Author Topic: The I'm Writing Thread.... Celebrate your pages written etc Part II.  (Read 98001 times)

Offline Dresdenus Prime

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Re: The I'm Writing Thread.... Celebrate your pages written etc Part II.
« Reply #75 on: March 12, 2013, 12:35:33 PM »
Neat cover DP.  Keep up the good work.  I'm writing full time and I managed a record setting all time high of 11k in one day!  Woo hoo go me!

1k a day to keep the gremlins away is a great achievement and I hope everything works out great for you!

Let me know when it comes out.



the Deposed King


Thanks Deposed! I really like it and hope everyone else does too.

11k would be a dream come true for me, as would writing full time. For now I just write as much as the kids and wife will let me  ;D
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Offline The Deposed King

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Re: The I'm Writing Thread.... Celebrate your pages written etc Part II.
« Reply #76 on: March 13, 2013, 12:32:35 AM »
Thanks Deposed! I really like it and hope everyone else does too.

11k would be a dream come true for me, as would writing full time. For now I just write as much as the kids and wife will let me  ;D

I am writing full time (at least for now) and while that 11k is a dream come true, the last part of what you said is still a big part of the equation for me ???

By the way how much did your cover set you back?  Inquiring minds want to know.



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Offline the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh

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Re: The I'm Writing Thread.... Celebrate your pages written etc Part II.
« Reply #77 on: March 13, 2013, 02:31:09 AM »
Neat cover DP.  Keep up the good work.  I'm writing full time and I managed a record setting all time high of 11k in one day!  Woo hoo go me!

heh. Well done.  My personal high is 14.5 k but that was in really exceptional circumstances; 5k a day is the absolute most I can keep up with any consistency when doing it full time.  (Which has only happend in this past decade during a fortnight between one job ending and another beginning.)
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Offline The Deposed King

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Re: The I'm Writing Thread.... Celebrate your pages written etc Part II.
« Reply #78 on: March 13, 2013, 04:26:32 AM »
heh. Well done.  My personal high is 14.5 k but that was in really exceptional circumstances; 5k a day is the absolute most I can keep up with any consistency when doing it full time.  (Which has only happend in this past decade during a fortnight between one job ending and another beginning.)

During Book 1 and 2, 5k a day was the most I could average also.  Then my brother started writing, putting in 10-20k days and Chris Nutall another writer I knew online said he did 8-10k days routinely and it all must have inspired me.  I've been averaging 6-9k days for the past two weeks.

But ultimately it isn't not how fast you can write, its your dedication to finishing the book.  The hare ran almost all the way to the finish line and then fell asleep, and while the plodding tortis kept on it steady and beat him over the finish line.

Consistently write anything over and including 500 words a day, day in and day out and you can make it as a writer.

Thanks for the compliment Neuro.

Everybody keep your chins up and stay inspired.  Speed isn't everything, its grit and determination to never quit that ultimately are the most important.





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Offline The Deposed King

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Re: The I'm Writing Thread.... Celebrate your pages written etc Part II.
« Reply #79 on: March 13, 2013, 11:21:34 AM »
195k - AIS

9k today, I'm still in the groove!



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Offline Dresdenus Prime

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Re: The I'm Writing Thread.... Celebrate your pages written etc Part II.
« Reply #80 on: March 13, 2013, 12:44:26 PM »

By the way how much did your cover set you back?  Inquiring minds want to know.



The Deposed King

The cover cost me $150.00, which gives me the ebook cover that I previewed on my blog, and it also gets me a cover for a print edition.
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Offline the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh

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Re: The I'm Writing Thread.... Celebrate your pages written etc Part II.
« Reply #81 on: March 13, 2013, 05:43:14 PM »
Consistently write anything over and including 500 words a day, day in and day out and you can make it as a writer.

Indeed, but it's also the case that if you can consistently write a novel in four to six weeks and goof off the rest of the year, you can make it as a writer - not that I am recommending it to anyone, it's sort of an opposite extreme to writing every day, but it has worked for Iain Banks for a couple of decades of solid career, and there's a huge space in the middle.

Getting the words out matters.  Their distribution across time... less so.  I am a mite twitchy on seeing "you have to write every day"-type advice because so many successful writers just don't do that.
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"What do you mean, Lawful Silly isn't a valid alignment?"

