| Author | Message | ||
     Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Can I ask an extremely basic question, of all the writers here on the board? I'm sure this has been asked before here, but I'd be searching forever to find it.... It's this: How much do you write? In pages I mean: On average, how many pages a day do you produce? Assuming the "average" is fairly consistent, not 6 months of no writing and then 1 month of a burst of fresh pages, etc. (though that too would be interesting to know) Thanks. I'm currently trying to beat myself up for my anemic output, and need fresh data to support the self-flagellation.  | ||
| Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 62.255.207.128 |
I try to make it a minimum of 1000 a day, it varies. Yesterday I wrote loads, other times I find every excuse under the sun not to write. But I am very disciplined and will squeeze that minimum out somehow if it's a bad day. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Egad! I hope to God you mean 1000 words....  I guess pages is kind of open-ended, unclear and varying, isn't it? | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
I'm likely to wreck the demographic here, but I write about 1000 words a week on average. That might mean 4000 words in two days and then nothing for a month. Time for writing has to be carefully carved out – and then unforeseen problems can take it away – and I know from experience that I write better when I have planned to write and all the rituals are in place (though goats are optional). When I'm not writing I spend a lot of time thinking about writing, making notes and so on, so I'm primed to do the deed when the time comes. And once that critical momentum has been reached, I'll write (longhand) anywhere – in the street, on the train, while eating – to get a story finished. Once I've completed a story that's normally it for a week or two. Having said that, I'm always planning to write things and building up notes for projects. I never sit down to write without already knowing what I'm going to work on. If I just waited for inspiration I'd get nothing done. So my restricted time commitment is balanced by a fairly strong creative agenda. I have friends who write one or two short stories a year and think I am impossibly prolific (I write about nine short stories a year). But they haven't met some of you guys. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.61.103 |
I don't know if I can be called a writer, but when I was working on my novel the goal was 1,000 words per diem. Usually it came to less than that, anywhere between 500 and 750. The point is to keep a steady flow of words coming every day. A couple days vacation won't do any harm, but you have to keep at it. You'll be surprised how fast the pages pile up once the story really gets going. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
The script format is basically about 250 words a page, maybe a little less. Rounding, say about 5 pages is 1000 words. It would seem Joel is a painstaking writer, taking the time and care to get the words on the page right as he moves along creating—the method famously attributed to Stanley Ellin, who would meticulously perfect each page before moving on to the next (so he said); as opposed to getting things out in a burst, and going back to edit and rewrite, which I can assume Hubert and Mbfg do, with their 1000/day output. Am I right in assessing all this, so far, this way? I'm sort of both, I write in bursts, but then I (alas) go long periods without putting anything down. I'm admiring the potboiler approach, trying to get myself into simply putting down words words words every day, making of it all an ingrained habit... not that I've done that yet. Helpful stuff, I'm feeling less bad now. | ||
| Jamie Rosen (Jamie) Username: Jamie Registered: 11-2008 Posted From: 173.32.63.252 |
I don't maintain a regular enough schedule, which is probably bad. I will go through stretches of writing 500+ words a day, and then (like these past few weeks, and distressingly these happen more and more often) have stretches where I write little to nothing at all. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.34.237 |
I go by A4 lined pages. I work in pencil, and have no idea how to count words that way. But I don't write much, spend more time thinking about it. And I know people say you find inspiration when you sit down to write but that never quite works for me - I feel slightly dissatisfied if I stumble on an idea by accident rather than being struck by one, developing one. TED Klein is my shining example star. A great giver-upper. | ||
| Christopher Overend (Chris_overend) Username: Chris_overend Registered: 03-2012 Posted From: 217.33.165.66 |
I aim for 2000 words a day; that way I end up with about 1500. Although I have put it on the back burner for the last month, as I've been finishing off a degree in Engineering and I haven't had the time. I've also four kids, so I'm stretched at the best of times. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.27.61 |
Well, I write every day (Christmas and my birthday included) but never have a set target other than getting onto the next page of the (literal) manuscript. That said, I nearly always progress well down that page if not further (though a great deal of stuff gets jettisoned in the rewrite). | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
This thread makes it obvious that writing is as much a way of life and a state of mind as it is a skill or a talent. I'm only interested in writers who combine all four qualities with the emphasis on talent. They are a dying breed and need protecting. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
This thread makes it obvious that writing is as much a way of life and a state of mind as it is a skill or a talent. Well said, Stevie! | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.61.103 |
It helps if you have a gluttony for words, a penchant to wallow in sentences and paragraphs to the point that they begin to appear of their own accord, unbidden. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Which is to say, Hubert, if you write what you're writing, much like Lovecraft's madmen read what they're reading.... | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.48.36 |
"This thread makes it obvious that writing is as much a way of life and a state of mind as it is a skill or a talent. I'm only interested in writers who combine all four qualities with the emphasis on talent. They are a dying breed and need protecting." I'll second Craig's 'well said' and raise him a 'damn straight!'. If skill and talent are absent, I find I have no interest in reading any writer's work. It's part of the reason I stopped buying books by unfamiliar (to me) authors. | ||
| Thomasb (Thomasb) Username: Thomasb Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.25.141.120 |
I'll third that. I try to write every morning, Monday thru Saturday, on both book and articles. Sometimes feces happen, as they say, and a day gets lost, but it's important for me not to stumble over my stumbles, but to get up and get on. Some days I'm great, some days I fail to eke out much beyond "Bob opened the door." No. "Bob opened the door and fell down. No. "Bob fell down after he went through the door . . . " | ||
| Jamie Rosen (Jamie) Username: Jamie Registered: 11-2008 Posted From: 173.32.63.252 |
Poor Bob. Someone get him a walker. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.61.103 |
"Bob got out his walker and soon realized he was going nowhere that morning because he had a flat tyre . . . " | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
"Eventually the doctors were forced to remove all four of Bob's limbs. Then they threw Bob in a pool." | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.145.209.31 |
Bob bobbed. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Luckily Bob bobbed! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Shakespeare, Longfellow, touch noses, etc... | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
Username: Weber_gregston Posted on Wednesday, May 30, 2012 - 05:05 pm: Bob bobbed. Username: Stephenw Posted on Wednesday, May 30, 2012 - 05:06 pm: Luckily Bob bobbed! ************************************************* I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing but Weber and Stevie are coming out with the same jokes at more or less exactly the same time! | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.61.103 |
Yes, he bobbed for quite some time. Unfortunately he had to breathe once in a while, and with every breath he sank a little. Unperceptibly at first. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
So he swam to the shore. He always had been a clever dick. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 220.138.163.212 |
"I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing but Weber and Stevie are coming out with the same jokes at more or less exactly the same time!" Could they be one and the same? And, if so, does this mean that Weber is/was also a Chris de Burgh fan? I'm feeling discombobulated... |