Accountability, author's timecard, word count written, feeling lonely out there?

[Starbeam]

I heard that Brandon Sanderson can get 20,000 a day when he's finishing a novel.  I'm really not sure I believe that.

Something to remember is that he also doesn't have a day job, and while he's got children, I believe his wife keeps them from bothering him.  And going by the times on his tweets, he does a lot of it late at night.  If I had a whole day to be able to write, I could probably get between 5 and 10k, depending on how well the scene goes.  I could guess more toward the end because I usually have a pretty good idea of that when I start.

[prophet224]

Actually, Sanderson teaches Creative Writing at BYU, where he got his degree.
http://www.brandonsanderson.com/article/52/EUOLogy-On-Pullman-and-Censorship

I believe that was in early 2009, but another author mentioned it this year, talking about how few teachers are well-published.

[Starbeam]

Actually, Sanderson teaches Creative Writing at BYU, where he got his degree.
http://www.brandonsanderson.com/article/52/EUOLogy-On-Pullman-and-Censorship

I believe that was in early 2009, but another author mentioned it this year, talking about how few teachers are well-published.

Yeah, but that's not quite the same as a 9-5 day job.  Plus I'm not sure how long he's had that job.

[jeno]

And I could have sworn he took the year off to write full time.

[meg_evonne]

And I could have sworn he took the year off to write full time.

  uhm, possibly paid sabatical?  Wouldn't that be nice? 

[Kali]

Another day, another 2100 words.  This won't last.  This just happened to be a particularly vivid scene and is about to come to an end.  I'm not even sure what, exactly, I want to have happen in the next scene.  I know in a large-scale sense what has to happen next, but the pondering of how to get there means that the word count is going to tank.  I'm just enjoying this while it lasts.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

For really impressive word counts, neuro is my personal deity.  I look like a slacker!

I accept chocolate in lieu of worship.  Anything more elaborate should be negotiated in person.

I like the idea of a weekly word count.  That means if you have one really good day, you can give yourself a break on a bad day or even take a day off from writing.  I myself wouldn't take a day off the story, but there's always stuff to be done that's not actually writing; synopsis, blurb, more character sheets, always stuff to do!

When I'm not in between-jobs deathmarch, I very much think weekly; I am the sort of person who can really only do anything well in large chunks, so my pattern is to come home Friday, have dinner, and write usually for six to eight hours.

Today, I actually have managed 2300 because I knew the high points of the scene.  This scene goes on, but I know what bits I want to hit in the rest of it, so tomorrow might also be a good day.  I also got the blog post done, though not the synopsis.  I might work on that tonight if I feel the urge, or I'll poke at it tomorrow.  We'll see.  Definitely this week!

Go you.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

All the big things and remaining medium-sized things from the first pass done except for the new denouement chapter.  Also some photo stuff done, which is a helpful different bit of my brain to exercise. at this point.

[Kali]

As I have barely been managing the struggle to keep my head above the waters of clinical depression, my dog's death has had a rather predictable effect on my productivity.  The word count can, temporarily, kiss my plump white buttocks.  I've given myself the weekend to be a basket case, then Monday it's back to work.

But I did dig up some information on manuscript formatting today on Nathan Bransford's blog, and adjusted my ms accordingly.  Some of it I knew (12 pt font, double spacing, 0.5" indent of paragraphs) but some of it I didn't (page break at chapters) and some of it I knew and assumed I had long ago changed in the default page setup for Word but hadn't (1" left and right margins) so I had to go back to do that.  Additionally, I didn't have a title page with my contact info on it, so I made one of those.

Did you know that if you use double-spacing, 12 pt. Times New Roman font, with 1" left and right margins, one MS Word page is approximately 1 book page?  Apparently, that's one of the reasons this formatting is preferred (plus it's easy to read).  So, while the "250 words per page" pagecount comes out to be around 332 pages, the formatting pagecount is at 289 pages.  I find that interesting for no reason I can specify.

Some days, that's all I'm up to.  My first full day in almost 16 years without Cheyenne at my side is one of those days.

Tomorrow, 1.5k words!

[jeno]

Oh, no. Kali, I'm so sorry.

Productivity be damned. Take the time you need and be kind to yourself. Do some busy work, check out agent blogs. Minutia was made for times like these.

[prophet224]

Wow Kali - that is one of the hardest things to deal with. You'll get through, but it HURTS, and you need to let yourself feel that.

Unfortunately, clinical depression is bad enough on its own without anything to actually attach itself to. When it has something to take hold of - just be careful of yourself.

[Kali]

Routine is how I deal with it.  It's how I keep a handle on it.

For today, I did not make 1500, but I did make 1100 and I'm going to go with being happy with that.  The day's technically not over and there's a chance I could squeeze another 400 words out of myself without, frankly, too much difficulty if I could figure out what the next step in the scene is, but I've also taken a sleeping pill to combat the onslaught of insomnia and I think I have about 15 minutes before that kicks in.

On the other hand, what I write while under the influence of generic "sleep aid" might be informative.  It could even be good!

[Kali]

1700 words today, which is good 'cause yesterday I didn't break 1k.  Tsk.  I really have to stay on task, here, and stop getting distracted by shiny new episodes of shows on Hulu.

Am I the only one writing?  I know neuro's revising.

[jeno]

I'm plotting and worldbuilding, with bits of scenes thrown in. I'm getting out around 2-3k a day, but none of it is straight prose. There are a few graphs, though!

[Starbeam]

Been typing up the stuff I've written.  Typed up about 2500 last night, still have about 3 or 4 more pages.