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Offline roteral

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Re: The I'm Writing Thread.... Celebrate your pages written etc Part II.
« Reply #82 on: March 13, 2013, 09:55:40 PM »
You guys amaze me. Some of you guys get 9000 words a day with limited time but I cant even get a couple of words in and I have almost the whole day. I guess I just can't get into it. How do you guys do it?
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Offline the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh

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Re: The I'm Writing Thread.... Celebrate your pages written etc Part II.
« Reply #83 on: March 13, 2013, 10:51:51 PM »
You guys amaze me. Some of you guys get 9000 words a day with limited time but I cant even get a couple of words in and I have almost the whole day. I guess I just can't get into it. How do you guys do it?

Most Fridays, I come in after work, I eat, and I start writing, usually about 1830 or 1900.  I stop usually between midnight and 12 am. 

On particularly exhausting weeks I sometimes rest Friday and do it Saturday instead, and sometimes when I have travel or social stuff happening I cantch up in advance by also working Wednesdays.

You do that for a decade and a half and the words add up, and so does the practice at making them come out.
Mildly OCD. Please do not troll.

"What do you mean, Lawful Silly isn't a valid alignment?"

kittensgame, Sandcastle Builder, Homestuck, Welcome to Night Vale, Civ III, lots of print genre SF, and old-school SATT gaming if I had the time.  Also Pandemic Legacy is the best game ever.

Offline The Deposed King

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Re: The I'm Writing Thread.... Celebrate your pages written etc Part II.
« Reply #84 on: March 14, 2013, 01:11:21 AM »
Indeed, but it's also the case that if you can consistently write a novel in four to six weeks and goof off the rest of the year, you can make it as a writer - not that I am recommending it to anyone, it's sort of an opposite extreme to writing every day, but it has worked for Iain Banks for a couple of decades of solid career, and there's a huge space in the middle.

Getting the words out matters.  Their distribution across time... less so.  I am a mite twitchy on seeing "you have to write every day"-type advice because so many successful writers just don't do that.

Sure if you're one of the top flight Gal's in the business, one a year is doable.  Most dead tree stable house authors can do one book a year and hold another job, but what I hear it takes two a year writing full time to be able to quite the day job in the 1st world.  I guess its all life goals and location and such.

Most successful top indie's I see out there are putting out 3-4 book a year.

Whatever tickles the pickles and guys like Jim Butcher and David Weber certainly make enough to live comfortably off one book.  Others like Ilona Andrews, and Patty Briggs need two a year to write full time.  At least from what I recall reading on their forums.

As for word count, sure you have a point. If are that wild hare with the ability and dedication to keep going until you cross the finish line you don't have to look up to that plodding turtle.  If on the other hand you square pig right in there with the children's tale, you need that every day mentality to keep you motivated.

Most aspiring authors never get anywhere because its hard to stay consistently focused on one story and put out the word volume (at least it very much was for me).  I view it a little bit like running your first mile.  Its not just hard, its dang hard and almost impossible when you're a kid/teen/whatever starting out.  But after you do it the first couple times, mentally it gets easier, even if physically it's still a struggle, and if you keep after it, pretty soon you're doing 2 miles and then 3 or wherever you set your sights to and level out at.

I put out the write every day advice because it gets you mentally prepared for the long haul and its a winning strategy, when most of aspiring authors are still in need of a win.  If it gets someone motivated to spew out 5-10k a day and finish their book quick so they can go back to whatever else they've got to do to make ends meet, I'll be over joyed.

For me if I say I've got to write a book every three months and that equals out to 1.5k a day every day for just under 90 days allowing for editing, then if I get it done in one or two months I would feel free to slack off for the next month.  If I started another book at least I would feel no pressure.  I'd made an arbitrary game winning goal and already crused the move.

For self starters out there everywhere, ignore my advice, do whatever works, you'll have a book in no time I don't care how slow you write.  If on the other hand you're flailing, try this, if it works great.  If its not I'm just another guy with an opinion and you know what they say about opinions.




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Offline The Deposed King

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Re: The I'm Writing Thread.... Celebrate your pages written etc Part II.
« Reply #85 on: March 14, 2013, 01:32:31 AM »
You guys amaze me. Some of you guys get 9000 words a day with limited time but I cant even get a couple of words in and I have almost the whole day. I guess I just can't get into it. How do you guys do it?

If you've ever seen the Care Bears I visualize my struggles to write sometimes like what No Heart is always trying to do.  Turn Everyone including the carebears into a Grey, blah, uninspiring, lethargic creature.

That's why I refer to my innate desire to stare at the screen or worse, surf the net or read someone else's book instead of write my own, as The Desert.  Cap locks very much deliberate.

I have all day to write, at least for right now.  Every time I start writing it looks like something that came out the hind end of a dog.  First I refuse myself permission to go online.  I set myself a little time in the beginning and end of my day to do it.  After that avaunt your foul seducer!  I go to a part of the house without internet access.  I refuse to open my kindle.

