The I'm Writing Thread.... Celebrate your pages written etc

[cenwolfgirl]

right give me 5-10 years more expirence
 not having to go to school most days might help
no work
um a cafinated drink or three
and then maybe i might be that good
but right now if i hit 500 words i am happy
but i do a lot of reasurch and stuff witch takes time when i am wroking o a project
plus right now i have things to eddit for a project i have been negelcting

and now i have a dog pestering me for a walk

[The Deposed King]

right give me 5-10 years more expirence
 not having to go to school most days might help
no work
um a cafinated drink or three
and then maybe i might be that good
but right now if i hit 500 words i am happy
but i do a lot of reasurch and stuff witch takes time when i am wroking o a project
plus right now i have things to eddit for a project i have been negelcting

and now i have a dog pestering me for a walk

It took me a decade to get where I am.  And as you can see.  I can only manage between 1-2.5k a day after working an full time 8 hour shift at the day job.  And my two days off on the weekend?  1k the first day and 4-5k on the the second.  Hardly a paragon of production when working a full time job at the same time.

As far as I'm concerned 500 words a day out of highschool, when you put your mind to it, is a major accomplishment.  That's way ahead of where I was at the same time.  And David Drake an author who has dozens of books out, says 500 words a day is his bench mark goal, one he has a hard time exceeding!  And that's with writing as his full time career!  If you can reach 500 you're already as good David Drake on the production side and that's while still going to school!

Frankly it took me over a decade of dreaming and wanting to be an author to get where I am today.  Admittedly about half those years I spent not writing anything period and just read for pleasure while I went to nursing school and later when I launched my career as a nurse.  Getting married with a wife and then kids etc, also slowed me down  .

Finally one day, back in January, things still wouldn't klick and I finally said, 'To Hades with this' either this is a dream I need to give up on or I'm going to actually do this.  I forced it and wouldn't take no for an answer and today I'm getting 50 sales per day.

As far as I'm concerned you're way ahead of me.  At the same age I was happily reading away, with no aspirations of ever being a writer, let along training myself to become one.  In my college years I started to get the inkling but again didn't have the dedication.  As early as last year I was still doodling around, 'playing' at writing.  Its like working those double shifts, 16 hour work days at the day job, you've got to want it and then you get used to it and pretty soon you're doing it without too much hassle.

I'd be envious of you, except I'm pretty happy with most everything I've done up until this point and when I finally got serious with my writing I had success.  So no cries of spilt milk here!




The Deposed King

[cenwolfgirl]

lol i started younger
i need to remember that you lot have me on eerr like 20 years
i was doing the dooderling hting when i was 14
i have one project i am pushing my self on
testing the waters of my own skill and dedication
its more a learning expirence
but it might actualy get some where one day
(like if i ever finnish spell checking it and get the nurve to let others read what i write, might help)
i have only once been able to sit down and do 1,000 words
i did not have RL in the way
one day one day
it wont be to day
but i will get there

[habu987]

811 words on Short Story #1 today, typed this morning before I went to work.  Should be able to pound out another thousand or two this evening.  Total word count is at 3000 something.  Just trucking along.

[cenwolfgirl]

good for you, keep up the good work 

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

As far as I'm concerned 500 words a day out of highschool, when you put your mind to it, is a major accomplishment.  That's way ahead of where I was at the same time.  And David Drake an author who has dozens of books out, says 500 words a day is his bench mark goal, one he has a hard time exceeding!  And that's with writing as his full time career!  If you can reach 500 you're already as good David Drake on the production side and that's while still going to school!

The way I look at it is this; what you want to demonstrate to publishers, and to your audience, is probably the ability to produce one novel a year, possibly two, unlikely to be more than that.

One novel a year, call it 100,000 words +/- 20,000.  Which if you take two weeks off during the year to make the arithmetic easy is 2,000 words a week.

Whether you do that as 400 words a day with weekends off, or 2,000 words every Friday night (between 2,000 and 4,000 every Friday night is my basic work pattern for the past fifteen years; I shift that around within the week about 20% of the time to fit around my RL commitments, and I totally could not write two novels a year and hold down a dayjob without major changes in RL, but one novel a year I've pretty much been doing for that long, counting one 470,000 word monstrosity of a story as three or four physical volumes) is immaterial.  It's possible to have a successful one-novel-a-year career based on writing the whole novel within a couple of months and goofing off the entire rest of the year; Iain (M.) Banks has been doing it for nearly thirty years, and produced some truly awesome books in that span. 

So long as you get the stories out there and done, don't worry about the shape of process that works for you.

[Crazed]

Finally writing the first novel after a lot of false starts and sputtering dead ends.  256 pages thus far and I have so much more to do.  Two jobs, a wife and two kids are not enough to stop me (evil laughter ensues).

[gatordave96]

Up to 160,000 words now.  Working on the climax, and had a flash of insight as I was struggling how to pull off a particular scene.  Why do those moments always happen at the worst time?  Driving, in the shower, at work . . . .

Anyway, just wanted to echo the thoughts of others that writing is something that comes with practice.  I hated writing in high school.  Muddled through big writing projects in college by handing in term papers warm off the printer.  Learned how to write during graduate school and now as part of my job.

So, for those of you who are doing creative writing while still in high school, I think you are ahead of the curve.

