is clear in my mind.

This month what I did differently after reading everyone's advice was to set a goal to write 2.5k words each day (on my current WIP). My main plan has been to simply get this knocked out first then I allow myself to do the social and/or learning things. I don't want to say that writing is not enjoyable for myself but I find that it takes time, concentration/focus and effort to write and to write well. Once I am writing if I know what I am doing in my story line then the time flies by and I enjoy it immensely. Actually sitting down and starting to work for me is the hardest part of writing.

If I wanted to I could knock out 15k words in 1 day but I have no doubt the quality would be much and my day would be half wasted. So far I've found that if I commit to 2 hours a day and get 2.5 k words done then the rest of the day I can think about what I wrote and how I want to move my story forward for my next writing session.

So to summarize, while not answering your questions exactly I am very pleased at my progress on my current work in progress that I started on January 1 of this year and here we on are January 29 and I have close to 70k words done so far and all at the quality that I want for my first draft. My first book (the current WIP is my second) took me several months writing one hour a day for lunch and missing many days (them were good lunch days LOL).

Good luck and my final thought to you is carve out something each day, better earlier than later so that you produce something. Brandon Sanderson, the fantasy genre writer who writes like 300 or 400k word novels actually blogged in an interview that he doesn't actually write very quickly but that he is CONSISTENT. I have adopted this and it is working for me so far this month.

Best of luck!
Regards,
SM


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

JV said:


> When you say you wrote papers for people do you mean college students paying you to write their essays and take online classes for them? If so, I did that for awhile (still do from time to time), it's really good money, especially if they're getting grants, they don't usually have a problem paying top dollar.
> 
> If you meant a different sort of academic writing them excuse me for assuming that you are as unethical as me


Yup, that's what I did, lol. I wrote over 600 papers in like two and a half years. Ethical? Not so much. But it was fun.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Nevermind.


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## thewitt (Dec 5, 2014)

It helps if you an type fast.

I learned to type in the 1970s on a manual typewriter and have no issue typing without watching where my fingers are on the keyboard.

This means I read what I write as I type, and I type nearly as fast as I can think about the dialog and the expanding scene.

I start with an outline of where each chapter is going - just a few sentences that I put at the top of the chapter, typically with the major scene goals in the chapter.

Filling in the detail, telling the story if you will, doesn't take that long.

Going back over the chapter immediately after finishing it takes as much time as the initial writing for me. I adjust the flow, tweak the dialog, grab something that could be foreshadowed or take notes for future use.  This halves my output....

Then I read the chapters I wrote yesterday. This is their second edit, and I always find something I want to tweak.  I may rearrange something at this point as well if I feel the need.

Now I update my timeline for the chapter that I just wrote. Why do I read yesterday first? In case I want to move things around that might change the timeline.

Now - I write another chapter.

So, I may put 5000 new words in a manuscript a day - or I may double that in one day, and add almost nothing the next day while spending just as much time "writing" as I did the day before.

I still work full time, so my writing time is 4-5 hours every evening, and 20+ hours on the weekend.

Yesterday I wrote 10,631 new words. Today I will do less than half that I suspect, but Saturday and Sunday will be very big days... editing in the morning and writing in the afternoon.


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

1. I just started writing full time. I usually start writing around 1 p.m. (give or take -- I prefer running my errands when everyone else is at work, so sometimes it's later). I can't write early in the morning. It just doesn't work for me. I try to write five chapters a day. That's usually 10,000-12,000 words a day. Sometimes other things interrupt. For example, yesterday I wrote three chapters (6,200 words). My latest WIP came in early from my editor and I worked until 4 a.m. getting the manuscript ready for publication. That wasn't a normal day, though. Most of my chapters are 1,800 words to 2,600 words. I never stop in the middle of a chapter. I find it counterproductive. If I do, I have to reread everything I wrote the day before over again. It's just a time suck. I usually write in one session, but in an effort to get my house clean, I've started writing one chapter and then doing one cleaning task. It's usually not a long task, but it's something.

2. Money was my breakthrough. I've always loved writing, and I've always loved writing a lot. My productivity flew into overdrive when I started making a lot of money. I wish I could say it was for the art, but it's not. I'm a greedy little materialist.

