How many pages do you write?

[B.R.Stateham]

We all have our own writing styles. Our own nuances. So I'm curious: How many pages do you write a day . . . a week . . a month? Do you set quotas? Do you wait until after all the kids and the missus' goes to bed before popping that 10th can of beer before sitting down in front of the computer screen?

If a person wrote just one page a day, and did so religiously, he'd have a fairly decent novel length by the end of a year. Is that possible? Or should a writer force himself to write until he drops---or wait until he gets into the right mood?

Whatta think?

[Karyn J. Powers]

For the Nanowrimo in November, I wrote ten pages a day. I also got two massages the first week in December to get the knot out from my shoulders.

[John McFetridge]

I find anything after five pages in one sitting has to be so rewritten that I usually stop at five. I don't set quotas or anything like that, but I like to get 20 pages a week written.

I've discovered that without thinking about it, I've naturally fallen into the pattern of five page scenes. I guess it makes my books easy to read on the subway.

[Clair Dickson]

I try to get at least 250 words a day. I shoot for 500 or more, but that doesn't always happen. (I work 4 jobs and usually put in 50-60 hours per week.) I don't set quotas beyond sit down and poke 250-500 (or more) words out of my keyboard. Normally, it's a time thing-- I have an hour before Hubby gets home or if I stay up until 3am, then I'll have another hour to write before going to bed so I can get up at 8am to teach.

I don't believe in waiting for inspiration or muses or anything. If I waited to be inspired to write or until I had "time", then I'd never get any writing done. I write in any spare minute I can find-- while my students are working, late at night after Hubby has gone to bed, in the minutes before dinner or the moments at lunch. Any spare minute is one I could be writing. I told me muse to show up or I'd kick her musing a$$. She shows up most of the time (though when I'm pushing the 70 hour weeks, she usually scatters.)

Each writer is different. Write on!

[Jon Loomis]

During the school year, I usually write zero pages a day. During the summer I write as much as I possibly can, at least if I'm under contract. Great swathes of dithering are required. Martinis are consumed. There is cursing. Somehow it all turns into a book after a couple of years.

[D.R. MacMaster]

I try for a minimum of 1,000 words a day, but a goal of 2,000 words a day.

It's not that I give myself a quota, it's that my work improves in both quantity and quality the more I push myself.

[J. F. Juzwik]

Doing NaNo in November and ViNo in January, I got into the habit of writing a minimum of 2,000 words a day. That was really pushing, but I found I could do it. Without that pressure though, I don't shoot for anything quite that high now. I do try though, to get down between 1,000 and 1,500 per day. That really isn't so much. I can write a piece of flash, half a short story or work on one of my novels (I've got two going now). One needs to be finished and then edited, and the other is around a third of the way done. Lots of projects and I go from one to the the other. I homeschool my two grandchildren, and while they're going through their lesson plans and after their bedtime, I hit the computer. Works out well for me.

[B.R.Stateham]

Clair! Four jobs?! Damn! Nice to be busy, huh?

[minervaK]

Because I run my own architecture practice, I can't really do a daily quota -- I work betwixt and between. Lately, however, I've been committing the first couple of hours after getting up in the 'morning' to working on the book, because that seems to be when I get the most productive work done on it. If I have a day where I don't have something to do for The Job (tm), I'll do more, but I usually tap out after about four hours and have to take a break. I dunno if I could write for eight hours a day. I think I'm one of those people who will always have to have at least two completely different things to do during any given day. Fortunately, I understand a second career is de riguer for most writers, so that should be no problem...

[Ann Littlewood]

I've been keeping track lately and find that I can crank out about 1500 words before my brain quits. Sometimes it's more, sometimes less, but that's about average. Amazing how life interfers with getting butt in chair, though. Taxes, house guests, sunshine after months of rain... always something coming between me and that elusive muse.

[Dana King]

For first drafts I do one single-spaced page on work days, two on weekends. I start each day by re-reading and correcting obvious flaws in yesterday's work. I'm allowed to take one day a week off; any more than that and I have to make up the work.

I also set goals when revising (I do several drafts), but those may be time-oriented, or a chapter or two, depending on what I'm working on.

[I. J. Parker]

I write at least half a page every day of the week. That is new material. I also work additionally on revisions or research during the day. The half page is primarily to keep the material alive in my head. When things go well, I may end up with about five pages before I have to quit.

[Eric Christopherson]

Here's some good advice I need to remind myself of more often:

"Don't loaf and invite inspiration. Light after it with a club, and if you don't get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it." — Jack London