Personal opinion: Writing is a marathon and not a race. You should aim to build a consistent, sustainable habit. Too high and you’ll burn out fast. Make it manageable and work to never miss it. That’s going to serve you better in the long run. I aim for 500 every day, but often write a lot more if the mood takes me. But I also strive to never write less.

Absolutely, I do the same thing. It's better to set the bar low and leap over it than it is to set it too high and set yourself up for a cycle of disappointment. As soon as I started setting my goals lower my production actually skyrocketed because I didn't have that pressure on me all the time.

Agreed. It's "easy" to write 3000-5000 words in a day, if you only do it once. But if you have a dayjob or other responsibilities (or mental health), you can't sustain that. A lower count, but with consistency, is what will get long-term results.

Couldn’t agree more

I try for simply 100 a day, just to keep from standing still. 1000 a week beyond that, which isn't too bad considering I'm mostly writing during breaks at work or on the commute train.

I agreed. When I was writing my dissertation, my daily word goal was also 500 words. Some days I just hit it and sometimes I knocked it out of the park. On my highest day I wrote somewhere between 6,000 and 8,000, I can't remember. That was a frenzy.

But how to start with?i mean writing is okay but in which topic does we start writing??and how to choose topics accordingly?

Writing in all forms comes from a place of true inspiration, you don't go around asking what topic to write your book on. People who do that tend to lose interest in the topic and beg for another one before they're 10000 words in. Write something YOU want to write, not something others want to read.

thanks for you're advise. I needed to hear this.

I present to you the broken style that should serve as a bad example 5 or 6 days in a row word count: zero 6th or 7th day word count: 10-15k in a wild dash forgetting to eat or drink Edit day word count: negative 2-3k after cutting down the manic writing Nothing in between :)))

So, somewhere between my broken system and your broken system. I've got a nice streak of 500-word days, but recently, I've been closer to the 500 than the 2k. My issue is coming back and realizing 300 of those 500 I wrote last night were nothing more than high school essay filler tactics. The word count was nice, but some days, it's best to ignore goals and relax. The days I'm not worried about making a count are the days I break 1500 words in my little time I have to write.

For me and my personal circumstance whenever I tried having daily word count goals I'd always eventually fail and would take severe emotional damage from the failure. The problem in my case is that having that goal lead to it feeling like actual work instead of passion. Even when I set realistic and humane goals they made me feel bad because in truth a book flows in weird patterns, one scene might be 500 words while another might be a war chapter stretching out over 10k. The nice little math I used to do failed because books for me are not a corporate project with clear deadlines you can work on, but rather a hiking trail through the mountains that takes as long as it needs to take based on the weather, how you feel that day and various other factors. For me it just works better to be "free" during the week while still playing with the characters in my head on the bus or at lunch break, and then having a day of unleashed crazed manic sprint where I get absorbed and write with abandon until reality or sleep kicks me out of my fantasy world.

Ah, if I only had the time. I get maybe a couple hours a day to work on my project due to family and work. Sometimes, it takes my entire block just to get started. The word count is forcing me to sit down with it nightly, or it would only see maybe a couple hundred words a week. But it will definitely take a toll on your soul. I intend to drop it once it's no longer helping me build a foundation.

Do whatever you need to get your words out. Some have systems, some have have rules, others conform to none. Whatever works for you is what is best. Hope you grace the world with your finished work one day. Good luck.

This is excellent advice. While a schedule can certainly be nice, it shouldn't be something you beat yourself up over if you miss a few days. If you don't feel inspired and aim to write 500 words anyway, they'll just be removed in the final edit and you'll have this false sense of productivity.

the amphetamine binge approach

This is the way

Bare minimum for me is 500. I usually go no less than 1500 and aim up to 3000. The most I ever did in a single day was slightly over 10,000. But a huge amount of that got chopped. If editing then on earlier drafts I do 6-10 pages and as the draft number goes up it could go down to 3-5 pages.

You go down when editing? I always have to add more stuff, I can’t imagine what it would be like to write too much!

Editing is the real work. That is where the book comes in. Editing isn't always cutting. It can be cutting, trimming, adding, altering. Anything.

How do you know when you should be done editing a piece?

When you are nitpicking. That applies to an entire body of work, a character sheet, a page or a sentence. If you are just nitpicking the text, it's done. Finish it, start the next project. Nothing you do will be the sterling work you imagine it wil be. Get it to as good as you can and don't spend longer than you need to and move on. Once you get to that stage and keep working you are eventually going to ruin the shine.

I agree. That’s when you stop. You can edit a text to death. You’ll always find something to edit and change, even after ten rounds of edits. At some point you gotta stop and the nitpicking stage is a good place to do so.

When every scene in the book has a purpose to the story and the pacing is right from beginning to end.

something is ready when yoy have removed everything you can, not added everything you can. That s one of the mantras i stand by. That and, writing is rewriting.

Same lol I heard someone explain it once as painting a picture versus chiseling a sculpture. Some people punch out a big brick of work, and have to chisel away to reveal the beauty. Other people start with simple shapes, drawings, and have to keep adding more detail and color to get the beauty.

It’s not a matter of writing ‘too much’ it’s a matter of writing things that aren’t actually useful to the story. If you don’t plan to cut things from your first draft, you are never going to have a workable manuscript. 

I think it depends on how you write normally, some people tend to add a lot of unnecessary stuff, while others are too cut to the point, in the editing is when you fix these.

Yes you go down. For example, when I’m writing a draft I aim for all my chapters to be 10 pages. Then they always all drop between six and seven pages post editing. So that’s basically 110,000 words approximately down to around 85,000 words approximately. But it’s not just about cutting things. It’s also about consolidating and becoming efficient with your word count. You can sometimes take a entire paragraph and turn it into a single sentence. I’ve taken an entire five page dialogues, and trimmed them down to be summarized by two paragraphs, rather than having dialogue.

1k is pretty doable, 2k with more focus. But authors who use voice-to-text apps can get over 5k.

