What's your daily/weekly target for writing?

I have weekly goals and post them in the WPR. My low avearage is around 10,000 new words on the WIP. My comfort zone is 14,000 and that is a fair amount for me. My high-water mark has been 17,500, but that is pushing myself to exhaustion, since I tend to edit a wee bit during the writing process. Two grand a day, seven days a week, and I'm a happy camper.

Tri

I write short stories and novellas, mostly. As for genre, heh, good luck! Almost all my stuff is some weird combination of suspense, fantasy, science-fiction, horror, paranormal, mystery, and thriller. If that's too long, just say I write spec.fic.

As for targets, I don't usually set myself any. I try to write every day, but if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen (I live on a working cattle ranch, so life/nature interferes sometimes).

As for how much I do write a day, usually it's between 2500 and 5000 words a day. 5k is a really good day, so probably 3500 is about average. Given that, I probably should be writing close to 21k a week (this is assuming I can write every day, whenever I want, and for how long I want), but I probably eek out closer to 10k or 15k.

Considering scenes per week, it varies. Sometimes I'll work on one scene for two weeks straight, if it's not working right; I'll keep tweaking and tweaking and tweaking until I feel that it is. Other weeks, I burn right through five or six, maybe more.

As for how long I write, that, too, depends. Sometimes I'm only able to get in five or ten minutes here and there (makes it difficult to "get into it"), and other days I sit and write for six or seven hours straight, taking breaks only for food and bathroom.

I don't have exact targets, but if I write somewhere between 1,300 and 2,000 words in a session, I'm happy. Anything over the 2,000 is a bonus.

When I'm in the thick of writing, I shoot for 2,000 words/day--every day, until I'm done. I can go more or less, but as long as I'm staying in the story every day, I'm content. For me, it's not about word count, it's about writing EVERY DAY, otherwise I struggle to get back into the flow.

I write YA supernatural. I set concrete goals for myself, but they aren't fixed. One day it might be "work on your outline." Another day it might be, "Write a chapter." Another day it might be, "Put in one hour." If I'm really wiped out from work and pressed for time, it might just be, "Open it up, polish some phrases and then go to bed." I find that works best for me.

For a while, I had a 1,000-words-a-day goal, but I found that it made my writing slack -- scenes that didn't need to be 1,000 words long were stretching to that length, just b/c it felt natural for one night's writing. So I had to give that up and be more flexible with it.

I set time goals, not word count goals. I write M-F, 10 A.M. - 2 P.M. If I get a lot written, great. If I end up thinking and sketching out scenes or doing research or editing, fine. I just commit that time frame (while the kids are at school as my writing time), and try to let it go the rest of the week.

Target

Right now, with a six day schedule, it's 15,000 words per week, which is fairly slow for a five to six hour work day.

I have daily targets. It used to be 2000 per day, but now that's the bare minimum I'm allowed to do. 3000 is okay, 4000 is the ideal.

Currently I go for 500 words on a workday and 1000 on a weekend or vacation day.

I know I should be more consistent, but I just can't find enough hours to write every day. Even without the writing I seem to be going non-stop from morning until bedtime. Setting aside a couple of "must write" evenings and at least one whole day on the weekend is the best I can do, but at least I'm able to keep moving forward. I've set myself a goal of one year for the first draft of this WIP. I'm at 70,000 words, which is about the halfway mark (maybe a bit less) so I'm a little behind, but it's getting written and I seem to be picking up steam as the story progresses.

Lately, the trash can.

I try to finish at least three short stories a month.

On a daily basis I try to do at least three pages a day, with my teeny-tiny handwriting that's about 1575 words. On good days when my routine is left intact and I have a shred of privacy I can write six or seven pages. Oh, how I long for more of those glorious Privacy Days!

When I'm scripting for my comic book I try to do at least three pages a day of dialogue, narration, scene description, etc. I have hyper-detailed scenery details for the comic book so it takes a long time to write it out.

By the way, what a marvelous thread this is. ^_^

-An

I've been training myself to ignore word count goals. Too much emphasis on attaining a fixed quantity often begets shoddy writing just so I can get to X-thousand. I found myself too often clicking the word count option and thinking, only 350 more... only 180 more... etc. It got consuming when I found the numbers to be equal to the words.

