What's a realistic daily writing goal to have if you want to be published author?

Question

I love to write very much, and long-term wise, my goal is to be able to write novels and short stories as a career. My question is, what is a good, realistic goal to set for myself everyday to ensure I make good progress with my writing? And should I set seperate daily goals for both my short stories and my novels?

Answer 1

Hi there. As a published author, I can tell you that trying to write to a self imposed quota every day is counter productive. Why? Because writing is a creative process, not a nine to five job.

Creativity is not something you can turn on and off at will. I wish that were true, but it simply isn't. It comes upon you when something external triggers an idea or an emotion or a conversation in your head that you, as the writer, can actually "hear" your characters saying. That's when you rush to the computer or a note pad or a recorder and make notes as fast as you can so that the fresh idea doesn't disappear before you can get it into your novel. Once you have some notes, that's when you really allow the creative process to take over. Your notes are the outline, but creativity fills the pages.

So, is it possible to trigger your own creativity? Actually, yes, it is, but not all the time. I sometimes use music in the form of a movie soundtrack to spark my imagination, especially when I have a particularly difficult part of a book to get through. I use soundtracks like "Braveheart" or "Last of the Mohicans" to set a mood in my head and that allows the creativity to be released.

Try that--you may find that you can open a can of creativity at anytime. And don't worry about how many words you write today. Some days, I bang out 500 and I'm thrilled with that. Other days, I get completely involved in the story and end up with 5,000 new words before I'm done. Unfortunately, I also end up with days where I write nothing and spend the whole day editing instead. But, then that's part of the writing process too.

I hope this helps. Good luck with your writing!

Jon F. Baxley
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Answer 2

When I'm working on a project, I shoot for between 1500 and 2000 words a day, short story or novel.

Some days you can't write, some days you find you're on a roll and you may do a lot more.

Despite what everyone's said, I think a daily word count goal is a reasonable thing if you're trying to complete a project on schedule.

If you're just writing to churn out words, that's something else entirely.

Keep in mind too that there's a lot of other work you'll be doing, too. Research, revision, keeping on top of the market for places to submit, and corresponding with your editors, agents, fellow writers, etc. -- all these things make up "writing" as an endeavor.

Good luck.

Answer 3

If you set goals for yourself, sometimes it can work but it can also deter you from writing. I entered a contest in November where the challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel within the 30 day time limit. When I started looking at how many words per day I would have to write, it got me depressed because it suddenly felt like I was working towards a minimum quota, and not just writing until I was finished. So some days I would write 5,000 words, and other days I wouldn't write any.

If you know that you work well under those kinds of conditions, then it's probably safe to start off at -- say -- 1,000 words just for the sake of a round number. If you can easily write 5,000 then shoot for that. I would just advise you to try and write every day, and don't beat yourself up over it if you don't do what you set out to accomplish. Some of the greatest works in the English language took years to write!!!

Answer 4

If you have that much strength over the beast of writing, then have whatever goals you'd like. I'd suggest trying something like NaNoWriMo - the National Novel Writing Month. Every November thousands of people sit down to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. I participated for the first time last year and it was a heck of a challenge to write somewhere between 1,600-1,800 a day. I think if you can even do half that you could probably be quite a success.

Answer 5

Whatever you think you can write every day. Don't write something just to be writing something, but anywhere between 2 and 10 pages a day is a realistic goal.

Answer 6

If you think like this in regards to a novel 1 page a day equals at least 365 days worth of "information" Not sure if that helps or not. I think writing is also one of those spontaneous feel the vibe things too but if you are trying to get yourself on a schedule a page a day.

Answer 7

I've read that different writers set different schedules for themselves.

It is important to write everyday. Write for at least 30 minutes every day.

Some writers set page limits. Like 5 pages or something like that.

Actually, I think it is more important to start submitting your work. I would suggest that once you write story that you submit it to one place a day until it is accepted.

And you cannot give up! You will get tons of rejections until you get an acceptance.

Answer 8

Stephen King said that the only way to become a succesful author is to write 4 hours a day, and read 4 hours a day.