3. You just have to do it. No excuses. When it snows, you still have to write. When your kids are sick, you still have to write. You have to find time. Sure, there are just some times where you have to make a hard decision. I do it every week. Yesterday, I let two chapters go so I could get my new book up before the weekend. When it comes to it, though, you still have to push through.


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## JV (Nov 12, 2013)

YodaRead said:


> 1. I just started writing full time. I usually start writing around 1 p.m. (give or take -- I prefer running my errands when everyone else is at work, so sometimes it's later). I can't write early in the morning. It just doesn't work for me. I try to write five chapters a day. That's usually 10,000-12,000 words a day. Sometimes other things interrupt. For example, yesterday I wrote three chapters (6,200 words). My latest WIP came in early from my editor and I worked until 4 a.m. getting the manuscript ready for publication. That wasn't a normal day, though. Most of my chapters are 1,800 words to 2,600 words. I never stop in the middle of a chapter. I find it counterproductive. If I do, I have to reread everything I wrote the day before over again. It's just a time suck. I usually write in one session, but in an effort to get my house clean, I've started writing one chapter and then doing one cleaning task. It's usually not a long task, but it's something.
> 
> 2. Money was my breakthrough. I've always loved writing, and I've always loved writing a lot. My productivity flew into overdrive when I started making a lot of money. I wish I could say it was for the art, but it's not. I'm a greedy little materialist.
> 
> 3. You just have to do it. No excuses. When it snows, you still have to write. When your kids are sick, you still have to write. You have to find time. Sure, there are just some times where you have to make a hard decision. I do it every week. Yesterday, I let two chapters go so I could get my new book up before the weekend. When it comes to it, though, you still have to push through.


I'm full time too and I still don't know how people write that much in a day. 2 thousand words is a good day for me. I only do about two books a year. I don't think I'll ever increase beyond that output level. I don't really want to either. I typically start late as well, usually around noon, give or take. I'll typically work till 4 or so. Im spent at that point. Then it's off to the gym. I'm also trying to take in a movie a day. Love this job!


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

JV said:


> I'm full time too and I still don't know how people write that much in a day. 2 thousand words is a good day for me. I only do about two books a year. I don't think I'll ever increase beyond that output level. I don't really want to either. I typically start late as well, usually around noon, give or take. I'll typically work till 4 or so. Im spent at that point. Then it's off to the gym. I'm also trying to take in a movie a day. Love this job!


I write while watching television. It's background noise. Although, to be fair, if you really looked, you could tell what television series I'm burrowing my way through while writing by looking at the names of the inconsequential characters. I needed a throwaway cop while watching Criminal Minds? Enter Aaron Morgan. I need an undercover informant while watching Justified? Enter Ava Givens. I needed a prostitute do die to set off a mystery while watching Lost? Enter Kate Littlefield.
I can write 2,000 words in an hour. I self-edit as a I go. So, I schedule six hours for five chapters five days a week. Then I do busy work -- covers, blurbs, social media, CreateSpace setups, etc. I have no idea how many books I'll publish this year. The low end is twenty-two. The high end is thirty (not including the novellas I've added to my most popular series). I already have eight completed. By the end of February, it will be ten (although only three of them will have been published at that point).
We shall see what happens, especially when I start adding erotic shorts with earnest in February. My original goal was to hit $50,000 a month by the fall. I think I'll be early. I hope I'll be really early. Now? Back to work. I want to write one more chapter of my WIP before I go to bed.


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## RBK (Nov 28, 2014)

I write 4,000-6,000 per day. I've experimented with many wordcounts over the last year and for me that's a comfortable range.

My scenes tend to be in the 1,000-1,500 word region, so I basically shoot for four scenes/four writing sessions a day. I don't outline because contrary to popular opinion, outlining slows me down. That's not to say I'm not aware of structure - I keep Larry Brooks and Save the Cat by my desk at all times and check in with where I'm at and whether I'm on track with the general plot points every now and then. Much more fun for me.

I try to get everything done before lunch, but usually this spills over into early evening. I do business stuff in the afternoon, and spend at least an hour a day reading.

