Here’s a factoid about me: when I’m on a roll, I can produce about 1000 words an hour. I once wrote a whole novel (75000 words-ish) in ten days. It was Thanksgiving holiday and I took a couple of days off, but essentially I was knocking out 10,000 words a day during that time. And I wound up with a novel I liked, too–so it was quantity AND quality. Not saying it couldn’t use some editing, but it was in pretty good shape, say self so I do.

That novel was a one-off, but producing 1-3k words per day isn’t outside the realm of my writing capability. That said, I rarely do it. Why? Possibly because I’m lazy. But more likely because I’m easily distracted (SEE: the name of this blog). This became especially true during the years of High Pandemic (I’ll write about this means of designating eras of COVID in another essay, maybe). During that time, when I wasn’t working on the podcast (The Gothic Podcast, wherever you catch your pods), I was scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Should I have been writing, writing, writing? Almost certainly. But a lot of us didn’t do what we ‘should’ have been doing during those times. And that’s okay.

And it’s certainly okay not to type 1-3k words per day.

But if you count yourself a writer, should you have SOME quota of words-per-day? Plenty of advice out there would tell you to do so. It’s in nearly every writerly-advice book there is. When I’m writing short stories, though, I don’t have a quota. Short stories burn hot and bright and fast in my brain, and I have to get them out on those waiting blank surfaces of the page as quickly as I can. When I’m writing short stories, I’d prefer not to tidy up the house, cook breakfast (or lunch or supper), take out the trash, answer the phone, check my e-mail … all I want to do is write and get it down. Get the story … out there. Five thousand words in a day? Great! Done! Time to edit.

In the past few years, I’ve had a few of my many finished short stories published (check out the link, er, somewhere), but I haven’t written a new novel in … years (we’re not talking about editing the ones I’ve already written, or the trudging, terrible work of getting them out to potential agents and editors — that’s a task that requires a much different set of skills than writing the story in the first place).

So, lately, I’ve been wanting to create something new in the long form of the novel. But I had to figure out how to, y’know, do that. My brain has become wired to scrolling, to binge-watching TV, to doing something outside of the house (hiking, kayaking, whatever). Anything except for writing. Sometimes a short story will rear up from the briars and demand to be stalked, but novels? Do I have enough attention span in me to do that again?

Of course I do. I just have to set the right expectations.

Alright, so what are my expectations? Back when I was teaching onboard US Navy ships and out to sea for weeks on end without pulling into ports, it was easy to set a goal of a thousand words per day and meet that goal, even with teaching and grading and ice cream socials. Far less housework to do out there, and far fewer things to be all shiny and distracting. But a thousand words, although surely possible, might be beyond the bounds of my attention span right now.

So I’m shooting for five hundred.

Yup, just five hundred words per day. If I do that every day, then I have a novel in two hundred days (or possibly less–depends on the story). Two hundred days is a lot more than ten, but it’s also less than a year. Or three. Seems reasonable to me. More importantly, seems reasonable to my brain.

This goalpost number comes with some issues, though. The biggest problem is that once the story starts flowing, it’s tough to cut off at that five hundred word mark. I want to keep writing. Why shouldn’t I keep writing? Waaaa!

But for the quota system to work for me, I have to do it this way. I can’t say, Oh, I did a thousand words yesterday, so I can skip today (I mean, I CAN, and probably WILL, but I shouldn’t), because there will come a day when I might not want to come back to it. But if I keep slogging away at five hundred? Then I have a chance. Maybe. Hopefully.

It’s also important to stop at my marker because, well, it means I’m usually having to stop in the middle of a thought. And if I do that, then I’ll be more likely to want to pick up the writing again the next day. Or at least that’s the hope.

We’ll see how it goes. I’ll let you know.

But should you, if you’re a writerly sort, set a daily quota for yourself? Maybe. Try it out and see if it works. If you do, though, make sure it’s an achievable goal. Heck, do like me and make it something that is waaaay less than achievable for you. Is that 100-words-per-day? Fifty? Two? Whatever it is, set it, stick to it, and then, after you’ve been at it for a while (a month? two?), re-evaluate. Maybe then you can up the number. Or maybe you need to drop it lower.

But keep at it and, eventually, one word after another … you’ll have a novel.

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(By the way? The above is a little under 1000 words. Does it count toward my 500? Nope. Not part of the novel)