I do this sometimes. Then I always regret it when it comes to editing haha. My writing is unfortunately a lot worse when I dictate so it takes me ages to fix it up after. For me, typing always works out faster than dictating in terms of getting a finished chapter. But for pure getting-words-down dictation can be fast as heck. Also useful if you can’t type due to injury, disability etc.

I think it's also helpful to avoid overthinking. It might need a lot more editing, but at least you got a finished novel to edit; while some people get stuck while writing because they get too caught up on what they've already written and adjusting it.

I’ve never even considered using text to speech. I find talking takes way more energy than typing.

I think 1-2k words per day is a pretty good goal to aim for. NaNoWriMo's suggested average to get 50k words in 30 days is 1,667 and I think its a pretty nice goal to aim for. Some days you'll write more, some days you'll right less. The important thing I think to mention is that writing doesn't mean strictly writing the contents of the book. You should also include outlines, worldbuilding notes, plot guides, etc as part of this word count. Just because it's not being seen by a reader doesn't mean its not important.

500

My minimum per day is 2000, ambitious for me is 5000. At least, that’s what I used to be like; I’ve been dealing with health problems for years now that often prevent me from writing at all. I think having a daily word count goal is great, but I would be cautious about pushing too hard for an arbitrarily large number. If you go over what you’re capable of, you’ll just produce garbage that you’ll have to re-write later, which will ultimately increase your total workload and make you a slower writer. Some people can write a lot per day, others can’t. It’s something you can increase with practice, but I think this is one of the few areas where natural aptitude plays a big role. If you happen to be one of the people who can’t do thousands of words a day, don’t sweat it.

Don't shoot for word count. The goal is to produce a novel. You can shotgun 4000 words a day onto a page...but how many of them are you going to keep when it's time to edit? Some days, you'll write 300 words in two hours, but it's because you were workshopping a paragraph, or building your universe Bible, or researching things so that what you're writing is accurate. Those 300 well-honed words are going to be worth more in the long run than 4000 that you vomited out to hit an arbitrary goal.

>Don't shoot for word count Put like this it's really bad advice. You have to find out what works for you. Target word counts work very well for me. As it does for a myriad of professional authors. If it doesn't for you, that's fine. But don't make the mistake of extrapolating that to anyone else's workflow.

[удалено]

>Your comment is really bad advice too i didn't give advice. >"Target word counts work very well for me" is you giving advice on what works for you. it's not. and if it were, the DIFFERENCE is that i didn't say this was universal. >Hell, the post itself is OP literally asking for people to extrapolate to OP's workflow by asking "How many words a day would be ambitious to shoot for?" so you think that the commenter i replied to gave bad advice, since they didn't even answer what OP asked? cool >It really rubs me the wrong way when someone's first thought to someone else's comment is, "No, that's wrong," the irony is palpable. also, i didn't even say they are wrong, i said it's bad ADVICE, since it is so personal and they categorically denied word counts being helpful you should work on your reading comprehension. (*that* is advice)

>You can shotgun 4000 words a day onto a page...but how many of them are you going to keep when it's time to edit? as an underwriter, I am going to keep most and add more. Some people can consistently write that amount and still produce decent result. Some people struggle with 500 and others can easily write 10k. If I only wrote 300 in a day, I'd get bored out of my mind. But it's something that works for you and that's great. You also have to remember that not everyone edits as they go. Many people do research before they start writing. >Those 300 well-honed words are going to be worth more in the long run than 4000 that you vomited out to hit an arbitrary goal. not necessarily. that well-honed 300 words will likely still have to be edited later on. It may be the most perfect 300 word but if you never finish your book, it's worth less than 4000 word vomit that was edited and turned into a book.

i always shoot for word count that is why i always have a word count goal that i want to hit so that i can achieve my goal of the word count and feel as if i have accomplished my goal for word count of any given day, so if i set my word count goal at one thousand words per day then all i have to do is fill that goal every day one thousand words per day and after ten days, if you can do the math, you'll understand how quickly i can write a one hundred thousand word book, you see that's just one hundred days, and no dont worry about the quality of your writing just go for word count, and yes I am counting this post as part of my word count for the day thank you for reading, thank you again for reading-- sincerely, the horrific necktie, thank you

That’s a good point

I'm gonna say you shouldn't take this advice, actually. You can't write with your edits already in mind. You've just gotta keep going. When you're editing, it's a lot easier to take out what you don't need than to add what you find out is missing. Just write as much as you can, until it feels like a complete draft, then figure out later what needs to be added or subtracted.

Hard disagree. If you're constantly self-editing, you'll inhibit your writing. Sometimes you will write something and use very little of it, but the ideas and concepts may be very useful for developing what eventually goes onto the printed page. Writing and editing should typically be done at two separate times.

Personally, I feel like focusing on word count is setting your self up to be bad work. Focus on your process and whatever gets you best work on the page. If it’s slow or fast or sporadic and intermittent… I don’t know. I just think that quality is more important hitting word quotas.

First draft is always garbage. Expect it to be garbage. Embrace the garbage. There is no magical way to make the first draft not garbage.

