I just thought I'd share a little writing habit of mine, don't mind me. 
Quite a while ago now, over a year anyway, I decided to try something a little different when I was writing. I always thought I wrote fairly fast, but I never really bothered to find out just how fast I went. When I started a new story, I started leaving little notes when I started and stopped writing. I'd simply write as normal, then when I called it quits for the day, I'd type 'stopped writing here', and leave it at that. If I was delayed or distracted for some reason, I'd mention it in the note.
It's actually gotten pretty handy for me. Once I finished the story, I had quite a bit of data to play with. I could see how much I normally wrote in a day, for example. According to the word count from Word, my average was 5,088 words a day, that story in particular was done in 21 nights and ended up being 106,848 words all together, although I've read that Word's word count isn't always accurate. It was in the 234 pages long, though.
Another thing, I could simply look at the data and see, 'hey, something isn't right here. I was writing close to 7,000 words a day, then I wrote only 2,000 on day 14.' That's usually a red alert that I was writing something I didn't find interesting, and if I was bored, the part might not be worth keeping. If I went crazy and I wrote something like 10,000+ words a day, odds are the only thing I need to worry about when I read that day's work is looking for typos, because I was definitely into what I was doing.
Now that I've got some data on how much I normally write, I'm thinking of setting up a little reward system for myself. For example, if I, say, go over 7,500 words in one day, maybe I'll let myself have a 'special' hot chocolate, (Bailey's and hot chocolate, who needs heaven?) or I'll let myself play a computer game for a little bit. Something that I'll have fun doing, but won't interfere too much with writing the next day. Or, if I go a considerable amount under my average, I'll make myself start writing earlier in the night to make up for it.
Just curious, does anyone else do anything similar to this?
Quite a while ago now, over a year anyway, I decided to try something a little different when I was writing. I always thought I wrote fairly fast, but I never really bothered to find out just how fast I went. When I started a new story, I started leaving little notes when I started and stopped writing. I'd simply write as normal, then when I called it quits for the day, I'd type 'stopped writing here', and leave it at that. If I was delayed or distracted for some reason, I'd mention it in the note.
It's actually gotten pretty handy for me. Once I finished the story, I had quite a bit of data to play with. I could see how much I normally wrote in a day, for example. According to the word count from Word, my average was 5,088 words a day, that story in particular was done in 21 nights and ended up being 106,848 words all together, although I've read that Word's word count isn't always accurate.
It was in the 234 pages long, though.Another thing, I could simply look at the data and see, 'hey, something isn't right here. I was writing close to 7,000 words a day, then I wrote only 2,000 on day 14.' That's usually a red alert that I was writing something I didn't find interesting, and if I was bored, the part might not be worth keeping. If I went crazy and I wrote something like 10,000+ words a day, odds are the only thing I need to worry about when I read that day's work is looking for typos, because I was definitely into what I was doing.
Now that I've got some data on how much I normally write, I'm thinking of setting up a little reward system for myself. For example, if I, say, go over 7,500 words in one day, maybe I'll let myself have a 'special' hot chocolate, (Bailey's and hot chocolate, who needs heaven?) or I'll let myself play a computer game for a little bit. Something that I'll have fun doing, but won't interfere too much with writing the next day. Or, if I go a considerable amount under my average, I'll make myself start writing earlier in the night to make up for it.
Just curious, does anyone else do anything similar to this?
