I've changed a writing habit ever so slightly and it appears to be working out pretty well, though it's possibly a little early to tell. A few days ago, Holly Black (new internet best friend although she doesn't know it yet because she liked my tumblr on her revamped Spiderwick covers) wrote about Rachel Aaron - who in turn had written an article on upping her word count from 2,000 words a day to 10,000 words a day. Coincidentally, that was something I'd been chewing over since I a) read what Stephen Leather said in an interview about knocking out 30,000 a day at a news-desk - or at least I think that's what he said, I can't find the interview again now and b) I stacked what I was producing towards my first proper fiction piece (Turn The Lamp Down Low) against what I was producing at the magazine. It's not unusual to turn out 5,000 words a day at the mag for something or other - under pressure too.
And so it was that I realised I was being a bit of a slacker. So this past Sunday, I shut the laptop and took up with a notebook and my beloved Waterman and simply wrote. I wrote until I had quite honestly run out of plot and my wrist hurt but found that I had turned out around 4,500 words. Doing some quick mental maths (not my best subject), I figured that if I did that everyday for a week, that would be 30,000 words (ish) - and if I committed to doing that every day for a month, that would be 120,000 words - which is pretty big novel that would need about 40,000 words editing out of it to make it a good size and well edited. The important thing here though would be a first draft. Something to work from. The intricacies of the plot itself are easy because I've been thinking about writing this for about two years in the real world and about ten years in la-la land. That's a long time to figure out knowing what's going to happen - and should a publisher happen to be passing by, I'd like to point out it's not the only one I've been planning for that long, just the one I like the title of the most and as good a place to start as any.
Anyway, this filled me with a bolt of enthusiasm to get the hell on with it - and then when I got up on Monday, I remembered the magazine was going to print and it was all hands on deck for a couple of days which stalled me in my tracks like I'd fallen into a hole in the ground.
Which brings me to today. With the magazine finished for another few weeks (but still a ton of work to do for the next issue and a book that's looming for October), it's time to get back on the wagon with the 4,500 words a day average. Possible to keep it up? I think so. The most important thing here is what I have learned - it might help you out too - and it's this:
Accept the word count. Accept that it's possible and do it. If you need to write, write. You only have to make it sound feasible in your head and you're away. My kids think 500 words is a lot and are constantly amazed, but that's just a blog post to me. Shrink the monster in your head and you'll be fine.
It sounds like a plan and right now, that's good enough for me.