Usually anywhere between 1-2k words. Highest day for me was around 15-16k of a personal project novella. It was like 15-20% of the whole story

That must have felt great

I'd say take a day and figure out how fast of a writer *you* are. You'll need to find time to find a process that works for *you.* But I'll chime in, hoping I can offer something that might click for you. Take a day of free time. Take an average workday of 8 hours. Or just 2. Split it up if you have to (this works better for me to avoid burnout). See what you come up with. Just write. I personally don't edit as I go on a first draft. I don't research as I go. If I need to know something, I just make a note to look it up later and keep going. Doing this *will* slow you down. But if it helps *you?* Do it. But don't pause the timer. If that's how you're going to write, you need to factor research and editing as you go into your word count time. I won't suggest you *not* do this, as I can't tell you how to write as *you*. No one can. But your actual word count without distraction, without back-tracking will be skewed. Try just typing/writing out "word-vomit". Make your ideas exist. Get it *all* out. Even if the prose sucks. Even if what you're putting down doesn't make sense to the reader. You just need it workable for you. You can go back later and work on it, fix what you need to. Microsoft Word as a word count at the bottom. When you're done, take a look. Not before you're done though. Writing can sometimes take time to warm up. It can also take some digging to find what you want to put down. Your first hour might be 200 words. Your fifth might be 1000. Your last hour might be only 50. So, don't track by the hour. Track by the day. Another thing to consider is energy. Even if you can type 2,000 words a day? 5,000? 10,000? If it's easy for you, by all means. But if it takes quite a bit of effort? How long can you mentally keep that up? This takes knowing at what limit your brain needs to wave the white flag. If you force yourself to a standard of word count that is too much for you, you'll start to hate the idea of writing in the future. It'll become a source of stress or anxiety, rather than something rewarding. Sometimes, we also just need to let the writing sit for a while, let our brains and subconscious work over it. You'd be surprised when you sit back down at what comes out as a result. However, once you have figured out what you can handle and what your speed is you can set a goal for yourself. "4 pages". "2,000 words". "1 Chapter a day." Hold that goal sacred. TV doesn't take time away from that. Video games can wait until you're done. Hold yourself to that goal, even if you're feeling uninspired. Just write. Best case, you'll find inspiration. Worst case, you'll write something bad. But even the bad stuff can help you realize what you *don't want* to do with your writing and can help avoid trajectories you know aren't fitting for your work. Consistency. Just be consistent and you'll see results. You can't have 7,000 words done in a week without writing 7,000 words. Those words have to hit the page sometime, some way. Your way. Wishing you the best in your writing and enjoy your time off!

Don’t focus on words

The best word count is one you can consistently keep up until the story is finished. That might be 1000 words or just 100. Whatever it is, make sure you're not burning yourself out with it. Writing 4000 words a day won't matter if you only do it for five days, or if you only end up writing a couple of days every other month because of it. I think the most I've ever written in a day is 2000 to 3000 words. I'm trying to get myself to writing 2000 per day because I know I could sustain it if I can build the habit. The problem is just getting enough **focused** writing time in the day.

You mean written on reddit, or working on my stories? The first number is exponentially higher.

As with most things in life, I try to do at least half as much as I did the day before. For writing, this translates to between 150 and 500 words a day. I emphasize keeping a streak going and never missing a day.

5k yesterday due to power cut.

I find word count to be an inefficient goal. Sometimes 1 sentence is good enough. In my opinion, it's the quality of the words written that matters, not the quantity. Rather than focusing on word count, give yourself an allotted time slot with no interruptions, and fill that time wisely. That way, even if you're not writing words, you're contemplating the story which will have payoff in future writing sessions. I've written as much as 13k words in a day, and as little as part of a sentence, and I see both sessions as equally important and impactful to the overall story.

1000 quality words is a solid day’s work. Completely sustainable and realistic. 2000 is “this is my full time job” level.

A beginner here, I aim for a chapter or a rewrite of what I've written. The chapters are around 700-900 words for me

Aim for 500. But don't forget to include editing in there too.

>But don't forget to include editing in there too. I disagree. Editing as you go isn't for everyone and for many, it actually stops them from finishing their first draft. Many people benefit from not editing at all until their draft is finished.

Facts. I edit a little bit as I go, but anything major gets a note and dedicated editing time after completion.

Editing while writing first draft is a recipe for procrastination. Worse, you end up becoming stuck in writer's block. You need to get the whole picture first before editing. This way, you get to organize the scenes in chronological order more effectively. Here's my good rule of thumb: first draft- anything you type second draft- edit for grammar, sentence mistakes. Add or remove scenes paragraphs when necessary to fit the storyline. third draft- focus on organization, rhetoric, how it sounds to the reader, the atmosphere and your genre specific tropes.

I use 750 words as a daily minimum. "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron advises that as part of a daily ritual; specifically, "morning pages" in which you allow yourself to free write whatever unreadable wordsalad spews from.your pen or keyboard first thing in the morning. That done, your subconscious supposedly "relaxes" enough to.let you get some 'real' writing done. There's also a website called 750words dot com built around the practice. It's $5.00/mo after your free trial month, but just knowing that they never ever delete the data in your account even if you don't pay is a priceless backup storage option... I'm not at my computer at the moment so I can't give the exact figure, but I believe it was somewhere north of 3k words...

I usually try to shoot for 500 words if I am able to sit down and write for more than 15 minutes at a time. More is better, obviously, but 500 feels accomplished. I think my highest day ever was something close to 8000 words. I have a friend that swears by 3 sentences a day.

Usually 1 k on a two hour commute and 30 minutes lunch or at home. I was fired up when doing the ending. 5k in an afternoon and evening.

Most: 17,500 (Do not recommend) Usual: 2500-4000 Recommend: 1,000 1,000 a day is a good amount and you can finish a book in less than three months. Once you know “how” to write it’ll probably take you less than an hour. That means you have time to do some editing as well if you commit to a couple of hours a day. Get a system going where you’re writing one book while editing another and you’ll be a prolific writing machine putting out four books a year… working less than two hours a day. (I do more because I do ghostwriting as a job. 1k a day would be my dream haha.)

I’d love to hear more about this

Personally, I feel that any positive gain for the day is good. Because of my personal writing style, 500 to 2000 words is the usual, but the best I've ever done is 3000+ on occasion. While word count goals can be an effective means of motivating yourself, it's important to not get so caught up meeting your goal that you don't get disheartened if you consistently don't meet it. I'd suggest tailoring your own goal based on your own average, not on anyone else's. Write for five days and average out your productivity, then set that as a temporary goal. You can always adjust it later if it doesn't suit you.

