I'm so confused
I'm not good with numbers, let's start with that basic fact. Call it a mental block or a black hole or whatever you like: I'm easily confused by anything numerical. Ask my accountant, he has some hilarious stories, I'm sure. And yes, my husband is a mathematician. Math isn't about numbers, you know. It's about ... other things. That I also don't get.
So having established that, let's look at Paperback Writer's post on writing speeds and how to break the 10k barrier. There's a lot to comment on here, but I'll try to stick to a few major points.
1. 10K
Is this a measurement that other people are comfortable with? Because, let me admit it: it means nothing to me. Nothing.
Edited to add: I see I must clarify. I know that K=three zeros, so 10K = 10,000 but what I don't know is, 10,000 what? Characters, sentences, paragraphs, or is this the size of the computer file? Erin sez (in the comments) that Paperback Writer means 10,000 words. Which is a huge number. Huge. Is that really what PW means? Let's assume Erin is right, and PW is talking about finding ways to write more than 10,000 words a day . To which I say this: if I could write 10,000 words a day, I could write 100,000 words in ten days, which would be a whole novel, and then I'd have 355 days a year to play. That would be nice. Impossible, but nice.
I judge my progress by word count, because that seems to me the basic building block, more reliable than sentences or pages (which all depend on font and size and other things that can be fiddled). So I know, for example, that when I started working this morning I had 133,000 words in the file I'm working on, and when I finished, there were 137,716 words. Which means (my calculator tells me) that I wrote 4,716 words today. Which for me is a GREAT day. Fantastic. Is this anywhere near 10K? I have no idea. Is that important? This leads me to the next point.
2. Paperback Writer is an established novelist with a large following and lots of good advice. Here's some of what she says about this topic of speed:
Everyone has a speed at which they feel they can write comfortably. It may be writing a page in a week, a day, an hour, or ten minutes -- we'll call it your personal speed zone. Your zone probably fluctuates according to your mood, your work environment, your energy level and your current health situation. If any of these are in flux, so is your zone, but if you've established a set time and place to write, and you're in good physical and emotional shape, then you've already got a fairly stable zone.If you're writing steadily while you're in the zone, and doing nothing else but writing, then you're probably at a good speed for you. The more books you write, the more confident you'll become, and that confidence will help you build your pace a bit more. On the other hand, if you're not writing steadily, then you haven't found your zone yet. There are other things getting between you and the page, and you need to get rid of them.
[...] Focus is everything. The more I wrote, the faster I became.
To establish my departure point: I do not equate speed (fast or slow) with quality of writing, genre, or anything else. Clear on that? Also, I agree that everybody has their own rhythm and speed at which they write comfortably. I also acknowledge that especially for people who write full time and have to produce in order to eat, discussions of how to increase your speed may be necessary. I'm having to face this issue myself, as I'm shifting from big fat historicals (250,000 - 300,000 words) to contemporaries (100,000 words). It took me two years to write one of the former, and if I want to stay in the business, I'm going to have to start writing one of the latter every year.
So sure, if you've got ideas to share on how to write in a more concentrated, faster, more efficient way, I'm willing to listen. But I also know that there's a huge difference between theory and practice, and no matter how sensible your advice, it's probably not going to work for me. Because, I'm not you. My writing metabolism is different from yours.
Is this an excuse? I really don't think so. Some artists can produce masterful work in days, others need years for the same size canvas. If you're standing in front of a painting in the museum, you have no idea which category it belongs in, fast or slow. For writing the same applies. Sometimes a chapter comes fast, sometimes it comes slow. And here's something else I know for sure: in my case, at least, it does not get easier as I go along. I've got five novels in print, two forthcoming, and every time, each and every time is harder than the last. It never gets easier. That's me, and I know other authors who would say the same.
That's just my two cents, of course. I hope for your sake things do start to get easier as you go along, but then I'd also give you my standard line: hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
It occurs to me, reading this over, that I don't know what Paperback Writer considers an average length for a novel. 70,000 words? 100,000 words? If I add up all my novels in print I've got more than a million words out there. If a novel is on average 100,000 words, that's the equivalent of ten novels, written over a ten year period. So I have been writing a book a year, looking at it this way. More than that, I've been writing historicals that require a huge amount of research and background work. So I'm going to give myself an extra two books: twelve novels over the past ten years. Then there's the fact that for five of those years I was also publishing in academia, books and articles both. And teaching. So that's another three books credit. Fifteen books in ten years. Arithmetic, according to me.
There. I'm feeling better now.