Breakthrough for me was realising how much time I was wasting beforehand, and how much I could actually get done if I put my mind to it. 2K to 10K and DWS articles helped.

If I don't hit my target, I have an incredible guilt mechanism that kicks in and practically forces me into the chair. Handy thing to develop.

Also, I write my drafts cleaner and cleaner every time. I messy-drafted my first couple on the advice of many seasoned pros and the revision process sucked the life and soul out of me, so I cut down on that by writing clean in the first place now.


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## JV (Nov 12, 2013)

YodaRead said:


> I write while watching television. It's background noise. Although, to be fair, if you really looked, you could tell what television series I'm burrowing my way through while writing by looking at the names of the inconsequential characters. I needed a throwaway cop while watching Criminal Minds? Enter Aaron Morgan. I need an undercover informant while watching Justified? Enter Ava Givens. I needed a prostitute do die to set off a mystery while watching Lost? Enter Kate Littlefield.
> I can write 2,000 words in an hour. I self-edit as a I go. So, I schedule six hours for five chapters five days a week. Then I do busy work -- covers, blurbs, social media, CreateSpace setups, etc. I have no idea how many books I'll publish this year. The low end is twenty-two. The high end is thirty (not including the novellas I've added to my most popular series). I already have eight completed. By the end of February, it will be ten (although only three of them will have been published at that point).
> We shall see what happens, especially when I start adding erotic shorts with earnest in February. My original goal was to hit $50,000 a month by the fall. I think I'll be early. I hope I'll be really early. Now? Back to work. I want to write one more chapter of my WIP before I go to bed.


I respect the work ethic. I was just doing a little night writing myself.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Just reading this thread is making me exhausted.


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## vrcumming (May 17, 2014)

Salvador Mercer said:


> Brandon Sanderson, the fantasy genre writer who writes like 300 or 400k word novels actually blogged in an interview that he doesn't actually write very quickly but that he is CONSISTENT.


Consistency has been key for me. I write about 1000 words per hour, sometimes more, usually not less. When I'm in writing mode, I stick my hiney in my work space and write, period. I juggle projects, so if something isn't working on one WIP, I clear my head and sit back down with another project. Some days, I have to skip writing so I can work on editing/revision or getting a story published. On average, though, I write 5-6 days per week and spend around eight to ten hours per day on writing related activities.

One thing that helps me tremendously is setting concrete goals and breaking them down into working goals. This year, my concrete goal is to complete the first drafts of six novels, four under another pen name (about 80K words each) and two under this one (maybe 100K words each). I write by scenes rather than word count. (Stopping in the middle of a scene throws my whole process off.) My scenes average about 2K words each, so I set the goal of two scenes per writing day (about 4K words) and extrapolated to set monthly and quarterly goals. Even writing five days per week, that's about a million words written in a year, way more than I need to meet my concrete goals. Once I complete the projects I have scheduled, I'll work on others I have lined up. I fully expect to complete eight full-length novels (publication dates spread over 2015 and 2016) and several shorter works this year.

I'm a plotter-pantser hybrid. I work from plot points that are fairly loose, like "Main Character finds out xyz," and work out the exact details as I write or sometimes change them completely, if I have a better idea for the story's direction. 2K to 10K really helped me, simply because it forced me to think about the whens, wheres, and hows of my writing process. My best time to write is at the end of my day. Most of my writing gets done between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m., though I usually only write for two hours before midnight and for two to four hours after. I sleep during the late mornings and early afternoons, and work on writing related things until supper (blog posts, e-mails, marketing, etc.). I do a lot of brainstorming between waking and getting up, during that quiet time when everybody thinks I'm still asleep. Some of my best ideas hit me then.

I also edit a little as I write. (I read and lightly edit the previous night's work right before I sit down to start writing each night, usually to clarify details and refresh my memory on where the story is.) The more I write, the cleaner my first drafts are. I will never be able to hit the word counts of, for example, YodaRead (awesome work production, by the way), but I'm very satisfied with my writing progress.