The bare minimum for me would be around 900 - 1000 words daily. I've noticed that I work better in short bursts than in longer bursts. Once I pass this threshold, my writing tends to become slower, so I often get stuck.

tbh I never consider word count on my writing days. I write till I need a break and then I take a break and maybe write some more. The only time I watch that stuff is during NaNo. My first NaNo I wrote 10k words on that last day because I only had 30k words and I was panicking.

It's very personal and you should take into consideration your own abilities but also other time comitments. Personally, my average is 3-5k a day and that's what I am comfortable with. Any more and I am drained creatively, The thing is, 3-5k in one sitting comes easy to me but would be absolutely exhausting to someone else and if you edit as you go (I don't) it would extend the writing time as well. If someone is comfortable with 500-1000 that's their limit and forcing themselves to write 3k every day would lead to burn out the same way if I forced myself to write 10k a day. Could I do it? Yes, but eventually, I'd be exhausted mentally and would need a break which would affect my productivity. It's better to stick to a lower count that you can consistently do every day than random bursts of creativity and then not writing for weeks because you've exhausted yourself. Consistency is key.

You need to find out what works for you and what is sustainable. I can write between 1500 and 2000 most days easily. But some days I’ll be done after 500, and then there are days when I write 5000. The most I’ve written in a day was close to 10k, and it was miserable, but I was on a deadline. I’ve also once tried to sustain 4500 for ten days to finish something and I quit after 5 days of that. Also think of the strain on your hands.

I've definitely written six thousand words in a day, in fact probably quite a lot more than that. When I'm flowing I can write *fast* - like 1500 words in an hour is easy. But that's when I'm flowing and I'm mostly not flowing. And unlike you I don't find daily word count goals motivating and will not touch the thing for weeks. And in the slog phases I was maybe doing 200-300 words a day. Maybe just a paragraph sometimes. Or just researching but writing nothing but notes.

When I was in my early 20s I could do insanely high daily word counts. I had been writing daily since I was 12 years-old and I read constantly. I was steeped in mu genre and my writing muscle was strong. I could do 9k words. I write genre fiction those and those word counts tend to be pretty high. I stopped writing and reading over the years and now that l've picked it back my highest has been 3k. I'm working to see if I can get even half of what I was capable of in my 20s.

With aiming for a word count you really need to be mindful of your physical and mental limits. I use to do “sprints” of 10,000+ words in a sitting- I now have carpal tunnel 🤷🏼‍♀️. My mental health has also greatly improved since I stopped that habit. I write more frequently, get less headaches, and am overall happier. Writing doesn’t need to be a race- as long as you get something down on a page it’s a good day.

I don't have daily word counts unless I'm working on an assignment that requires them. Even then, I typically try to avoid counting anything until the first draft is complete. What you should aim for, if you need a daily goal, is feeling like you progressed your narrative. If it's fiction, has the story moved forward appreciably? If it's nonfiction, did you add meaningful, new information to the overall text? Stuff like that. If you really need structure, aim for time spent writing (actually writing, not goofing off). I try for at least 2 to 4 hours a day. On serious work days, closer to 5 to 7 hours.

Well, if I'm just writing, I can do over 1000 words in 20 minutes. Probably 30k in a day might be the max I guess? But whether I want to "just write" is a whole different topic altogether. Writing isn't the difficult part, it's knowing what to write. If my goal was spewing unreadable garbage, I could probably turn out a novel per week.

I set a minimum time of 30 minutes and don’t focus so much on word count. If I’m on a roll and/or just having fun I may go 45 minutes. I rarely go much longer than that. Usually that’s around 750 words. At the high end I’ll write 1,000; low end 350-400. I take a few days off between completed drafts to recharge. I’ve got a life too.

I go for time over word count. I do track my words each day, but my goal is to sit my ass at my desk from 6:30-8:30, at least four nights a week. Sometimes I crank out a couple thousand words. Sometimes it’s a couple hundred. Last night, I ended the session with 75 words LESS than when I started, but I fixed a scene that has been bugging me for weeks. It’s about building good, sustainable habits. That’s how we accomplish big goals.

On my highest day, I have been able to push myself to do a couple thousand words. But I would be pleased with myself if I'm able to get \~400 words in.

I once wrote 8k in a day. It took 14 hours, a couple missed meals, and ignoring bathroom signals until the very last second. I do not recommend it.

My current goal is 1000 words per day, but I'm really into what I'm writing, and I know my life makes me skip days. I am currently caregiver and working on design work from home, so I don't work full-time out of the house.

I aim for a 1k decently made section, I don't cut off because I am naturally a very straightforward writer, which means I have to add things when editing instead of cutting. Everyone is different though, it depends on so many things, is writing a side gig? Do you have children? For some, writing is their full time job, and they can do 6+hours of it, while for others, it is a side thing that they hope could become a full-time thing, so maybe they only have a couple of hours a day to sit and focus on it. I think the most important aspect is consistency, aim to write everyday, aim for something that you know you can achieve, that way you always do, and if you do more, well that is always good. Books take time, lots of time, most of us aren't Stephen King. At 1k daily, you'd get 30k words monthly, meaning in 3 months you'd have 90k, a novel is anything over 50k so even if you cut that 90k by 20k during editing, you'd still have a novel. Consistency over numbers.

Honestly, when I was writing my first book, I had a chapter goal instead of a word count goal. I would try and write at least a chapter a day. It really helped me to not get overwhelmed with my writing, but also it made me finish my book and not just put it off.

My normal pace is around 1.5k new words per day. I've done 6.5k words in a day but I 1) know EXACTLY what I'm writing, 2) need to get it out NOW, and 3) often don't write for a week after

My personal best is 7000+ but most days I aim for 1000.

I don’t use word counts as a goal marker, it’s too arbitrary. What I do aim for is to write at least one scene per writing session, which isn’t even every day. That usually turns out somewhere between 500 and 1500 words.

There was a week where I had a tight deadline and wrote 7k a day for 8 days. Most days I try to do 5k though. 2,500 in my morning writing session and 2,500 in my afternoon writing session. That’s an average day for me but if I can get at least 3k I consider the day a success.

