How many words do you aim to write in a day?

by Adrian Sroka
16th August 2018

How many words do you aim to write in a day?

Graham Greene advocates 300 words a day, which doesn’t seem many at first glance.

Yet 300 words a day is 2100 words a week – 109,200 words a year. Enough words for a novel and a good start to a second.

My target is 500 words a day.

Replies

Personally, I'd say it's easier to fine-tune your writing when there is something there to work on - so write more than you think you need and then tighten up the story by editing out the distracting or superfluous bits...

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Eleanor
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Eleanor Knowles
10/09/2018

At the writers' club I go to, I aim to write 1,000 in 2 hours. For me it is about developing my technique at the moment. I find that writing a large volume helps me slowly to develop my style, even if the content is questionable. So it is quantity over quality for me. If I were Ernest Hemingway I would probably throw away about 995 of the 1,000, or more likely, the whole lot would go.

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Tim
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Tim Birch
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