My goal lately has simply been to write until satisfied with a session. Often I'll end up having spent a day trimming a WIP, and in a convoluted way, I can actually find forward progress in taking a 30,000 word WIP down to 29,500 words.

So I suppose my daily/weekly goals are more quality than quantity.

talps said:

I've been training myself to ignore word count goals. Too much emphasis on attaining a fixed quantity often begets shoddy writing just so I can get to X-thousand. I found myself too often clicking the word count option and thinking, only 350 more... only 180 more... etc. It got consuming when I found the numbers to be equal to the words.

My goal lately has simply been to write until satisfied with a session. Often I'll end up having spent a day trimming a WIP, and in a convoluted way, I can actually find forward progress in taking a 30,000 word WIP down to 29,500 words.

So I suppose my daily/weekly goals are more quality than quantity.

Click to expand...

You can have both quantity and quality. If the quality suffers, it isn't because you're after a specific word count, it's because you've set that word count too high for the allotted writing time. My first drafts are almost always good enough to sell, even though I have a 2,500 word per day target.

The trick with hitting a specified word count is to know how long it takes you to write a given number of words, and set your time accordingly. If you're constantly checking the word count, you're doing it wrong. If you have to check the word count at all, you're probably doing it wrong.

Word count and hour count have to be linked.

Whenever I type, i make sure i reach 2,000, at least. Unless i get all zoned in and what not... then it's about 4,000-6,000 words a day when i do write.

I've been writing daily for less than a month, so I've been gradually increasing my daily output.

My first goal was 250 words per day, and I increased it up to 500 words per day. Now I want to get up to 1000 words per day.

I got over 2000 words and 12 pages total on my WIPs this weekend, so go me!

I'm not disciplined enough at the moment to give myself any sort of goal, because I already know most times I'll break it at one point or another (social activities, kitten troubles - dammit! - special projects, lack of sleep from any or all of those...).

I count myself lucky for having spent any time writing at all. In the wake of stress I haven't even been bouncing around ideas in my head, which for me is unusual, and very frustrating. Sigh. Once a week is optimistic at this point.

But, ideally I would like to sit down and write once a day. At least 500 words.

I work by project. I don't have a word or hour limit, but I do keep track of those things. As long as I spend some time every day on the current project, my day is a success.

I don't try to set a word count goal/requirement because I don't like the pressure. As long as I write something every day I'm happy. I've been staying fairly consistent by writing as soon as I wake up. So far this week I'm doing about ~400 a day, with an upward trend.

I may not set goals, but I do like to record my daily/weekly progress.

~DragonHeart~

Medium: Novels
Genre: Leave me alone
Daily word count: 2,000 words minimum, and that's usually my max. If I really get going sometimes I make 3 or 4 K.

Right now, however, I am in the nebulous world of revisions. I think it's taking me longer than it should because I don't know how to set goals for myself when it comes to tinkering and rewriting.

goals

JoNightshade said:

Medium: Novels
Genre: Leave me alone
Daily word count: 2,000 words minimum, and that's usually my max. If I really get going sometimes I make 3 or 4 K.

Right now, however, I am in the nebulous world of revisions. I think it's taking me longer than it should because I don't know how to set goals for myself when it comes to tinkering and rewriting.

Click to expand...

I have the same goals for revision as for the first draft. First, I read straight through the manuscript and decide what revisions. rewriting might be needed. This usually takes two or three days.

Then I revise/rewrite at the minimum rate of 2,500 words per day. It often goes much, much faster than this because not everything needs work, but it never goes slower than this.

I don't have any goals, since I'm not in a hurry. I usually just write either my novel or some short stories in my spare time. About 1000 words a day. Genre? Whichever fits the mood

Page a day.







Which at the moment is a laugh. Have been blocked for weeks. (e.g. months)


I wonder if I should change to a page a writing session? Take some of the pressure off.

ETA: Guess I should read the whole OP.
I am writing a novel and it is fantasy.

Though I am wondering if I should start a new project.