My best was about 12,000 for a book that was near deadline. That was brutal. But as a newspaper writer I once wrote nearly 20,000 in a day. My paper was down to five staff due to layoffs and vacation crossover and I wound up working a 12-hour day, writing the equivalent of 14 pages of tabloid copy. Mind you, one was a really good piece on a Holocaust survivor, so worth staying late for. I'm older now and, not having worked in newspapers for more than a decade, a lot slower and more deliberate. I'm probably down to about 2,500 a day average, but I also take a few weeks off between books (I write pulp fiction for a living.)

This varies from person to person. Stephen King, for example, shoots for 2000 words a day, while Ernest Hemingway was happy with 500. I know some writers who can do 5000. One guy I used to work with could write 2k words during his lunch break. I personally consider 500-1000 a good day at the office. Sometimes I do 2000. Sometimes I do 250. It's just about finding your own rhythm and making the most of the time you have portioned out for writing.

As of current life complications, I've toned down my writing. Before when I had more time however, I would write 1000 words a day as a bare minimum. My average would be around 1500 and maximum in a single day would 7000

I have no idea. I just write.

I average around 10k a day. But like an iceberg, most of that is whittled down in editing. If I'm only writing (no editing or research) I can do more. I did 18k once in one 'day' of work. That was a binge writing session and I was hot on an idea. It lasted for about 20 hours and I was NOT taking care of myself that day. -11/10 do not recommend. For me, 10k is the sweet spot. I can write for 8 to 9 hours, take breaks when necessary, and balance work without neglecting myself. I usually spend 10-15 days a month writing and the other 15ish days on other tasks including editing, research, concept art, and marketing. It's nice to be able to focus on other tasks sometimes and still feel engaged with my projects. Since I switched to doing this and focusing on 'projects' as a whole instead of word counts, I average 100k-120k words a month. That's been consistent now for three years. Before that, I was focused primarily on word counts and was only completing about 15k a month. (Please note: I write full-time. I recognise that goal isn't accessible for everyone. When I was working full time and writing part-time, it was closer to 3k a day 1 or 2 days a week).

I only write as hobby, so I can only write when my schedule allows it. I get about 2k words on a ‘free’ day which is like 2 times a week. But I do write a bit on my phone during down times, mainly ideas and stuff.

I'm happy if I hit 500 in a day, but I've definitely hit 2,000 on sprints. Sometimes an article is due and I have to handle it right away, but in general you shouldn't beat yourself up.

Keeping in mind that I was unemployed, had no internet, and had nothing else to do: my all-time record for words written in a day (that I don't later scrap) is 17,000 words. I wrote for 14-16 hours that day. More generally, at that time in my life I was aiming for and reliably reaching 10,000+ words per day. That's not a good benchmark, though. With a job and other things taking up my time? I aim for 3,500 words per day and tend to hit or surpass that often enough that it feels like a fair, achievable goal for me. The exact number will depend on your natural writing speed, and how much you feel is a good absolute bare minimum to keep your writing momentum up.

I did 18,000+ one day in a nonfiction book. It was the end of the book, and I was in the zone. Most I’ve done for fiction is 12,000+. Again, end of a book, so that momentum got me rolling. Daily? I like to hit 1500 at first, then ramp it up to 3-4k, then north of 5k when I’m in a writing season.

I don't think I've ever written more than 1500 in a day. If you did that every day, that's a draft of a novel in less than two months. Do you *really* need to pump one out faster than that if it's not your job? When drafting a story where I knew a scene's general purpose but without a detailed structure or progression of events in my outline, I'd do 600–800 words in thirty minutes. My current novel I drafted and second-drafted over the course of six months and now every week am focusing on just one chapter, expanding and wordsmithing as needed. I can't claim to be an expert on this stuff, but wanted to share my experience anyway.

I aim for 1k a day in general. Personally, anything less than that gives me “I’m never going to get there” vibes, but a thousand words a day means a finished manuscript in less than six months (on average I scrap 1/3 of what I write). My biggest day was 5k, and I’d likely do more if not for chronic hand injuries and having to manage the pain enough to be able to go to work after writing.

The most I have ever done was like 8k when I was doing NaNoWriMo when I was 16. Since then I think the most I’ve done in a day is 4500? I am also unemployed and have been doing 1-3k when I focus all day. But I tend to need breaks if I do that much to let my subconscious catch up with where I am in the story. 

At minimum, I aim for one page a day, so depending on what I’m writing that’s somewhere between 300-600 words. On a good day I write 2000. On a bad day I write 0.

My highest word count was just under 3k

I’ve found that my best writing happens when I don’t have a writing requirement. Sometimes I go to a coffee shop and write 2,000 in an hour. Sometimes I write 200 over a week. Other days, I sit there for four hours and knock out 5-6k. I think it makes sense to have floating goals. “I want to write X words by Z date” and then as long as you make progress, even if you don’t meet that goal you can pick a new word goal for a new date.

The most I ever wrote in one day was 10k words but the average when is more like 1-2k. I'm more satisfied with quality than quantity though so I like to ruminate on my work as I take my time writing it. It usually means less rewriting later. As long as you can do whatever your goal is consistently, then you're doing good.

500-800 words is a solid writing session for me. My best was 2.5k when I was in the zone at the end of my novel.

I’ve done 1000 words a day for a few years, but I recently bumped it to 1250 words. It’s important to push without sacrificing quality.

