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Thousand, that is, words a day. Ritual disclaimer: what works for one writer is wrong for another. Writing every day (or at least five days a week) works better than writing “when I feel the urge” but aside from that, writers’ clocks keep time right side up, sideways, upside down, and face down under the bed.
But for me, what works to get the bulk of a book written is 2000 words a day. There is wiggle room built into my schedule (as this year, when “medical” was the category eating wiggle room), also research days, revision days, other-writing-business days–not wiggle room at all, but other necessary time-eating work. Still…2000 words/day means serious progress, not being stuck, not having to rush.
The whole medical/family thing knocked me off that rate for over a month, but last week was a climb back toward it–came very close Friday and Saturday hit 2000 again. Sunday was a marker day, and Monday was “back on task.” I had closed the books on last week on Friday, so Saturday work (which is either catch-up or get-ahead, depending) was a start on this week, and as of now that’s 10,000+ words, with another day to go.
So: the book is now just over 110,000 words. Last year on July 14, I was at 56,503. I’m glad I pushed on earlier in the year. I’m glad I opened the file and put something–if only a couple of paragraphs–in it almost every day. It kept the world and this story alive for me (and it’s much easier to “revive” a story that’s been trickling along slowly than one that’s come to a complete stop…it’s that inertia thing dear Isaac [Newton, not Asimov] came up with.)
Today’s 2000 words were split between various characters and once more I need to get out the timeline notebook and scribble with it. A is here, B is there, C is somewhere else, and there are a couple of roving game-changers who are…somewhere. When you see them, their appearance must be both surprising but–on second thought–understandable and even inevitable. Where else would they have been, and when else would they have come?
There’s also a very interesting young person you haven’t met yet, who is insinuating himself into the story and may need to be pruned back. The thing is, he’s fun to write. The ones that are really fun to write are difficult to stuff back into their appointed roles. When a difficulty comes up in the story, I’m tempted to find one of the characters who’s always fun to write and run with him/her.
Comment by Jenn — July 15, 2011 @ 8:01 am
Congratulations on the momentum and keeping the story alive. I once remember hearing it said that Flannery O’Connor would write 4 hours a day whether she was inspired or not.
A new interesting young man in the story. hmm…. I love your secondary characters and their “fight” for primacy (or at least several pages of fame). I don’t feel so bad about my dragons when I hear this. I have several on the shelf in ball form. I call them dragon eggs and I try to match colors and give them names. You would not believe how picky they get. Sometimes I will threaten to never knit them and keep them in balls of yarn. so far I have 6 1/2 finished.
Comment by elizabeth — July 15, 2011 @ 8:22 am
You knit dragons??? Wow. At my present skill level, knitting flat rectangles is my speed. I’m planning to “go round” soon with something, but a dragon–that’s WAY complicated.
Comment by Genko — July 15, 2011 @ 10:02 am
Gee, thanks a lot, guys. I just wasted a half-hour searching for crochet patterns for dragons. Found a couple of nice ones, too. Not that I’m likely to actually make them, but you never know. Maybe next week when I’m on vacation I’ll try to simple applique version.
Comment by Jenn — July 15, 2011 @ 5:38 pm
The dragons really are not that difficult to make they are just picky as to color and name.
One of my dragons is Doromene and is variegated in blue brown and white with light blue contrast and insists that he is a Mountain dragon. Another still in “egg” form is Maroon and finally after a long battle has resigned to being matched with black but has refused every name that I have come up with. It may stay in the egg at this rate.
Here is the pattern that I started with. (I made minor changes as I made each dragon)
http://knitty.com/ISSUEwinter06/PATTnorberta.html
Comment by Alea — July 15, 2011 @ 5:46 pm
Btw, I noticed a cover for Echoes of Betrayal posted to Amazon. The artist has given the dragon ample attention–I know covers are not always representative of the contents, but this only makes me look forward to the book all the more!
Comment by Laura BurgandyIce — July 16, 2011 @ 9:43 am
I was trying to imagine 10,000 words a day… and not being a real writer, I mean, published or read writer, well… ok, not having finished an actual book size thing in words, specifically, I checked back to my last five day binge in which I managed just over 10,000. In five days. About two hours a day. So that means… you know where you’re going and you’re clippin’ along at speed… even if I’m a very slow typer & I pause and think too much. That is seriously cool.
Comment by elizabeth — July 16, 2011 @ 12:08 pm
10,000/day? Not me. 2000/day, but breaking 110,000 total on this book. I did 9500 in one day once, years ago when my hands weren’t as iffy, and that was too many hours in the same position.
The “two by two” part of the title refers to the x-thousand/day.
Comment by Laura BurgandyIce — July 17, 2011 @ 8:21 am
Goodness. My bad.
Can I ask if you’re pleased with the 2000 as it comes? How much do you change from first draft to something approaching good?
I thought I’d see how much I could write yesterday (which I know is NO comparison) and I got to 2000 before elbow and fingers complained (I am so relieved I misread the daily count so horribly) but I don’t like it.
I already know it needs to be raked through more than once before I’ll like it. It bothers me that what I see does not translate to paper and the story keeps growing in all directions before I can capture it. The entirety hasn’t changed, if that makes sense, but I stumble at pushing through one complete draft when I want to fix so much.
I apologize for mis-reading the Title, let alone your entire entry. I can only say I had just read your entry at McKinleys site and was rather deep in thought about Sagas and how you keep everything straight let alone progress steadily. I could use the wrestling match in the background between my four munchkins as an excuse, too, but that’s poorly done. I’m more relieved the daily count is 2000 than I am completely embarrassed, which is a lot.
Comment by Richard — July 19, 2011 @ 12:26 pm
ref #5 (Alea). WARNING EVERYONE. Amazon’s post for Echoes includes major spoilers for Kings.
That is Amazon US. In the UK we can pre-order but don’t have our cover art yet. I think this time I’ll get my copy even sooner by looking into Waterstone’s regularly.