I missed my opportunity to blog yesterday because I was busy getting off to a good start with Camp NaNoWriMo. If you're a writer, you know the struggle--when it's time to prioritize your fiction writing, you just have to do it!
I usually aim for a daily word goal of about 3,000 words per day. Not all of my books reach 90,000 words; in fact, I've set this current project at 85,000 because I've only exceeded that on a couple of my Ordinary Sam books so far. But in addition to the general goal of 3,000 words per day, I spend a lot of time the first week trying to get as far ahead of that goal as possible, because I know from years of experience that I do the majority of my writing during the week, and am unable to do as much on weekends when family and church obligations take precedence.
Unfortunately, yesterday was a slow start for me at first, and I ended up staying awake into the early morning hours trying to catch up. As I write this, I'm at 5529 words, but I hope to pull ahead before midnight tonight.
Every writer works differently, and the key to writing any kind of book is to know your own pace and limits. Having said that, though, I always want to encourage new writers not to give up on things like National Novel Writing Month without giving them a good try first. Some writers will never find a daily word count goal workable, but it's really helpful for many others to know how much we can reasonably do in a day, a week, or a month. Whether you write a steady amount every day including weekends, or whether your weekdays are impossible and you put in two long writing days every weekend, you will soon learn what it takes for you to achieve a specific goal in a thirty-day time period.
Good luck to all the new writers out there!
I usually aim for a daily word goal of about 3,000 words per day. Not all of my books reach 90,000 words; in fact, I've set this current project at 85,000 because I've only exceeded that on a couple of my Ordinary Sam books so far. But in addition to the general goal of 3,000 words per day, I spend a lot of time the first week trying to get as far ahead of that goal as possible, because I know from years of experience that I do the majority of my writing during the week, and am unable to do as much on weekends when family and church obligations take precedence.
Unfortunately, yesterday was a slow start for me at first, and I ended up staying awake into the early morning hours trying to catch up. As I write this, I'm at 5529 words, but I hope to pull ahead before midnight tonight.
Every writer works differently, and the key to writing any kind of book is to know your own pace and limits. Having said that, though, I always want to encourage new writers not to give up on things like National Novel Writing Month without giving them a good try first. Some writers will never find a daily word count goal workable, but it's really helpful for many others to know how much we can reasonably do in a day, a week, or a month. Whether you write a steady amount every day including weekends, or whether your weekdays are impossible and you put in two long writing days every weekend, you will soon learn what it takes for you to achieve a specific goal in a thirty-day time period.
Good luck to all the new writers out there!