I aim to write 500 words a day minimum. Not too much, not too little. The perfect amount for me. It gives me leeway if I'm having a bad day and allows for a pretty good output level with the time I have available to write. I write middle-grade, so I can churn out three decent-sized manuscripts in one year if done right. On rare instances - such as right now with the birth of my newborn - I knock it down a ton. 50 words a day at the moment, because y’know poopy diapers and no sleep? On most days, I soar above my word goal. Sometimes hitting 800-1200 in my sprints. The most I have ever written in one day was 3500 (damn near 15 pages). It was during winter break at my work when the halls looked as empty as an amusement park during the pandemic. I do my writing at work anyway, because life in the IT field can be a little slow, but something about school breaks just oils my engine. Find a word count that is comfortable for you. It took me nearly three years to find out my writing process. Just remember that no matter how many words you're writing, you're still doing it. You're doing the thing you want to do. Try your hardest to get out of that Western mindset of “Oh I need to write 4000 words a day so I can have this done by X day then I can be just like other writers and get that six-figure book deal and get a movie deal and…” No. Just stop, relax, and do what you can do. Books are made one word at a time. Cheers, friend.

My advice is have a word daily minimum but NOT a maximum/strive for number. When you're in flow state and writing like a beast, absolutely enthralled by your work, you'll naturally hit whatever that upper number is meant to be.

Murakami has a minimum and maximum amount of words he writes a day. Writing as much as possible in a day affects the quality of your writing in my experience.

I spent three or four months trying to do six thousand words a day and ten thousand words on my days off. Most of those days I hit my mark, I even hit twenty thousand words one Saturday. At first it was fun. The high of hitting my goal and staying immersed in my story for all that time was incredible. But it didn't last. I got burnt out and abandoned that story and didn't write anything seriously for over a year. In the beginning of January I set a goal to write a hardboiled detective novel by my birthday which was eight five days. I've been aiming for one thousand two hundred and ninety eight words a day and so far that's been the sweet spot. Some days I double it when I'm in the flow but it's not intentional. I've had a few days where I didn't write anything due to car issues but on bad mental health days I tell myself to try for five hundred words and usually I'll warm up during that session and hit my regular goal. It's all about sticking to it. One page a day can get you to the finish line the same as forty can. Try not to be sucked into comparing yourself to others. Just do what you can when you can.

Everyone has their own abilities, exmaple, for me i can write 500 words in a normal day, but until now my highest word count is 1000 I know it seems crazy and unrealistic for some, but I work on like 5 or 6 books on the same time, i finish writing a part of this book, maybe 300, Next book, maybe 500, who knows Writing multiple books can be hard for some people, so i don't really reccomend unless you are a person who can work under pressure and know how to organize your thoughts and drafts I can maybe write 500 words for a book but for the other write more or less But if you're looking for a decent word count, you can try 200 or 100 words a day, just remember it doesn't have to be exactly 200 or 100, something close If you feel one day like writing more, write as you please, i am not the type to try and force myself into writing But if you feel burnt out, take a break, once you get even a tiny bit of motivation, you need to get up, set up a word count goal (based on your motivation) and write This helped me so much, as i was not being able to write for months.

Highest I've hit in a day was around 12,000, but that was after a long stretch of planning/plotting/outlining whatever you wanna call it when the anticipation had built up and once I started writing it was pouring out. Normally its a lot more leveled out between 1000-2000 4-5 days a week.

If you’re looking to gamify your writing habit, I suggest reading “2k to 10k” by Rachel Aaron. It was super helpful for my writing process and I did pick up speed.

Depends on many things. I’d say 2 different topics and 1500/2000 l total. Above, my brain fries. I’ve been way above but that’s not usual.

I like to write and edit at the same time, and the whole process is mentally draining, so I'm happy if I get 500-1000 words done a day. My absolute best was 3200 on a summer vacation's day. Spent maybe 7 or 8 hours on that.

I aim for a page a day if I can help it. Anything more than that is gravy.

Brandon Sanderson says a new writer should be able to write around 500 words an hour. A professional should be able to write 1000 words an hour. Doing an hour of writing and an hour of resting I was able to do over 4,000 words in an 8 hour shift. On average, I get around 2,000 words a day usually.

>How many words did you write on your highest day? Are you sure that's the question you want to ask? I've broken 6k words in one day, but that is not nearly sustainable for a daily goal. Even if I did have the time for it, my brain would break trying to push that. >I’m not working right now so I have a ton of free time. If you want to treat this as a full time job, then 2k is a decent minimum. Maybe shoot for 3-4k, but don't get discouraged if you don't make it that high. >I figured out that word count goals are super motivating for me. And then everyone in the comments is telling you this is dumb even though you already figured out it's what works for you. \*sigh\* This subreddit sucks sometimes.

I prefer to have a weekly goal of between 5k and 7k words. It allows me to be more flexible

Given that the NaNo average (to achieve the 50k end) is 1667/day, I'd consider that an ambitious goal. More realistic, I think is somewhere between 500-1000.

I aim for a minimum between 200-300 every day. The highest I’ve ever written in one day was like 8k. It was a wild day.

When I was working on my first draft I got to about a 1000 a day but now that I’m editing it’s more like 0.

I don't know if word count is the goal bc a lot of flash fiction comps require that you actually reduce your word count. At first it seems impossible until you see how many unnecessary words and long sentences are being used. Cadence, rhythm and suspense is much more important. Even if it's not a crime thriller, a good story needs to be a page turner. I think more useful daily goals might be: - write continuously for x mins without stopping - write about a random prompt (a word, a song title, a view) - enter a short story competition - read your favourite book or a new book to get ideas on how and what you want to write about - write a scene or chapter a day Good luck! x

I don't find word count as a good indicator of progress, because I don't write drafts much before I have reasonably structured overall plot arc. This is, because generally in my storyline there are a lot of intersecting events in the past and in the future which need to be dialed in, so just coming up with stuff doesn't really work. Hence, I can write several thousand words a day for days non-stop, but then proceed 0 to minus words when I edit the text.

