Word counts can be your friend

I was talking to Helen Howell, Adam Byatt and Larry Kollar last night about word counts, particularly since I was pleased I'd managed to put in 1800 words on my sequel to The Guns of Retribution . It sounds like a lot, but I've been working on a schedule of 500 words per day. It's a manageable amount, so that if I have to miss a day, I can catch up the following day with little effort, but I'm more inclined to write since it's "only" 500 words. If I want to write more, then I do, but I usually stick to my word count.



Why am I doing this? Well I'm aiming at a total word count of 30,000 as it's a novella, and I figured I could write my novella in just sixty days if I wrote 500 words every day. As I've said, 500 is a small enough amount to make it manageable, and it's a large enough amount to make a daily dent in my target. I've never skipped more than two days in a row, and as such, I'm still on schedule to finish the first draft by the end of March. It also means that I have time to work on the sequel, as well as working on my PhD and writing a weekly Friday flash. WIN!



I'm only really talking about it for the benefit of the people who say they don't have time to write. If you're the type who feels like you've not really done any work unless you've sat down and blitzed 2000 words in one sitting then no, you possibly don't have time. But if you're happy to chip away at your target on a daily basis, then you'll find 500 word instalments add up in no time. I'm already at 19,000 words! Since I've found 500 words easy enough to manage, I'm intending to up my limit to 1000 words when I come to write my next novella.



So give daily word counts a go and see how much more of that novel you manage to get down.