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## Guest (Jan 30, 2015)

1) I start around 9am. Sometimes earlier. Occasionally later. I set a chapter goal until lunch time. My chapters average 500 words, so I usually say I want to do 5 chapters by 1pm. I take an hour for lunch. Then I'll do another 3 chapters before I go out for exercise / business transactions. When I get home I'll write 4 more chapters in one fast session that won't be more than 2 hours. 12 chapters, 6000 words, done by 7pm at the latest. 

2) From 2007 - 2008 I wrote 500 words a day. In 2009 I bumped it to 1000 on and off, and when I wrote that it felt enormous. In 2010 I attempted 2000 and achieved that consistently all the way through till last year. In 2014 I became less word count focused and more publication deadline focused. When the words didn't mean anything, I was able to write a tonne.

3) Don't put any chapter on a pedestal. Quantity over quality. Write the first thing you think of. Keep going with it. You might start off bad that way. But if you do it for long enough, your quality skills will start to catch up with your high production. After all, you're writing heaps now aren't you? 

My most important mantra to productivity success: I should never be afraid of the words. THE WORDS SHOULD BE AFRAID OF ME


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

I don't, I wish I did. I wish I had more time, that's the key for me. That's the area I need to tackle in my life. But I try to cram in a couple of hours late at night when the family have gone to bed. I need silence to write. Three year old boys try bash up the computer if you ignore them for longer than two minutes.

On the other hand, while my output is nothing compared to some of those in this thread, I think I do pretty well just using those hours late at night. Over three pen names I now have twenty seven books or short stories out.

I've been doing the 100 days of writing challenge and since it started on the 6th of this month I have clocked up 25,000 words so far. I'm pretty pleased with that.


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## noodle24 (Dec 11, 2012)

Wow this is awesome everyone! Thanks for the insights.

Yeah, I've read 2K to 10K. I was hoping to get different approaches and opinions. It sounds like everyone's process is a little different.


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## Stewart Matthews (Nov 21, 2014)

RKC said:


> If I don't hit my target, I have an incredible guilt mechanism that kicks in and practically forces me into the chair. Handy thing to develop.


High-five, bud! Same here!


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## missypyxi (Jan 23, 2015)

I am a freelance artist and a work at home mom with a child in school full time.  Typically I try to get the housework and errands done and take a walk before lunch, all the while thinking about the next part of my story and what I'll be writing about in the afternoon. Then in the afternoon, I get as much of that down as I can. Usually I can allow myself a good 3 hour block for writing. Whatever doesn't get written gets constant attention in my head, and then I'm up at 5am (sometimes earlier, if the ideas are really flowing) and I can write until about 7 before I have to start packing lunches and dressing the kiddo and getting everyone sent off for the day so I can rinse and repeat.


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## Guest (Jan 30, 2015)

Awesome responses! I'm trying out the advice from 2k to 10k, but since I'm more of a pantser, it isn't working out so well. Any of you other pantsers have some advice?


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## 69959 (May 14, 2013)

Bookmarked this thread. I'm going full time next month (yay!) and need to learn to: 

A.) write in the daytime (currently write at 4am when everyone is sleeping)
B.) write in shorter periods of time (more writing sessions)
C.) more than double my daily word count, reaching 4-5k a day while also homeschooling

Probably time to re-read 2k-10k.


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## Bulkarn (Jan 23, 2013)

noodle24 said:


> If you're a fiction writer who consistently writes 5,000 words/day or more, I'd love to hear your answers to the following...
> 
> 1) Briefly describe your typical work day, such as when you write, how long your sessions are, and how many sessions you typically have.
> 
> ...


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## Whiskey_Tango (May 5, 2014)

I write from around 9 am to 6 or so in the evening, and use the Pomodoro thingy to get in between 8-10k words per day. I can do that because:

1) I stopped seeing books as precious things that had to be nourished. They don't need to be nourished - they need to be written. Then nourish them if you want 

2) I challenge myself - if I do seven hundred words during this Pomo session, I aim for 800 in the next. I do these sessions for most of the day and seldom take breaks until I'm done, otherwise I get distracted.

3) I went full time. If I don't write, I don't get groceries.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Awesome responses! I'm trying out the advice from 2k to 10k, but since I'm more of a pantser, it isn't working out so well. Any of you other pantsers have some advice?


