# How many words a day?



## Dave Watson (Jun 19, 2012)

I've currently set myself a target of 1000 words a day and so far have been able to keep it up.

 As a relatively new writer, does that seem too much or too little to you more experienced scribblers?


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## Terry D (Jun 19, 2012)

Daily output varies wildly from author to author.  1,000 words per day seems very reasonable to me.  I know some members here do much more than that, and some only do a few hundred per day (me, in a typical 1.5 hour writing session).  On those days when I can devote 4 or 5 hours solid to a project, I can get up toward 2,000 words.


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## monstersunny (Jun 19, 2012)

I think any goal you set for yourself is reasonable. For myself, I used to set goals but then I would get all uptight when my creative juices ran empty and I couldn't meet them. So now I wait for inspiration and when it hits I write like crazy until it is gone, it's like seeing how far you can go on a single tank of gas.  I wrote the first 70,000 words in  a little over a month or so...the next 35,000 took over a year. LOL.  Of all the advice I have read on writing the best was "just keep writing, good or bad just keep writing".  Good luck!!


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## dale (Jun 19, 2012)

i used to write 2500 a week and thought that was far too little. last night i pushed out a whopping 13 words and
the sad thing is...that was a good turnout for these past couple months. damn this internet.


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## garza (Jun 19, 2012)

I write most of the morning if I don't have a meeting to go to. I don't go to afternoon or evening meetings any more. I fall asleep.

Notepad has no word count feature so I have no way of keeping track even if I want to, which I don't most of the time. When all that needs to be written for that day has been written I stop. 

When I write a story for the LM competition I keep a rough estimate in my head and when I think I've about hit the limit I dump into Word to get a count.

In my more active years I was constantly aware of word counts, column lengths, all the technicalities of newspaper and magazine article writing. That was then. Blesséd are the retired, for we can forget such mechanical matters.


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## Cefor (Jun 19, 2012)

1000 a day is definitely reasonable and respectable. Fifty days of that and you're officially in 'novel' land, congrats.

I have strange days where in a few hours I can get around 2000 words done, then the next night I just reach 1000, 500 or even a measly 100. I wrote around 8400 words, by hand, over 5 days the other week and that was excellent for the way I've been writing recently; 1680 a day, approximately, that turned out to be -- very happy with myself.

Basically, if you set yourself a target, you need to have the discipline to get to that target every day. If you really want the motivation, have someone you know/trust who you've told a deadline and target number of words to, to make you perform some kind of forfeit if you don't reach the target. Handy motivators could be: "Hey, if I don't reach 50,000 words in two months' time, I'll give you my TV", or, "I need to have another 20,000 words by the end of the month, if I don't you get five free slaps from which I can't flinch."

Lol, I amuse myself.

Basically, keep whatever target you feel you need for the writing, man  But most of all, remember to enjoy it!
Keep writing.
Cefor


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## Penwillz (Jun 19, 2012)

Seems respectable. I never really think about the amount of words I write though. I just brainstorm a bit and then go as far as that takes me. Sometimes it takes my whole day. Sometimes I finish in no time at all. Sometimes I just never get around to it. It just depends on how much isn't too much for you.


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## Sam (Jun 19, 2012)

I average 2,500 a day. On really bad days, that drops to between 750 to 1,000. On really good ones, upwards of 5,000.


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## Jon M (Jun 19, 2012)

Never been a fast writer, but I try to be consistent and never miss a day. On average I produce about 4,000 words a week.


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## Tiamat (Jun 19, 2012)

My target daily word count is usually 1,000-1,500 per day. I see no problem with yours, as long as you can stick with it.


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## philistine (Jun 20, 2012)

I can hit the thousand work mark quite easily, though I don't write absolutely _every_ day. I've wrote as much as 2,500 words one some days, and as little as a few hundred on others. 

I think 1,000 a day is quite reasonable.


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## DaveinJapan (Jun 20, 2012)

1000 a day for me. Last year I tried to force myself to write 2000 but found that I ended up discouraged and skipping days out of frustration. Recently, I've been able to keep up that 1000 word pace without getting too stressed, and as someone wrote above it's not too long until the stories start to really lengthen nicely if you can maintain a good consistent pace of 1000. It's arbitrary though, in my case as I imagine for many others it's just having that goal in mind that keeps us motivated to continue producing day after day, which is the real trick I think.


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## Kyle R (Jun 20, 2012)

Sometimes a high word count isn't relevant, if I'm working on flash fiction or a short story, for example. In that case word quality matters more than quantity.

So for that reason, I focus more on "time spent" writing daily, as opposed to "words written". I try for at least an hour each day of focused writing. By that I mean, no internet and no television.

You can't prevent life's interruptions, but you can prevent your own distractions!


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## Potty (Jun 20, 2012)

I was putting out 3k words a day at one point. 2500 of which would be scrapped the next day.


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## Fin (Jun 20, 2012)

I wrote 31 words this week. It's great to set yourself goals. For me, more time is spent editing than writing. I've been writing short stories lately, and I average a thousand words an hour. The next few are spent editing that.

I don't really think there's a point where it becomes too much. Write whatever you're comfortable with. Just try not to ever be comfortable with writing 31 words a week.


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## philistine (Jun 22, 2012)

Potty said:


> I was putting out 3k words a day at one point. 2500 of which would be scrapped the next day.



The writer heaps them;
the words, like compost shovelled
to the work graveyard.

That gave me a good laugh. Three thousand? Christ.


