Part of being a serious writer is pumping out some serious words, day after day. You have to have the gumption to sit down in the morning and get a certain amount done regardless of outside distractions (like your university thesis, or... eating), and you need to do it every day of the week. I know some authors that work towards scene completions, or a page total, but most folk I chat to chase a word goal - 500 words a day, 1000, 2000, etcetera.
2000 words a day, every day, for two months, nets you a first draft of a novel. When you break it down like that it doesn't seem so terrible. But some days you sit down to write and squeezing out even 500 words is an incredible trial. So, how do you do it?
I don't know how everybody else manages it, but I do it by lying to myself.
See, I wake up and I open my word doc in progress and I look at the current wordcount. It says, for example, 21,562. That's a lotta words! Not a novel, sure, but a fat bunch waiting to be added to. My goal for the day is 2000 fresh, delicious, plump-arse words. So I pick a point - any point at all - and begin with a small goal. A neat, clean 100.
Woah woah woah. Wait a minute, Ruz. You can't just start on a shitty random number like 21,562! Make it round, first!
So I sigh, and I start writing, and when I hit 21,600 I relax a little and I say okay, now you start the 100. And I write. It comes pretty easy. I'm at 21,700. I say, lets set a new goal. Let's work towards rounding that off a little more. Over the next hour, aim for 22,000.
That's achievable. 300 words in an hour is about my usual rate. You might be thinking, dang, 300 words in an hour is piss-all. But if you apply that five or six times a day, you have a big chunk, and it doesn't feel half so much like work, so 300 it is. I toil on, and on, and I finally hit my goal of 22,000. I get up, ready for a cup of tea.
Woah woah WOAH. Ruz! You're in the middle of a paragraph! Sort that shit out before you make the tea!
So I hammer out a conclusion to the paragraph and leave the wordcount sitting at 22,036. Done. I make tea, come back. In my head, I've written 400 words so far today - the opening 100, and the 300 that got me to my tea. Time to aim for the big 500, that beautiful quarter-mark that'll let you sleep well tonight even if you don't go any further.
Woah woah WOAH WOAH. Stop right there! Round out that goddamn wordcount before you even start! It's an eyesore!
So, I hit 22,100, and then I allow myself to aim for 22,200, which (in my head) marks the 500 word point. Except, of course, it isn't. I convince myself I've only done a quarter of my daily total, when in truth I've already done a third.
There are a hundred little lies you can tell yourself to force out tiny pieces of extra. Like how I tell myself I can't go piss with a paragraph unfinished, or that sandwiches taste better if the wordcount is rounded to the nearest 500. Or, if you're an MSN chatter like me, don't just turn the program off and assume it'll force you into productivity. Use it. Make yourself write ten words between every reply. Just ten. Consider that over the course of a day, with three or so conversations going on MSN, you'll have replied to different folk around 200-300 times. That's a lotta words in the bank, boyo.
You'll develop your own tactics, in time. All I know is that the method above has allowed me to write seven complete novel drafts over three years, while studying full-time and working to support myself. I make no claim to talent or quality, but those drafts are done. Because I've learned the value of getting ten words down at a time, and how important it is to always finish the paragraph before you piss.
Now, I've busted out 700 words and my morning coffee isn't even done. Time to apply that to some real work. Ciao, and good luck. And if you have any of your own wordcount tips, please post them here. It'd be great to know all the tricks.
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my pro tip which saved me from failing year 12 goes like this
steal someone elses work, rewrite it, extend it to meet the word count requirement, record yourself reading it out aloud, put it on your ipod, play, pause, write and repeat.
try it some time ruz
Wonderful! Lovely to see how other writers keep themselves going
This is eerily similar to my technique.. especially the bit about rounded numbers. Last night, for example, I was fifteen thousand words into my Planet & Sword novel. I thought about finishing up for the night - and then I thought, "Hangonafuckingminute." Fifteen's an ugly number. I much prefer sixteen.
And so it goes..
I've always used you and Cassie as key examples of how I could be doing a lot better with my word counts. The truth is you both just put ass on seat and get the work done. Plain and simple.
@Merrilee - would love to see how you get your own wordcounts done!
@Nat - Yeah, those sort of little mental tricks help so much. "Oh no, I can't stop on 39,000! 39,000 is 3*13,000, and 13's an unlucky number! Better push to 40k!
@Maui - it's not just bums on seats. It's bums on seats and Mozilla closed =P
My problem is not so much numbers as it is sitting down in front of the page. I know if I open the manuscript and start writing, I will make progress.
Once I do open a manuscript, I set myself a minimum; 250, 500, 1,000, depending on how I'm feeling at the time. Then I just write until my brain runs out of ideas. I find that once you've sat down and pushed yourself to a certain count, it's easy to keep going.
Ruzkin, the only way I can achieve 1000+ words in a sitting is to take my netbook and sit in the garden with it for at least an hour.
I used to be able to write at my desk but I'm so obsessed with promoting my book (Hey everyone! Buy my book!) that I can only work now if there is no opportunity to get online and do something!
Help!
I have a hard time getting stuck in as well, but I tend to do the 'okay, lets write something, anything, even though I know I'll get dragged away any minute...' thinking. 50 words, 20 times a day adds up. Though it's BLISS when I actually get to sit down and write unhindered for a chunk of time, even if its just 20 minutes.
It's good that you have a process in place, which often has more importance than the quality of results at this stage. I tend to do things in increments, setting small goals that lead to larger objectives, but for me, it can be difficult to sustain with every other thing that needs to be done. I haven't quite got a system for my own writing yet, as I'm still in an endless abyss of research. :S