I spent this month practicing pantsing. I think up a character in a setting with a problem and just fly with it. Hard part was learning how to get out of my own way and just trust the writing will come, writing the next sentence that made sense with what just happened.

I write faster when I have an outline, or at least a sentence or two for each scene or story I want to write so that I have an idea of where I'm going. But I do appreciate the practice I put into pantsing. It's a skill I can work on and it's a tool I can add to my toolbox.

I write in 30 minute sprints, and have been writing about 1100-1200 words per sprint. I've been doing 3-4 sprints a day, so while I haven't quite hit 5k a day consistently, I'm well into the 3500-4500 daily range. By tomorrow night I'll have hit 100k words in January. Only way I got there was to show up at the keyboard every day whenever I had some time to spare, and put the work in.

I work a full time job, have a wife and house chores and cats and classes I'm taking now, so I'm busy, but still made writing a priority. Not much more to it than that.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

I'll also echo DWS's comments in the past and say that writing streaks are powerful things. If you can get on a writing streak where you're hitting some goal a day, track that streak and keep it alive. You might find that you'll not want to break that streak or feel guilty, angry, whatever.

Accountability also helps. I have the pulp speed group where I post my daily word count, the 1000 word a day thread here where I post, and I have a chains.cc chain for writing every day and for writing to my goal word count every day. Seeing those streaks grow, day by day, is a powerful motivator to keep it going.


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## FictionbyAngela (Nov 8, 2014)

I can't say that I do this consistently.  Lately it's been: write 6,000 words in a day, take two days off.  (but, I've got cubital tunnel, so I would be in a lot of pain if I tried to do this every day).  

If I sit and write for an hour, I'll knock out 1,00-2,000 words.  If I want to get a 6,000 word day in, I usually have to have gotten everything else done (cleaning, winning the internet...) so that I don't have any distractions.  Then, I'll sit for 4 hours or so and write.  Usually I listen to music.  I'll make a station on IHeart and just listen to that station over and over again.  I've always found that I can focus better if I'm a little distracted, and familiar sounds free my mind (like if I want to take a nap, I'll turn on Simpsons.  But if I try to lay in bed to nap, no go).  

A great motivator for me is if I can see the finish line.  If I'm 4,000 words into writing a 10,000 word story, I'm just like, "yeah!  I can get this done!  Let's do this!"  

I do need to work harder on writing longer every day.


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## J.T. Williams (Aug 7, 2014)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Awesome responses! I'm trying out the advice from 2k to 10k, but since I'm more of a pantser, it isn't working out so well. Any of you other pantsers have some advice?


I was in the same boat as you when I first read 2k to 10k. My advice, follow what works for you as a pantser taking what you can from the book. I have found one of the best ways to keep me writing is her 'notecard written in longhand trick'. If you get stuck in your flow of words simply back away from the keyboard and write out in very short sentences where you want to go from where your stuck. Even if it doesn't make sense at the moment, it is an idea...

After writing my first novel in a series, I found that even though I'm a pantser at heart, plotting and planning absolutely becomes a must to keep consistency, at least IMHO. It must of worked to some degree because the next two books were written faster than the first... So while I do not plan out scene cards ahead of time like she suggests, I do have a basic idea and what I call my "fountain of plot". This is where I put random phrases, objects, problems, etc. that I feel might be important and use them when I'm stuck.

My last novel written during NaNo 2014 was essentially a standalone and I knocked it out in I believe 13 days. I amazed myself with this but I think the better your work on your own process, taking the advice from others as needed to increase your own production, the faster you can write. I'm not sure how many books you have written but it seems with every one the process becomes smoother and simpler.

Hopefully some of that at least points you in the right direction.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Awesome responses! I'm trying out the advice from 2k to 10k, but since I'm more of a pantser, it isn't working out so well. Any of you other pantsers have some advice?


Joe, I'm a pantser too, but one thing from 2k-10k that worked well for me was taking a few minutes before I start writing to jot whatever comes to mind about the scene I am going to write. That helps me focus on what the goal/conflict, etc. is, so when I do write it goes a bit faster.