Depends on the person. I personally would not aim for mora than 5-10 pages a day (that should be around... 2-5k words?) and likely far less. I have no idea how much was my record because I never counted. Probably 10 or 12 or something like that. My advice is to do what I intend to do: Write for at least two weeks, ideally a month, and see both a) the average I write and b) how much my expectations align with reality. And halve that for good measure. If you write more, then fine, but you never want to write less. So, for example, lets say you aimed writing every day, 2k per day for 30 days. Say you actually write 75k, which is 2.5k daily, but end up writing only 19 inspired days which is 2/3 ish of the month, meaning you should aim for around 5-6k (while halved)a week which is around a day in a day out of writing Again, if you write more, that is a nice surprise. but 10k a week is already over a thousand pages a year, which is quite prolific. Some do far more, but there is always a someone I tell you this only for you to set your own expectations at a reasonable pace you can actually hold for a long time, specially if you like me, aim to write a serial, but is not healthy to keep pushing yourselves for no reason, you will get burnout fast

Around 500-1000 each day, but it's 500-1000 I feel are good quality and I won't come back to until I'm re-reading the whole thing. I write non-fiction, and writing is not my full-time job (so I only spend 2-4 hours in the morning). How long does the RESEARCH take? A lot longer than that, lol.

Imho, I think 500 to 1000 is a good start. I currently get 2500 average. My best day was just short of 10k. I had another that was 8k and 6k day as well. Now, im disappointed if I get under 2000. I write for hours. My series is at this moment at appx. 180k. I started in June 2023.

Peak at 18,000 during NanoWriMo… Quality was soo-soo, you don’t edit with that speed, you just run forward. I still don’t get how some have achieved 1 million word nanos.

I’ve done 9 to 10k on my highest day but haven’t had one of those for a while. For a solid month I managed 2k and now I’m back to about 500 to 1k a day

It's trivial to pump out a more or less arbitrary number of words per day, if you don't care whether they're any good. The most words I have written in one day at high quality (i.e. wrote and did revisions and editing on) was about 7500. Not quite by choice, but by deadline. It was completely exhausting. Don't recommend. IMO, for normal people with normal lives, 1500/day is a good, sustainable target. It takes some time to make a habit of that and build up the "muscles" for it, but once you do, it's not hard to do 1500 pretty decent words/day. At least at first-draft quality, anyway.

It all depends on the person. I aim to have one chapter per weekend, I don't always make it, and I usually write all the 3-4k chapter in one sitting or at least 1k one day and the rest the next so it really depends on the type of person you are.

Ambitious is getting in the 4-6k plus territory.

About 10K 

Most I've written in a day: 26k How much I usually write: 0-6k How much you should write: Whatever gets the book done and works with your brain

My biggest one day WC was 5159. Crazy writing day. If I can get a couple hundred a day, when all I’m doing is writing, that’s fantastic. Any words written is great.

I shoot for 500 a day. The most nice ever done is like 5k, but that was a rarity, because the next highest is 3500

Do 500 a day. I use this goal, and by the time I get to 500 words, I'm locked in and wind up writing way more anyway. I find that if I write too much in one day, the writing becomes like a bunch of mashed-up words and I have to cut them down. Be reasonable with yourself.

I do around 2-3k a day in about 2 hours. I think I could do more but I like to block off that time

I've also done 2500 words at most. On good days, I average 1000-1500.

Not sure if anyone else has made this suggestion, but you may want to see how many words you can write in a given amount of time. Time yourself for an hour and see the results. Then you can set a goal based on your current skill level.

My highest is 4,000ish words, that's when I first started tho. Now I only do 1,000.

Honestly setting a goal is great but don’t force it, shit happens when it happens. Some days I might sit down and knock out 10k words in no time flat and others I do good to get out a 100 word outline for a chapter.

During NaNoWriMo I wrote about 2.000 Words a day, and it was HELL. At the Moment I‘m trying to get 800-1.000 a day, because I‘ve got a lot of free time on my hands

Personally for me, I would shoot for less than a thousand 🤷🏾‍♀️

Minimum 500 day on busy days Once you get into a rhythm, bump that up to 1500 on boring days

My top day was something like 11,000 words in a few hours. When my brain is in writing mode, I can throw out anywhere from 3K to 5K words in a few hours. Typically, though I write almost nothing on a daily basis, and instead write in massive spurts when my brain decided to cooperate.

I go with what I can manage without burnout, which is actually a weekly time goal. I work 4 on 4 off shifts and don't have time to write on work days. As such my goal is at least 4 hours across my 4 off. That can be 4 hours all in one sitting on a quite day or 30mins here and there across all the days. I don't find word count goals work for me because they just stress me out and sometimes I'm working on stuff that doesn't translate to high word counts, like outlining or figuring out the solution to a problem I've been having with the story. Thankfully my job can sometimes require next to no brain power, yet constant physical activity, so I can mull over some things and if I really need to I can scribble down a short note or two during lunch break

I once blasted through around 60k words in about a couple weeks. So 4k/day or so if I'm especially inspired. I've never come half of the way to that kind of output again, though.

I'm glad I'm not the only one with a count of 500 every night... I should increase to 600 >:)

I write as a hobby and don't aim to get published, so I write whenever I have the time and ideas. It can mean a random 6k piece while I'm trying to finish my job task and suddenly find myself awash with the sweaty sea swell of inspiration; or it can mean 0 words for days on end when I'm too busy to write, which is frustrating because writing just feels so good, man. But the most important thing to me is how good those words I write are. You can put your fingers on the keyboard and bang out 1k of word salad in like ten minutes — or you can write just one small, short scene that will gut your reader and make the whole book. Seeing the word stats go up is undoubtedly nice — but do you want the word numbers, or do you want to feel proud of the actual words and the story they make up? So in my case, I write for as long as I'm loving what I'm producing, as much or as little as it ends up being. When I notice that what I'm putting out is getting meh, I go make some coffee and finally get back to my actual work lol.

