McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
The I'm Writing Thread.... Celebrate your pages written etc
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: The Deposed King on August 20, 2012, 05:37:50 PM ---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!
--- End quote ---
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:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on August 20, 2012, 06:46:36 PM ---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.
--- End quote ---
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:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on August 20, 2012, 06:46:36 PM ---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.
--- End quote ---
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
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version