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## KevinMcLaughlin (Nov 11, 2010)

I managed 29,000 words one day this month. It was my highest daily word count ever.

Previous highs were 20k, 22k, 24k, and 26k. Most of those were on assorted 30th of Novembers! (NaNo finishes).

I don't write that fast, normally. It's REALLY rare, for me. I wish I could bottle it. But I can't. What happened that day was sort of a perfect storm: I had a REALLY good outline. I was doing a complete re-draft of a story I first wrote about 6 years ago, but never published (it was when I was first getting back into novel writing, and it wasn't good enough). So I scrapped it, but I liked the story so I took the outline and characters, and retooled the outline. I changed up a bunch of stuff a while back, and by the time I sat down to work, I had enough story in my head that I was doing in excess of 2000 words an hour all day. That, and I was highly motivated - I had it in my head to rewrite it as a novella and finish it that day (more fool me, the thing will be 65k words when I finish it today or tomorrow).

But I had a VERY clear vision of where the story was going, sat down and wrote, and only took occasional breaks from about 9AM until almost midnight.

I work a full time job, but I make sure I get in at least 500 words every single day, even on days when I work a 16 hour shift. Always. That keeps the writing in my head as a top priority. I manage 5k+ word days on my days off pretty regularly. I'll pass 80k new words this month.

Sometimes I plot ahead on paper. Sometimes the only pre-plotting I do is vague ideas in my head. I used to require the former to get real speed, but now I find that I can get a steady thousand words an hour in even if I don't have an outline. For me, that change has been about building enough intuitive understanding of story structure that I just write cohesive stories without pre-plotting. Basically, the better I get at "grokking" story, the faster I can "write into the dark".

Hope this helps? I enjoyed reading the other responses!!!


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## jvin248 (Jan 31, 2012)

I did 'big' word counts for a while and the keys were: outlining ahead of time so no wasted 'pondering' at every scene, worry about editing later, bursts with interruptions to do something physical or using the treadmill desk while writing. I figured out one trilogy took me 70 miles of walking to complete - I counted words per mile 

Look up Dean Wesley Smith's blog. He has a lot of posts about what he does "writing in public". An old blog series of his he posted writing a 70k word novel in ten days for a ghost writing contract. Some of it is pretty funny, a couple of naps, television watching, and so on.


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## SmallTownGirl (Jan 21, 2015)

Best advice I got is sit down and do it. Somedays it will take four hours. Other days it may take 12. Just sit down and do it. Force the words out. They don't need to be perfect. That's what editing is for.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

My best tricks for upping word count:

-outline
-write something you really, really like writing
-set a timer
-think in chunks, like "I will write for one hour, and then I will go and make myself a cup of coffee," not "I will now sit down and write 5K."
-make goals and don't get up until you reach them
-Write or Die (it really works)
-make a schedule
-screw your schedule and write when the muse speaks (Change things up, in other words)
-learn Dvorak (well, only if your wrists hurt, honestly)


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## IreneP (Jun 19, 2012)

Well, I DON'T write this much a day, but I managed to increase my output significantly in the past by following this simple method.

The important thing here is to NOT try and go from 100 words a day to 5,000 over-night. That method is very discouraging.

1) Write every day for 7-10 days. Keep track of how much you write. Write as much as you feel comfortable writing. Don't push yourself.
2) At the end of that time, determine your average words per day. This is your baseline. 
3) Take your words per day and add 10% more words. This is going to be your goal for the next week. Ass In Seat until you finish those words Every Day.
4) At the end of the week, if you can comfortably achieve the new word count, add 10% more words to it.
5) Rinse and repeat.

If you get to a point where you are struggling, step back down a little.
If you get off track for a significant period, start over with step one.

Eventually you'll probably hit a plateau that is good for you. You will also be able to take an occasional day off to plot, relax, whatever.

This worked great for me (until I fell off the boat entirely).


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## pdworkman (Jan 17, 2015)

I write average 5,000-6,000 words per day several months a year (when I'm working on first drafts), and the rest of the time it depends on what I am working on. Obviously, when spending my time on editing or formatting, word production is lower, and when I'm drafting or rewriting, word production is higher.