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## Oasis Writer (Jun 23, 2012)

I think a thousand is a fair limit. I know when I first started, I was writing about that, and now I tend to write between 1,000 or 3,000. It really depends on whether or not I'm in the groove or not. Remember that you don't want to burn yourself out. Scheduled writing time is probably a better way to go. If you schedule one hour a day to just write, and you do nothing else but write, in one years time you would have spent fifteen days writing, total.


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## SR Steed (Jun 26, 2012)

The only thing consistent with my word count is its inconsistency. I'll go from 1000-1500 words one day to barely being able to eke out 100 words the next.


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## Potty (Jun 28, 2012)

I'm finally back into the swing of things. for the last 5 months my word count has been 0 a day. Last two days I've pushed out nearly 4k. really pleased withmyself. It helps to have a plot structure!


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## Gonzalothethird (Jun 29, 2012)

I was in the range of 0 for three weeks (not including the editing of old work) and I finally put out 1500 words in the last two nights. Kind of proud. Fortunately, it was a dark short story and I've been in a kind of dark mood lately.


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## Grape Juice Vampire (Jun 29, 2012)

In recent days i've been hitting about 3,000 a day depending on whether i have steam, inspiration and lack of interruption. Despite that, i'm still behind, but that's because i keep editing before i'm even finished. I think i'm finally out of it though, once i finish this i can finally move on to the next chapter.


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## HooktonFonnix (Jun 29, 2012)

It varies widely for me. On work days, I can usually crank out between 1000 and 1500 words, most of which are good, solid additions to the WIP. On my days off where I have little to no plans, I can easily get into the 2000, 3000, or even 4000 word range. It all depends on my mood, how inspired I feel, and which part of the story I'm writing. Some scenes come to me quickly and I before I know it I've got over a thousand words down, other scenes I can slog away at for hours and only get a few hundred in. I don't think I'm alone in this, either.


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## wehttam (Jun 29, 2012)

I write sporadically whenever the mood strikes me. I certainly couldn't manage to average a thousand words a day, though. usually after I've written a couple thousand words, I'll hit a roadblock, and it's anywhere from a week to a month before my creative juices are concentrated enough to push through it and start writing again.


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## Elowan (Jun 29, 2012)

wehttam said:


> I write sporadically whenever the mood strikes me. I certainly couldn't manage to average a thousand words a day, though. usually after I've written a couple thousand words, I'll hit a roadblock, and it's anywhere from a week to a month before my creative juices are concentrated enough to push through it and start writing again.



Same here.


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## PaulMcElligott (Jun 30, 2012)

The best advice I ever got was to set my target at words per week. If I didn't meet my nightly quota, I can still make it up over the next few night, and I feel less guilty about it, which is less stressful.


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## Nemesis (Jul 2, 2012)

I refuse to give myself a daily minimum of words to write. I can only write something good when inspired. Unless I am picturing the scene in my head right then and there and it is vivid and clear all the words I'm trying to force out will be crap and erased immedietly.  However I do challenge myself with coming up with ideas to add to the story, clarifying parts that have yet to be perfected, and visualising scenes I am about to write for days before actualy doing so.


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## bluewolf301 (Jul 6, 2012)

when i started writing i started at a steady pace of 100 a day this has lead me to several books over the last 5 years but i don't think it matters how you start as long as your comfortable at the pace you are going then carry on and don't forget to proof read your work


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## Extinct_Stimulus (Jul 6, 2012)

You set a quota and you stick to it! Don't wait for inspiration, that just bogs you down and makes it seem even harder to write the next time. Your writing when you're uninspired ends up coming out the same as when you're inspired in the end anyway, so don't worry about it. Crank it out whether you like it or not. Make an Excel spreadsheet. 1000 is great, but make sure (as someone else on this thread already said) it doesn't drop down to 32.


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## bluewolf301 (Jul 9, 2012)

True, if you want to keep a certain limit a day you have to make sure your not drowning yourself in overwork, can happen it happened to me and it ruined the whole book unfortunatly, but learn from the mistakes and should be fine as long as you don't let anything way lay you from your goal.


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## Loulou (Jul 9, 2012)

Dave Watson, 1000 seems very reasonable to me.  I guess these things depend what we're working on (novels/shorts/articles) and what other commitments we have (family/job) but as some have said, 1000 words a day gets you into novel territory in two months.

Karl R offered a good tip - having a weekly target rather than a daily one.  This permits you to work harder on a day when you've time and not so much when you don't.

With my two novels I wrote about 2000 words on a week day, and whatever I could on a weekend.  When we're rewriting (very important aspect of writing) we obviously churn out less words in amount but more in quality.

At the moment, with rewriting my novel, it's hard to assess word count.  But I'm also rewriting a play and I write two magazine columns a month, and travel articles as and when needed.  So there's always something.  I think if we write every day, that in itself is an achievement.


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## HKayG (Jul 9, 2012)

wehttam said:


> I write sporadically whenever the mood strikes me. I certainly couldn't manage to average a thousand words a day, though. usually after I've written a couple thousand words, I'll hit a roadblock, and it's anywhere from a week to a month before my creative juices are concentrated enough to push through it and start writing again.



I have to say i'm the same as this. I have to be inspired and in the mood to write, if i'm not and i write 3000 words I know i'll end up re-writing the lot, and that's just a waste of time.

There's plenty of quotes from authors on this subject though.

_Write everyday even if it's a paragraph _- Michael Connely


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## bluewolf301 (Jul 9, 2012)

I think that any amount is reasonable as long as you will be able to keep in pace with what your setting yourself, i don't think you should write too many words a day as you may burn yourself out and may end up not typing for a couple of days. i worked at 100 words a day and i managed to work it out, but when i went up to about 500 words a day i found myself struggling to keep up with the pace.


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