So last night and this morning I read Writing in Overdrive (which I really liked, btw) and I came away from the book with the feeling that maybe I don’t know what “fast” means when it comes to writing.
I’ve been daydreaming about hitting daily word counts of 5,000 and 6,000 for a while, and there’s definitely this part of me that thinks this should be a daily thing. Maybe weekends off. But maybe not.
And I have to ask myself, in what world is this realistic?
What kind of writer writes 5,000 words every day? That’s 1,825,000 words a year.
Where’d I get the idea that this is something I even want?
I mean, I could write a new novel every month at around 2,000 words a day. A new novel every month.
At 4,000 words a day, I’d be pumping out two novels everymonth. Or one massive 120,000 word novel.
I have no idea why I’ve fixated on 5,000 words a day. No idea.
When I won NaNoWriMo in 2010 with just a hair over 50,000 words, I thought I’d done something amazing. When I decided to go back to writing original works so I could try publishing in 2012, I thought I was really accomplishing something when I wrote 56,287 words in two months. I was so sure I was writing a significant enough number of words that I quit my job to start writing full-time. Let me repeat that: I quit my job based on me being able to write about 25,000 words a month.
I have to wonder when I decided it was such a great idea to put so much pressure on myself that I feel like I’ve started to avoid writing, even though I love writing stories. Why have I let my critical self run roughshod over my creative self by focusing so strongly on word counts and hourly output and self-imposed deadlines?
What have I been thinking?
Then there’s the idea that I’m a slow writer at my average 551 words per hour.
I’ve been dreaming of consistently writing 1,000 words an hour for a while now. I’ve done it a few times, but I don’t like it when I push for it. It’s happened a few times when I haven’t pushed for it, and those times were fun. But when I tried to force it? It was too stressful, and I didn’t like how it felt at all. It made writing very much unfun.
There were several passages within Writing in Overdrive that made me question what kind of hourly output I should be expecting from myself.
In chapter 1, Jim Denney talks about Ray Bradbury:
He averaged about five and a half typing hours per day, totaling 49 hours of typewriter time at a cost of about $9.80 in dimes. His daily output averaged about 2,800 words. “It was a passionate and exciting time for me,” he recalled in an article for UCLA Magazine.
…
Bradbury believes in writing quickly, intuitively, explosively, and passionately.
I’m left wondering if 2,800 words in five and a half hours is considered fast? If not fast, I think it’s safe to assume from the context that it’s not slow. At just over 514 words an hour that means…
I’m plenty fast enough.
I actually feel a lot better.
It’s really time I stop worrying about how “fast” a writer I am and just get back to having fun when I write so I can develop a good, strong writing habit.
Also, I definitely feel like I made the right decision to drop the time quota. :)
Set goals that are focused on creativity and productivity, not merely on putting in the time. “I will write from nine until noon” is not a goal — it’s a schedule.
LOL. You better believe I highlighted that. ;)