I work full time, and have a lot of other ongoing projects, so I get my words in whenever I can, even if it is just ten or fifteen minutes at a time. I have written about it here:

http://pdworkman.com/when-do-you-find-time-to-write/

I would say that if you want to write more, set a daily goal and do it. Sometimes you may fail, but if you don't set a goal, you don't know whether you are succeeding or failing. Whether you're a plotter or a pantster doesn't really matter; you need to know what you're aiming for, and work at it.


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## joyceharmon (May 21, 2012)

I'd never heard of the 2K to 10K book! Thanks to everyone who recommended it. I'm reading it now. The outline the day's output suggestion is something I've done in the past, but never consistently - I'm going to try to do that every day now, and incorporate some of the other suggestions.


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## Tyler Danann (Nov 1, 2013)

5,000 is rocket-fuel wordage!

My record is about 3,500 words for half a day at the keys. My mind starts to wander after about four or five hours.


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## MJ Stark (Jun 24, 2016)

Bumping this thread, because I'm curious to see how people's approaches have changed since writing these posts.

Are you still maintaining the same word count per day? Have you improved? What have you learned over the past year?

I'm aiming for 5k per day for 5 days a week. Just started a new book last night and have a few chapters in already. Will be stopping by the park on my walk home from the day job today to get in a few more chapters.


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## mojomikey (Apr 9, 2014)

ShaneJeffery said:


> I should never be afraid of the words. THE WORDS SHOULD BE AFRAID OF ME


This needs to be a t-shirt. Or a bumpersticker.

Early early i edit what I wrote yesterday. Then I do my errands, app'ts for TBI and rehab for same, etc. in mornings. I fit some freelance when I don't have much going on, or a deadline. Afternoons, business stuff, freelance. Evenings I write. 2500 to 6K in 4-5 give or take.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

What will help is getting the process of writing internalized, so that you aren't always having to think about how to write something. That takes practice and knowing story structure.

Write clean drafts. Every edit pass you have to do is taking time from the new writing. I know, I know. Everybody has to polish and tweak and change this, or add that. Except you don't. When you train yourself to the point that you don't have to fix a sloppy first draft, you'd be surprised how much output you get.

Then there's being consistent about getting the writing done (and I need to work on this something awful). Even 1K a day will add up, so imagine what you could do with 5K? Take over the world, that's what.

I edit as I go, write one draft and done, and after a formatting check (during which I'll fix something if I see it), that thang gits published! But, I've been doing this for a while. I started writing and studying writing when I was nine, so nearly 50 years at it. And I've worked for a newspaper where you don't get time to "fix" a story. You write it, the editor okays it, and the layout person gets it in the paper. It's amazing how quickly you learn not to mess around, when they're giving you the stinkeye.


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## Adam G. Katz (Jan 18, 2013)

Amanda, You are a machine! I'm so jealous.

How do you keep from having to stop and think about what comes next? Do you ever have to stop and go back and say, "Wait a minute... did I have him driving around London in a red Porsche? Or was that France in white Jaguar?" ... and that eats up fifteen minutes.

Are you working from an outline? How detailed is your outline, chapter by chapter?

Do you ever get stuck and the gears get gummed up and you slow down?

Really fascinating!! I think you're probably in the top .01% with that kind of output.

- Adam



Amanda M. Lee said:


> 1. I just started writing full time. I usually start writing around 1 p.m. (give or take -- I prefer running my errands when everyone else is at work, so sometimes it's later). I can't write early in the morning. It just doesn't work for me. I try to write five chapters a day. That's usually 10,000-12,000 words a day. Sometimes other things interrupt. For example, yesterday I wrote three chapters (6,200 words). My latest WIP came in early from my editor and I worked until 4 a.m. getting the manuscript ready for publication. That wasn't a normal day, though. Most of my chapters are 1,800 words to 2,600 words. I never stop in the middle of a chapter. I find it counterproductive. If I do, I have to reread everything I wrote the day before over again. It's just a time suck. I usually write in one session, but in an effort to get my house clean, I've started writing one chapter and then doing one cleaning task. It's usually not a long task, but it's something.
> 
> 2. Money was my breakthrough. I've always loved writing, and I've always loved writing a lot. My productivity flew into overdrive when I started making a lot of money. I wish I could say it was for the art, but it's not. I'm a greedy little materialist.
> 
> 3. You just have to do it. No excuses. When it snows, you still have to write. When your kids are sick, you still have to write. You have to find time. Sure, there are just some times where you have to make a hard decision. I do it every week. Yesterday, I let two chapters go so I could get my new book up before the weekend. When it comes to it, though, you still have to push through.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

