Have you ever gone berserk with your writing?

Heck yeah.

The other night I sat down to scribble down some backstory for a secondary character. Seven hours later (very late into the night), I'd written almost 10k words for this character in the form of a short story. My poor rear end hurt, and I think my chair was pretty mad at me, too. I don't have those single-minded spurts very often--usually their broken up by 'Net surfing, phone calls, getting up and down constantly to do things--but this was almost straight through writing.

Absolutely. I wrote four books in slightly more than a month, which meant my life for a time involved three key components:
1. Writing
2. Working, all the while thinking about writing
3. Sleeping as little as possible to avoid interruption of writing

Only biological necessities threw me out of a temporarily 3-component life.

I took the 50K challenge back in April of last year, by the last day I still needed 7000 words.

So, in one day, I thought of nothing else and banged out like 8200 words. It was both exhilerating and exhausting, but well worth it.

Oh hell yeah! Getting the last three chapters of my novel Shadowknight down took over my life completely.....at least one nine hour session with coffee and toilet breaks only.

I wrote 800,000+ words worth of story in one year. Does that count as berserk?

Cyia said:

I wrote 800,000+ words worth of story in one year. Does that count as berserk?

Click to expand...

I just did some quick math.

80K divided by 12 is:

66,666.66667

Your work is the antichrist of biserk.

Sometimes, and it's tremendous fun when it happens. I just have to remind myself that it isn't always a like dropping a lit match in gasoline; sometimes it's like rubbing two damp sticks together for a very, very long time in hopes of catching that writing fire.

The past couple months I've sat nearly all day, focused. Before I know it, Jay Leno's on! I do that with research too. Just absolutely focused the entire day.

I once did the berserk thing with writing.

It involved Tequila.

And the writing was on a wall...

For non-fiction, yes I've cranked out articles fast.

But for my fiction, I wish I had more beserk moments, maybe I'd get more done! I've had some days where I will suddenly crank out a lot. Love 'em, but they're rare for me. I'm a slow writer most of the time.

I haven't done that in ages, since I was unemployed just out of school and I used to stay up until 3am just writing like mad.

Now I have a life, with a boring job, a girlfriend and routine and stuff. Damn.

There was one time I had this novella in me and I pounded the entire thing out in like two days (which is fast for me, considering how long it was), but aside from that, I really can't sit and write for hours, it would drive me nuts.

"Berserk with my writing," however...considering that my entire life and ego and persona and relationships with others and sense of wellbeing and whatnot are inextricably tied in with my writing, I think that qualifies as a kind of "berserk."

Yeah, but I can't say it ever gets me anywhere.
The most pages I typed in a day was 30.

The most I've ever done in a day is 10k, typed (at a rough guesstimate I once did 8k longhand as well). On a number of occasions I've typed seven- or eight-thousand as well.

An average good day for me means knocking out 5k without even trying.

But there have been a number of occasions - quite a few actually - where I've chosen to pull an all-nighter and write, rather than go to bed and sleep. I've forgotten to eat while writing certain chapters.

Suppose it means I was in the zone and having fun.

Berserk seems like a strong word, though. I've never axed anyone, or performed the Blood Eagle on them...

LMAO. I love this thread. I used to be able to do that. Now I have small children so I can't sit as long writing as I would really like to sometimes. Even just yesterday, I was into the scene and had everything planned out in my head and was typing away... and the baby woke up. So I got up from the computer to get the baby with this shaking in my body as if I hadn't had a needed drug fix or something.

We're addicted to writing. Some of us just don't want to admit how much like a drug it is.

oh oh me me.

i did this bad after scout camp. i was typing almost 18 hours a day for a week.

and it was my worst work ever.

i did pound out 50k words, and had three season changes between scenes.

yes. I remember it was a couple monthes ago. I was writing like a mad woman. It was on a Friday at school and I was bored as hell. So, taking out my notebook, I wrote and wrote. I didn't even do any work at school. I just ignored the teachers. I wrote on the bus, at home,during the night, and in the afternoon my eyes hurt and my hand was throbbing. I really needed coffee, but instead I just fell asleep on my desk and woke up on Sunday. What I'm really shocked by, is when I woke up and my story was gone! Then I looked in my closet and it had been torn by the kittens. How did they get it in there? I have no idea. I think my story was about mutant chickens. Maybe It was for the best when my kittens murdered my story. As a matter of fact, I remember some of my story and It was, um how can I say, screwed up. No more writing about mutant chicken for me anymore. No sir!

*Gets coffee*

The longest I have gone without leaving my computer is 48 hours (excepting bio-breaks, of course).

once i set down to start a short story and just could not stop 8 hours later i had a 18 page story ready to be sent out.

Kaiser-Kun said:

By "going berserk", I mean thinking of nothing else than what you're writing, not leaving it for hours and writing lots?

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, yes.

It hasn't happened to me in a while, but i remember writing for 12 hours straight. Back when i first started to dabble in writing. Ended up with about 30K words.

But that was back in 2003. I'm a lot less crazy now

I wrote over twenty thousand in one day, and a total of 50K in under two weeks on my memoir in November. I do go bezerk at times and can't do anything with myself BUT write. I usually just go with it, because I hate feeling like I can't finish a scene or chapter because of RL issues like grocery shopping, laundry or disking and cooking. But those things support my writing so I have to do them. It's a trade off when I am feeling so manic and committed.

My book for you is ticking clock, Berserker!



My preferred style is the marathon, furious writing...

My berserk moments seem to happen more in the winter... good hibernation time here in the midwest. My "best" berserk moment has to have been one winter day, about midday, I had an idea in my head so I went to the computer room and sat down. Minus pee and pop breaks, I didn't get up for 18 hours and had the first 50 pages of a novel cranked out.

Out of NOWHERE. And it was actually viable stuff, LoL.