The miracle of focus
Yesterday Michael Stackpole asked me if I had tracked my words per hour rate. I never had. I know, if I know what I’m writing about, I can write a 1000 word essay in half an hour, but I hadn’t tracked ficiton.
So I made myself not look at email or IM while I wrote, and just focused on the scene.
I did ~1000 words in 34 minutes.
Sometimes I wonder if I should be going for time rather than wordcount. Then again, that would mean some days I would sit here and write a paragraph and then stare at the screen for an hour and be done.
It’s all about the focus, really. If I can MAKE myself ignore distractions, I can get a lot done. But that, unfortunately, is a big if.
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About the Author: I am a writer and podcast producer, writing for magazines and RPGs. I am a wanna-be fiction writer with several short fiction, comic scripts, and one novel sale. Playing For Keeps will be out August, '08.
post.lit | Aug 29, 2005 | Reply
You might want to change your comment settings on blogger so that you don’t need a blogger account to comment. If you are worried about spam there is also a feature that makes it so you have to type a scrambled word thing.
Just a thought.
john, aka words.scathing.net
aka… a blogger account I never use
Gatsby | Aug 29, 2005 | Reply
If I tracked my word count per hour, I would spend more time worrying about my word count and less time on what I was writing. Atleast thats what “I” would do. Im a little obsessive compulsive. Haha.
PaulJ | Sep 7, 2005 | Reply
> I did ~1000 words in 34 minutes.
2000 words an hour?? That’s amazing!
(I normally use 500 w/hr when I’m working out how long it’s likely to take me to write fiction.)