Tuesday, January 10, 2012

One Thousand Words

I saw on Facebook and Twitter that people are doing #1000wordhour, which means you have to write one thousand words in an hour? I'm asking because I'm never certain about where these challenges start or how they go. This is a challenge I could never involve myself in, mostly because I hand write my books. Therefore, after an hour I would have to sit and count every word written. That doesn't sound very fun. But if I did type my books, I think setting a goal to write 1,000 words in an hour would freak me out. I'd start typing random words like, "turd" and "help" just to fill the quota. I can totally understand why someone would use a challenge like this to inspire writing; it's always helpful to set a goal, and if this is a goal that works for you, then go for it. Are any of my readers working on this challenge? Or do you do any of the other writing challenges out there? I'm very curious how well they work for you, or what other goals you set to help you get your writing accomplishments fulfilled.

As for me, the way I set writing goals is generally to sit down with a set amount of available time, usually two hours. I do not allow myself to go online, and I make certain I will not be interrupted. Then I write until I complete a chapter, or two, depending on length. If I finish under the time amount, I still stop. I don't like to leave a chapter incomplete because I feel like I'm leaving a thought incomplete. I tend to average about ten pages (handwritten) in an hour. In two hours, I write between fifteen and twenty pages. I don't know how many words that is, but I guess it doesn't matter because I finish writing the book eventually. I don't count pages as a I write, but when I'm finished I write the page numbers in the upper right hand corner. Seeing the numbers go up gives me a sense of accomplishment, just as I'm sure seeing the number of words get to 1,000 does for today's challenge takers.

Isn't it funny how all of us writers are setting goals by numbers and not letters? (Oh my god. Did that sound like some sort of Family Circus punchline?)

1 comment:

Teenage Librarian said...

Wait a second, how did I miss this? You HAND WRITE your books? Really? You've probably already explained it.. but why?