How Long Does it Take?

My post last night spoke of being prolific. And I'm sure that people reading this are thinking that it's not that easy to write. It takes time, it takes planning, and it's hard.

I used to believe that, too. And some of it is true; it does take time to write; nobody can just stare at a page or a screen and magically transfer words from their minds. But it doesn't take nearly as long as people think.

Here's a simple test. Take the time to write four double-spaced pages, or approximately 1,000 words (it's about 250 words to a page). Time yourself doing that. Don't worry about making it perfect, or revising it twenty times. Just write it. It doesn't have to be a whole story, or even a chapter; it just needs to be 1,000 words. How long did it take you to do it?

For the average person, it could take up to an hour. For myself, it takes about twenty-five minutes, but that's because I've had a lot of practice typing. Now, this isn't referring to your base typing speed; your writing speed won't be anywhere near as fast as that. I type over 100 words per minute on timing tests, but I'm not writing that fast. So, just time how long it takes you to put 1,000 original words to paper or document. It didn't take that long, did it?

Let's say you're an average person, and it takes you one hour to write that thousand words. Now, do that every day for two and a half months. Congratulations, you just wrote a 75,000 word novel. That's close to the length of the first Harry Potter novel, which runs to just under 77,000 words. The whole series is less than 1.1 million words, which you could do in three years at 1,000 words per day.

"But it's not that easy!" I hear you saying. I know, I used to say the same thing. There's planning, there's outlining, there's revising...and yes, you can do all those things, but don't let them take over your entire process. What matters most is getting the words out.

Writing isn't meant to be a chore; it's a joy. And if you can give yourself one hour a day to express that joy, you can accomplish amazing things.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about tracking what you're doing. While you're breathlessly waiting for those tantalizing words of wisdom, please consider my published works, available at my Amazon page.