I write the first sentence.  I stare at it a moment and finish the paragraph hoping against hope it looks cooler once its complete than the dog dodoo it is now.  Its not.  And yet amazingly, my books on amazon are selling very well.  I can't get my head wrapped around this paradox.  I don't want to write because what I am writing is complete and utter dung, and yet people like it.  Convincing myself it'll all be made nice and pretty during the editing pass, because other wise why would anyone read this drek?  I force my self to write.  I don't want to, I'm ruining my book with every sentance that spews from my hands.  I have to.  I do it because my job is to write today and really if you've got a good editor, he/she or it doesn't even need to be a writer to be a real help.

I set myself a realisitic target.  For me that's 5k a day.  When I started out I said 1k.  I did that and wrote 2k instead.  So I said, 2k and then did 3k for a while.  I declared the move at 3k and like a runner training up, before I knew it I had 5k days.  Now I do between 6 and 9k a day.  My daily goal is 5k so that at anytime after I finish my daily quota and I want to stop I am totally free to do so. If I write more in one day and have a family function the next, I take that extra apply it against tomorrow and thus have a lower target yet still am able to spit it out like clockwork.

Don't look at my numbers.  Set yourself a goal.  Refuse to stop because its bad.  More give yourself permission to write the bomb and I'm not talking about the fun bomb or cool bomb, I'm saying the stink bomb.  I originally wrote the Little Admiral because I couldn't bear the thought of ruining my Military Insect story, that is still almost half done, that story is cool, its wonderful and its still not done.  While I'm almost done with the first draft of my 3rd Spineward Sector's Novels.  Go figure huh?

I gave myself a story I didn't mind messing up.  I set out determined to have some fun along the way, as anyone who's read my somewhat humorous Admiral Who should be able to tell and I bore down.

You have to harness your creativity and break it to your will, when you force it in the direction of the book you are writing and it suddenly goes all No Heart on you turning dull and grey with disinterest.  You must force yourself through that desert one dehydrated, dull, boring step at at time, until you finally force your sub-conscious to realize, just like a little child that wants to go out and play, that its not going to get away with it.  There is no fast one, your sub-conscious writing child can play, there's no trick, no constant cries for water or the toilet or I'm hungry right before bed time that will let your winy inner, creative child out of its chores.

Just like an angry child, you spank it or time out it or just plain don't let it do anything fun until the chores are done and eventually it will do it.  After a while your little inner kid won't even notice how terrible its chores are and just give a perfunctory whine at the beginning.  Then as you slog through some utter drek, your imagination will reluctantly take off and before you know it you're actually writing something fun!  You love it even if no one else will!  and almost before you can realize it, even though you've been stuck laboriously writing it every step of the way, you're done.  You have a book.  Its yours.  you're proud of it, even if totally terrified everyone else will turn up their nose at the stink coming out of it.

Then low and behold you edit and fix and repair and suddenly its not the utter stink bomb you thought it was.

That's how you write 9k a day.  In my experience.



The Deposed King
« Last Edit: March 14, 2013, 01:40:39 AM by The Deposed King »


Proverbs 22:7, "The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave of the lender"

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Offline roteral

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Re: The I'm Writing Thread.... Celebrate your pages written etc Part II.
« Reply #86 on: March 14, 2013, 02:37:31 AM »
That was awesome
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Offline Wordmaker

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Re: The I'm Writing Thread.... Celebrate your pages written etc Part II.
« Reply #87 on: March 14, 2013, 12:17:50 PM »
Yup. This man knows his stuff.

Offline The Deposed King

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Re: The I'm Writing Thread.... Celebrate your pages written etc Part II.
« Reply #88 on: March 14, 2013, 01:24:48 PM »
AIS - 208k

13k today a new record!

Also thank you for the kind words guys.  I just try to help out others with examples from my own experiences and what I've observed with other, as much as I can.

I know its not always applicable to others, but I had help and encourgement along the way, and its nice to help out others if and when i am able.



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Offline Rasins

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Re: The I'm Writing Thread.... Celebrate your pages written etc Part II.
« Reply #89 on: March 14, 2013, 03:39:08 PM »
At this point I'm just starting out.  I have an idea, now I'm trying to figure out how to get INTO the story.

I did 1,100 words Saturday, and nearly 1,500 last night.  I'm happy with the word count and all I'm doing is brainstorming but from seeds come fruit.

Also, I discovered that Windows 7 comes with a voice recognition program.  I'm not sure I'll be able to "talk" my story any better than typing it, but it's fun to try.
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