When I typically do 3,000 words a day, you might expect me to be cocky on this point.
My best in a day is 13,527 of fiction, that was for Thunderbird.
My best in a week is around 40,000.
My best in a month is about 90,000 for Thunderboy.
However, I am not typing like London did. I am word processing.
Also, my word count includes stuff that London, Howard and Stephen King, who did about 1,500 a day last time I checked, would not glorify with the title writing, but simply discard as drafts and notes.
The word count means saleable words, billable wordage, something a publisher will take and roll the dice on or invest.
Most of my content is in fact non-fiction which I have only really written in an attempt to stave off insanity and to develop my ability to write fiction. All of my 120-plus non-fiction books were just practice for my fifty or so fiction efforts.
But back to word count, I would have had to throw the previous 189 words out and start over as I have had to go back and make 12 corrections already.
So, 1,000 words a day, I regard that as a safe minimum, something that I usually stay above, keeping in mind that 3,000 words of word processing equals about 500 words of hand writing and 1,000 words of typing in rough terms of skill, time and effort, hell, if I had to write like Shelby Foote, I’d still be working on my first book.
To keep my word count up I write easy subjects at low energy, hard subjects at high energy and strive to write everything for publication in an effort to boost my standards to force a boost in quality.
For a fellow like you who works with his hands and moves around a fair amount, or for anyone who is not a fulltime writer, I suggest writing on one subject every day. If you have nothing you find worthwhile in terms of potential publishing, do a writing exercise. The best writing exercises for the aspiring novelist and story writer is to write from memory:
A quote.
A monologue.
A conversation.
An action.
A visual impression.
Just write and let your words rise and sink with the ebb and flow of life.
I wish you well in your writing.
Son of a Lesser God
