I was going to title it New Daily High, but figured that could be misconstrued in these days of marijuana (“weed”, or “joints”, or “jazz cigarettes”, if you will) being legal.
With my usual part-time work being on indefinite hold, and now that my teacherwife and studentdaughter are finally both back to in-class learning *crosses fingers that at least the latter stays the case*, I’ve been getting (relatively) a lot of writing done.
Like, a lot.
Two days ago I unexpectedly found that I’d written in excess of 4000 words. I don’t know the exact number, because I don’t know precisely where the word counts were when I started on the few files I worked in, but I know it generally, so can safely say it was 4000+. And that was easily a new daily word count high for me.
So, yay!
Then I was remembering that Chuck Wendig, one of the professional writers I’ve been getting newsletters from for years, had mentioned in at least one of his blog posts about daily word counts that he had managed to get over 10,000 words in the past (and that he didn’t recommend it).
And the thought struck me: Hey, if I can get to 4000 words unexpectedly, and I didn’t start right when I was free in the morning, and didn’t go for as long as I perhaps could have, is there a chance that I could do 10,000 words in a day?
So yesterday, after running a brief errand and with a day pretty clear of other needs, I set to it.
In the first couple of hours, I’d already gotten over 4000. Averaging over 2000 words an hour? I’ll take that any day.
And then I ignored the count for a while, because writing isn’t about focusing on word count (at least, not outside being students in the school system, am I right?), it’s about writing. It’s about getting into the subject and losing yourself in the work.
So I did that for a while, and was going like gangbusters.
I took a quick break for lunch–gotta fuel the machine, you dig?–and to charge the laptop. Then I kept going while standing up where the laptop has to get plugged in.
Writing while standing up? Madness!
Then I did more writing.
And more still.
Had to run out to pick up the kiddo from school, connect with my wife who was accompanying said kiddo to a hair style appointment, and then I was back home and back to writing and kept at it until they were back with dinner.
I took a break to eat with them, did a little more writing after that, and could’ve done more still, but frankly wanted to actually spend time with my family (weird, right?).
I did a tally for the full day.
11,134 words was the grand total.
Take that, self from Thursday impressed by 4000!
I should mention that most of that total wasn’t on the novel I’m working on, but the essays I’ve been pretty stoked about writing. And the stoked-ness comes from them being topics I want to talk about, which of course makes working on them pretty easy. And easy writing is quick writing.
Will I ever do that again? Maybe. I’m good without trying for a while, because again, it’s not about the word count.
Except when it is. 🙂
Onward!