McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Writing every day
becroberts:
I agree that every little bit you can do is an achievement. Unless you're lucky enough to be able to devote all your waking hours to writing, life is inevitably going to get in the way. My productivity during the week has gone down immensely since I started working full-time, and I don't even have to cope with kids/pets/studies. I'm happy if I can get in a 1000 on a weekday evening, though if I have more than a few hours, I can generally produce anywhere from 3000 to 5000. (And if I try for more than that my fingers start cramping, so I know it's time for a break!) Yes, I might be producing utter rubbish by looking at my word count, but I rather like looking at the count and seeing what I've accomplished. I always go back over the most recent parts anyway and make any necessary changes, and I haven't had to fix too much. (Except on the odd occasion where I accidentally move the action outside when the characters are still inside, but never mind...)
As for those bouts of fiendish plotting, I don't count them towards actual writing but I do consider them an important part since they usually involve working out roughly how the next chapter or so will go. I'll occasionally scribble down some scenes in script format to include later, but mostly it's making notes on the sequence of events.
blgarver:
--- Quote from: Abstruse on January 03, 2007, 06:57:06 PM ---Ask yourself, which is worse? Writing only 100 words that are really good, or writing 1500 words that are complete crap? If you force yourself to meet a certain word count deadline, you're encouraging yourself to put whatever crap you can down in order to make your goal. I'm much more of a quality over quantity person.
The Abstruse One
Darryl Mott Jr.
--- End quote ---
I'd rather write 1500 words of rubbish, because i can always go back and clean it up. It's just like editing a film (i'm an indie filmmaker, by the way); you don't perfect the edit the first time around. The first time you're goal is to find the best shots - or at least, the shots the director wants to use - and get them into the timeline in the correct sequence. After that's finished, you go back and shave off a few frames here and there, polish up the transitions, adjust the coloring if need be, etc...
It would take thrice the time and effort to polish each shot as you lay it in the timeline. And I think the same concept can be applied to writing.
Get the story down, the plot written on paper. When that's finished, you can go back and fix the weak scenes, the typos, the lame or cliche descriptions, the bad dialogue. As long as the story is there, the world is your oyster.
As long as it's a good story, that is.
Abstruse:
As a filmmaker, then you also know that editing can do a lot but only so much. If the shot's crap, you can't really fix it.
I'd much rather only write 100 or 200 really good words than 1000 or 2000 crappy ones I'm going to have to spend 10 times longer to get to sound right. I've started projects and gotten 10,000 words or more into them before completely scrapping them and deleting the file after taking notes just because I looked at the mess and could not figure out how to salvage it without completely re-writing it anyway.
The Abstruse One
Darryl Mott Jr.
blgarver:
--- Quote from: Abstruse on January 03, 2007, 11:32:39 PM ---As a filmmaker, then you also know that editing can do a lot but only so much. If the shot's crap, you can't really fix it.
I'd much rather only write 100 or 200 really good words than 1000 or 2000 crappy ones I'm going to have to spend 10 times longer to get to sound right. I've started projects and gotten 10,000 words or more into them before completely scrapping them and deleting the file after taking notes just because I looked at the mess and could not figure out how to salvage it without completely re-writing it anyway.
The Abstruse One
Darryl Mott Jr.
--- End quote ---
Okay, I'll give you that one.
And I've done the same thing with pieces I've worked on before. However, I think that if you've written enough and are practiced enough in your craft, then nothing you write will be absolute rubbish. Even if you aren't writing at your peak performance.
Personally, I don't pay attention so much to word count as I do the story development. I think I mentioned that in a previous post. But, if I can progress the story in 300 words, then great. If it takes 2000, then I'll write that many. My main goal for the first draft is to get the story out of my head and onto paper.
I sort of see what you're saying, but I still would rather write my poorest 1500 words in a day than my best 300. I've been writing stories since kindergarten, and I've come leaps and bounds in my ability. My poorest writing is still better than a lot of stuff out there, and ooodles better than the stuff i was writing even last year.
And anyway, no matter how good the writing is, the next time you look at it, you're just going to change it anyway. So, editing is inevitable no matter how you go about writing. It's the nature of the writer...the story is never totally finished.
At least that's my opinion.
Richelle Mead:
It depends on what stage I'm in. I consider revision/editing part of writing, and I can only handle so much of that a day--maybe four hours at most. When I'm writing a fresh first draft, though, I type like a fiend and can do a full 8-9 hour day. That's brutal to my wrists and has landed me in hand therapy. And, when revisions are my editor's idea and not mine, I work as long as I have to, honestly. I just finished a 40 hour stint with only a 2 hour nap in the middle to make a recent deadline. Not recommended. I mixed instant coffee into drip coffee to survive. Also not recommended.
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