Adam G. Katz said:


> Do you ever have to stop and go back and say, "Wait a minute... did I have him driving around London in a red Porsche? Or was that France in white Jaguar?" ... and that eats up fifteen minutes.


I can't speak for Amanda, but I don't do this. I just make a note in the manuscript (scrivener has a comment function) and then i keep going.


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## Yamila Abraham (Jan 5, 2016)

anniejocoby said:


> Oh, and if you're a plotter, you might try picking up the book "2,000 to 10,000." I've heard that helps a lot of writers. It didn't really help me, because I'm a pantser, but it might help you if you're not.


A $.99 book that's recommended by multiple writers to help me write faster?! Done and done.


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## Abderian (Apr 5, 2012)

I've gone from a 500 word a day writer to 4000 words a day within a few months. Step one was prioritising the writing. I also write freelance and I made the decision to be poorer and focus on what was most important to me. Another factor in the increase has been simply practice. The more you practise writing fast the better you get.

I still can't write very well at the first draft however, and I have to write at least one more draft before giving it to others to read. But this is partly because the world building ideas come much better when I'm writing the story. I can try and think it all up and plan it out beforehand, but the result is thin and unsatisfying (and if it's like that for me I imagine it's more so for the reader). At the beginning of a series this is especially true. As the series progresses I'm better at writing fleshed out first drafts.


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## Rica G (Jul 16, 2016)

Yamila Abraham said:


> A $.99 book that's recommended by multiple writers to help me write faster?! Done and done.


Good book, also bought it a few days ago, and in the process of re-reading.


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## MJ Stark (Jun 24, 2016)

IreneP said:


> The important thing here is to NOT try and go from 100 words a day to 5,000 over-night. That method is very discouraging.
> 
> 1) Write every day for 7-10 days. Keep track of how much you write. Write as much as you feel comfortable writing. Don't push yourself.
> 2) At the end of that time, determine your average words per day. This is your baseline.
> ...


This is some of the best advice I've read so far - thanks for that! Makes me feel a bit less terrible for not meeting my demanding word count every day straight off the bat.


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

Wow, I can't believe it's been 18 months since I answered that and not much has changed. I've managed to put two work days a week in place, but other than that I still only write late at night, and I still only average 1000 words a day, or 3000 words a day as I get close to my deadline. Of course all that is down the crapper during the school holidays, so this month is already a total bust. Roll on September!


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## missnibbles (Aug 13, 2015)

I have been trying to work for consistency, but I had the world's craziest summer, so I'll get consistent again after it's over.  The most I have written is 7k in a day.  I hit 3-5k pretty easily. If I am really struggling it means my head isn't in the story and I will dedicate an hour thinking about characters, and what they would do if they (weren't in a haunted house, were at a theme park, how do they react if they do fun things etc)  and that helps me get focused on who they are and what they should do next.  I pants, and I have TERRIBLE word counts if I outline.  It sucks the wind from my sails.

I do two things to really help me.  I do the opposite of everyone else and only time breaks.  If I'm really squirrely I'll give a hard core 20 min to screw around, then come back and work.  Sometimes I have 5k cranked out by like 11am because the story is just burning a hole in my pocket.  Othertimes I'm not done until 3 or 4 in the afternoon.  I'm much more consistent when the kids are in school and I don't have a bat infestation.  But this is my first year being seriously fulltime.


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## Richard Langridge (Mar 30, 2016)

Honestly, shove some coffee in me and there's really no limit to how much I can write in one day/sitting. The most I've managed is 10'000(ish), though I probably could have gone longer. I just get into that "fugue" state and I'm off. That's actually my very favourite part about writing: those moments when you completely lose yourself in your story.

So my answer is coffee.


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