Writing speed questions

[Laeraneth]

My input here is likely to be fairly useless amongst all the others, but I'm sort of reassured that everyone is different and yet it still seems to work, so...

I seem to go in surges. First third (more like the first quarter by the end) took quite a while, but was constant. Then there was a period of editing that to death before I continued through properly. The next little section (perhaps to the half way mark) didn't take long, then I ploughed fully into what I thought would be the back half, which took a detour I hadn't expected, became the third quarter, and then largely stopped just short of the end.
Then a few months of editing, pondering, tweaking bits and pieces ensued.
Then backtracking and adjusting and editing previous areas, inserting a whole couple more chapters and tidying things up.
THEN what was wrong with my 'near end' piece finally became clear, I reworked that and then pretty much finished.

I say pretty much finished, because I'm now stuck in one of those languishing periods where I look at it, edit it a bit, tweak it slightly, but can't quite finish it.

So... yeah... surges

I have a week booked off work in a couple of weeks time and have every intention of finally finishing it to my satisfaction then. (obviously there's still going to be editing and reworking to go, but structurally, and storywise, the whole thing will be 'done')

if I don't finish it then, I may have to give myself a bloody good talking to! It's been almost done for far too long.

 

[ZombieWife]

I am faster now, yes, but I turn off my internal editor and just "GO." I'm much slower with academic writing because of a shift in writing style and voice.

It was only when I just stopped:

1. Trying to be perfect
2. Editing as I went

... that I was able to amp up my word count. But, this is one of those things where everyone will be different. I spend 90% of my time in revision. Drafting isn't an issue at all.

 

[Chel]

Wait, what? Are we supposed to actually finish our stories? ...

Ok. I have two first drafts for novels and a few drafts for short stories and some pieces of flash fiction I consider more or less done. And numerous abandoned or set-side-for-now side projects. It wasn't until a few years ago (maybe half way through the first draft of the first novel) that I started taking it more seriously, this whole writing-thing.

I have definitely improved in all areas - now if I could only learn to plot, too! And edit.. that's the scary part for me. However, I'm in the lucky position of being able to focus on writing fulltime now, so when I do write, I binge-write. NaNoWriMo and Camp Nano help me a great deal with this, although I don't subscribe to quantity over quality. I refuse to just spew out any and all words just because they're words - probably because I still haven't figured out the editing part, and I figure the less editing I need to eventually do, the better off I will be in the long run.

Having said that, this July I wrote 85k in 24-25 days. I would have written more if I hadn't finished the story by then, and my head was still so firmly in it that I couldn't even think about writing something else the rest of the time. I did use a couple of "tricks" though - I tried to stop writing for the day sort of mid-flow, and put down a few notes on what was going to happen next. I also tried to always beat if not the previous day's word count, then at least the average.

So, yes, I did set out to improve my writing speed, and I did. But the main goal was to tell the story to the best of my abilities and actually finish it.

IF I had a good plot idea and well-behaving characters and the time (which is the only one out of those three I have right now) I could probably produce a first draft of 100k words in a month and a half. The speed I had in July was perhaps a bit much... but I think it depends on the genre as well. In SFF you have your whole world building and all the restrictions (and freedoms!) to keep in mind as well as everything else, whereas anything set in this reality is/seems a lot easier.

 

[Terence Park]

Interesting.
First draft 60k words, 3½ months.
I'm not a natural writer. It took 3 self-edits, 2 rewrites, 2 restructures and 3 years until I had the confidence (confidence? desperation!) to get it edited professionally. But that's fast-forwarding to the end of the line.

Originally I did 600 words / day. Now I do more. How much? Not tested as I'm holding back on developing novels. In my head, I think I'd be pushing it if I tried to sustain 2k words per day.

Improving my speed wasn't important; what was, was improving the quality of my output.

If I was to do a novel, I'd allow 20k per month. Obviously I'd expect to do it faster, but it's an easy figure that allows for back-flushing ideas that occur as you get stuck in.

As far as an agent is concerned, I'd say "bring the publisher in, I'll talk to him". As an accountant, I'd probably be infuriating. ;-) A slightly less ingenuous answer would be to say: "give me the space and I'll crank out annual product". Of course you never get the space because you need to work the circuit. Heigh-ho.

Definitely have more properties under development. Once you're in, the ground rules may deter you from offering new visions. Your relationship with your publisher will get typecast.

I haven't tied up with a publisher so, although I get the issue about writing pace, I've nothing to add.

 

[K.S. Crooks]

The first novel I wrote took me a while, since I became stuck a few times. While I was writing that I worked on the outlines for two other ideas. When I finally finished the first novel I began working on one of the stories for which I had an outline. This made the writing of the new novel go very quickly. The editing took as long as the writing and felt very tedious and frustrating at times. While I was working with the publisher to get my book out I began the outline for the sequel, which I am writing now.
I have changed to writing a chapter then editing it for a few days, then write the next chapter. Also every three chapters I give to my wife to read and find mistakes. I am hoping this way will produce an even better story or at least eliminate most of the editing frustration. I write whenever I can, usually everyday. I don't place deadlines on my completion of chapters or the entire novel, however I do set deadlines for my editing as I generally like to get it done at a steady pace and the people who help me usually have their own schedules to keep. Good luck to everyone.