Best of luck.

[Aminar]

The way I look at it is this; what you want to demonstrate to publishers, and to your audience, is probably the ability to produce one novel a year, possibly two, unlikely to be more than that.

One novel a year, call it 100,000 words +/- 20,000.  Which if you take two weeks off during the year to make the arithmetic easy is 2,000 words a week.

Whether you do that as 400 words a day with weekends off, or 2,000 words every Friday night (between 2,000 and 4,000 every Friday night is my basic work pattern for the past fifteen years; I shift that around within the week about 20% of the time to fit around my RL commitments, and I totally could not write two novels a year and hold down a dayjob without major changes in RL, but one novel a year I've pretty much been doing for that long, counting one 470,000 word monstrosity of a story as three or four physical volumes) is immaterial.  It's possible to have a successful one-novel-a-year career based on writing the whole novel within a couple of months and goofing off the entire rest of the year; Iain (M.) Banks has been doing it for nearly thirty years, and produced some truly awesome books in that span. 

So long as you get the stories out there and done, don't worry about the shape of process that works for you.

It is important to remember that while learning you should write every day.  Nothing major mind you, but just to keep in practice.  Even if it's a 10 sentence action scene while eating lunch it keeps the pump primed and the mind ready.

[The Deposed King]

The way I look at it is this; what you want to demonstrate to publishers, and to your audience, is probably the ability to produce one novel a year, possibly two, unlikely to be more than that.

One novel a year, call it 100,000 words +/- 20,000.  Which if you take two weeks off during the year to make the arithmetic easy is 2,000 words a week.

Whether you do that as 400 words a day with weekends off, or 2,000 words every Friday night (between 2,000 and 4,000 every Friday night is my basic work pattern for the past fifteen years; I shift that around within the week about 20% of the time to fit around my RL commitments, and I totally could not write two novels a year and hold down a dayjob without major changes in RL, but one novel a year I've pretty much been doing for that long, counting one 470,000 word monstrosity of a story as three or four physical volumes) is immaterial.  It's possible to have a successful one-novel-a-year career based on writing the whole novel within a couple of months and goofing off the entire rest of the year; Iain (M.) Banks has been doing it for nearly thirty years, and produced some truly awesome books in that span. 

So long as you get the stories out there and done, don't worry about the shape of process that works for you.

Sounds like good advice and a successful model to me.  Albeit one slightly focused on traditional publishing as the winning route.  Could be tuna could be peaches, ala Look Who's Talking.

That said, if you look at the successful indie authors on amazon.  Most of them, or at least the top ones, are cranking out a book every 3-4 months.  So....  find the level that's right for you.  Traditional publishing and you can go with the whole 1-2 books a year thing.  Indie you can do whatever you want.  But success seems to be 3-4 books a year.

From my research.  I'll let you know how it works out in practice.

be well people!



The DEposed King

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

It is important to remember that while learning you should write every day.

You know, the whole point of my post was to emphatically take the position that this statement is wrong. There are people for whom forcing words every day is actively harmful. There are people whose lives cannot be rearranged to write every day.  Saying things like that can read as setting barriers to people still figuring out their own processes.

Also, "while learning" ?  Do you actually intend to stop learning at any point ? I don't.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Sounds like good advice and a successful model to me.  Albeit one slightly focused on traditional publishing as the winning route.

Indeed, that's definitely where my focus is.

[cenwolfgirl]

is there not a DF quote about stop learning start dying ?
also i would love to see people who have the time to write everyday
there lives must be so quiet
*is agreeing with neuro*

[The Deposed King]

You know, the whole point of my post was to emphatically take the position that this statement is wrong. There are people for whom forcing words every day is actively harmful. There are people whose lives cannot be rearranged to write every day.  Saying things like that can read as setting barriers to people still figuring out their own processes.

Also, "while learning" ?  Do you actually intend to stop learning at any point ? I don't.

80/20 principle anyone?  Advice works for 80% but leaves the rest of the special butterflies out in the cold.  As with everything moderation, including moderation in moderation.

There are a couple authors that as a reader I would have gladly flash frozen in a certain stage of their development and refused to let them learn anything new.  Sometimes it seems all they learn are new and exciting ways to ruin what was so great.

As far as I see it, writing every day is a great goal.  Writing every day you have leisure time is a better one.  But like with sports sometimes you need a break if you are going to heal up and get ready to push through to the next level.

That said this advice is what empires are made out of.  But if you look at say, Einstine this advice is also the kind that almost squelched one of the greatest minds of any era in history and deprived us of one of the greatest mathmaticians there ever was.  A quandry.  Do we force success at the expense of some of our potential greatness or do we let it all hang out and possibly end up like the gauls.  Crushed under the might of an organized machine.  Alternately we could be like the greeks, vitally crucial to the efforts of the organized machine, forever slightly stuck outside it, and harnessed to its purposes.  Yet for all of that free to each of us go in our own direction.


Back to the point.  Do what works for you.  However if nothing is working then try this.  If that doesn't work try this other one instead.  Eventually you'll find something that works or you'll move on.


Have a blast,


The Deposed King

[cenwolfgirl]

Do what works for you.

is it me but this line apares from many people in many threads in many forms

i is perfect and so very true

(i have now got time to write give me a few hours i might actualy have a posertive word count)