Forum: Author Hangout

I write what and when the muse takes me. Sometimes real life events cause my muse to go into hiding for periods. There are days, weeks, and months when I write nothing, but there are times I've punched out a 250,000 word story in one sitting or three of four 50,000 word stories in one sitting.

I do have an issue with getting back to a story when my initial train of thought and productivity have been disturbed by real life events, by I do usually get back to them, eventually. That's why I currently have over 980,000 words tied up in 37 works in progress I'm working on.

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I write for pleasure and never look at the scores or downloads except when having a discussion about them or I need the stats for some external reason.

I write because I have a story or stories to tell and work at telling them as best as I can. I'm just glad others like them as well.

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I've heard of people who set themselves goals of 'x' words per day / week and work at meeting those targets. Sadly, this often ends up with lots of crappy sections of work in their stories because they still sit down and add their 'x' words regardless of the state or location of their muse at that time. Thus the sections written while their muse is resting destroys the quality of the story.

The reverse side of the 'x' words a day style is many people will stop writing when they hit that target, despite their muse being in full flight pushing them to write more, but they stop because they hit their target. This also adversely affects the story.

Years ago I was involved in the NaNoWriMo for a few years. This was initially a US nation writing competition but went worldwide where they encouraged people to write a 50,000 word novel during November each year. If you have an idea and the muse helps you meet your target with ease. The first year I did a 100,000 word story in the first week, in a later year I found the constant emails and pressure to write damned annoying and was very glad when I stopped getting messages from them about it.

It's been my experience that pressure, either internally or externally, sends my muse into hiding for a while, and this is often true of many other authors.

Setting goals and increasing productivity sounds like a business to me. I've read how famous authors describe their routines like that but it's a business for them. Even though I sell novels, for me it's not a business.

I write when I'm in the mood. Like Ernest, I can go weeks or even months without writing. When I force myself to write, I will probably stop writing. It won't be fun. It'll be work.

When I was a writer of commercial fiction, I set myself the goal of 1000/day 5 days a week. Any more words, and the quality clearly dropped. Any more days, and I didn't have the flexibility to skip a day because Life Happened. I let myself write more, if the well of inspiration kept flowing, but that was the goal, and for the most part this was fast enough to meet my deadlines.

Now that I'm writing fiction purely for myself, no goals. I like it when I manage 1k in a day, but i don't stress it. Stressing it chokes me. I'm telling myself a story in my own time, so sit back and listen.

My goal when I'm writing a novel is to have a 15 chapter buffer, with the book being about 30 chapters long. That way, I can start posting and it's normally not that difficult to write about 12,000 - 14,000 words per week. If real life interferes, well, that's why I have a buffer. Or if the creative juices just aren't flowing, then I still have a buffer.

That way, I can have my most recently finished chapter at Editor One, while my other two editors are plugging away at the previous two.

There's no actual set number that I try for. If I see things in my mind, I may end up writing 15+ pages in a single sitting. Other times, I may open the file and just look at it, trying to figure out where things need to go. I'm one of those authors that, if I take the time to outline the entire story before I start writing it, well, I've already subconsciously written it, so filling things in just doesn't work for me.