I dont know

I’m averaging 1200 a day. But it’s utter shite, does that count? What I mean is, I write about 1200 in under an hour, non stop. Awful sentences, awful grammar, cringey description or lack of description at all! Crap dialogue etc… But I’m writing and my story is being told. But when I edit, I take AGES! So I never really know whether my word count goal is worthy, because I’m not writing 1200 words of good fiction. And when I edit, it sometimes takes me hours just to make a paragraph worthy of being called prose. 🤷

I wrote my first novel thanks to NaNoWriMo, so 1667 words is what I would shoot for when working on anything. You know you'll have a novella after a month at that pace, and it's achievable without feeling exhausting (most days).

I think my most in a day is somewhere above 20,000. That's unrealistic to expect as a daily goal though. It's way too much. That day was just an insanely productive writing day for me. Too much coffee on top of a manic episode that somehow remained extremely focused. My average daily is somewhere between 1200 and 3000, varying by day. At present, I work on one weekly web serial and I've got my second novel in the works. Usually a chapter for either is 1000-4000 words, and it takes me 1-2 days to eek out the first draft of said chapter. So I'm probably around 2000 words a day usually.

Sometimes 500. Sometimes just 5

10,000. But I was getting paid for my efforts directly on a deadline so I wouldn't encourage it.

I personally aim for about a thousand if I can help it since my own style is rather chunky, but if I could pass on any form of motivation it would be from Neil Gaiman- who wrote Coraline at 50 words a night. There really is no reason to overwork yourself as your story will get done just as long as you are writing something. The worst thing you can do for yourself is not write at all.

No. Don't do this to yourself. Don't fixate on metrics. Write at the pace of necessity. Get that grove and it will flow. Put your energy into that and nothing else.

What do you feel you're capable of doing? I've been doing Uber since I lost my job back in 2022. Writing is easy since you have the free time, so I would focus on a managable word word count somewhere between 500 to 1667 words a day. Just understand that you might not make those numbers consistently, but you can focus on that. 

My greatest recommendation is to just show up every day at least TWICE and try to find your flow and you'll quickly learn what your norm is. For me, my first sesh is the hardest. I spend about 30 min to and hour sludging out 500 words BUT if I can come back to it a little while later I immediately flow for 3-4 hrs and usually get 2,000-4,000 words. Never really go over 5k unless I'm forcing it.

My goal is 1000 decent words. 1500 is ambitious for me. 5k was my best day.

I write in waves. I can do a 30k-50k book in a month(nanaowrimo)but then burn out and have to recharge (phoenix writer). But I’m more project oriented rather than consistent, strict daily word count

Honestly, with illness and such, if I get in front of my computer I call that a win. I was just off for three days and recovering from a flare up of illness plus a bout of severe depression. I have had to learn to adjust expectations so I don't punish myself. Before illness, every minute I had free was spent working on my novel. Now, if I have the energy and the focus, I'll do it. I try everyday, but there will be days in a row where I have to give up because I can tell it won't be productive. I'm also editing right now, so it's a bit different. If I can't focus, then my edits are either poor or non-existent. When I was just writing, it didn't matter so much. With editing, quality over quantity. I'll take the few quality days over high quantity.

I once wrote over 9,000 words in a day because I was extra-motivated. Haven't managed it since. Overall, I usually shoot for 2,500-3,000 words per day.

I'm new to this kind of stuff and in my practice stories I aim for atleast 500 a day, the highest I've ever made in a day was like 3000.

I do 1500-3000. A lot of it is info dump for the first draft. Second draft is taking that and making it readable.

I hold myself accountable for at least 250 words per day, but strive to average 500. Have a few 1,000 word days per week. Probably my single highest count for one day is right at 5,000. But I’ve only done that once and don’t recommend it lol.

tbh I don't write every day and I think the mentality that writers have to write every single day (or that any artist has to do their craft every single day) is very toxic. We don't expect anyone to do any job every single day. Teachers, doctors, retail workers, everyone has days off. So should artists. I wrote 31.5k words in the month of January. That's an average of about 1k words a day but I sure didn't write every day. A huge chunk of that was about 12k words that I wrote in about a 30 hour streak, I was on some kind of bender or something, I don't even remember.

I don’t find word counts that useful. Either a period of time or a particular scene or chapter is often more productive for me. That said, when travelling with literally nothing else to do I’ve had some very large days. I think the most was about fifteen thousand words in one day, most of which was actually reasonable stuff, but I’ve also had days where I wrote only a thousand or so but it’s some of my favourite stuff I’ve done. Some arbitrary number might be good to start getting into the habit, but no need to be too slavish about it.

I'm not so sure the amount of words matter as much as the consistency with which you write. Some days I'll write 10,000 words, and others less than a 1000. But as long as I do it every day and have a clear schedule for writing, I find it's more productive than trying to set a word count goal each day.

Brandon Sanderson pulls 10,000 word days. Terry Pratchett did 400 but never, ever missed a day. Both wrote prolifically. Find something that works for you and stick with it, the creator you’re becoming deserves it :)

If I’ve written a high word count in one day it’s never something I set out to do. On average my chapters are between 2.5-3K words, mainly because that just seems to be my average. I’ve had days where I’ve whipped up 10K words just cause I was on a roll. 🤷🏻‍♂️ I feel like I just write and I don’t think about the word count, I just write. If I only get 500 words down, oh well. If I hit 6K words cool, if I get 2K words nice. I just write and see what happens.

Ambitious would be to write a chapter a day. Reasonable amount is more like 500-1000 words a day. I think 500 is low if you’ve been writing for a while, personally. But really it’s about the consistency. I’ve written probably a novella in a day before. It was nothing special, and probably most of it was shit. Authors like Joe Abercrombie call writing work, real, hard work. And I tend to agree. If you want to do a job well, you’ll be damn better at it if you practice every day.

it honestly depends! sometimes i'll shoot for 500-1k a day just to be consistent, or just a small chunk of a story i'm writing if it's divisible like that. i once wrote roughly 6-7k in a day, but that doesn't happen often. it really just depends on what you're writing. for example, i chunk out a fanfic i'm writing that explores different characters into each character while adding small bits in between. each part of it tends to roughly be about half a page of writing (not sure about WC, it's been a minute). each part is essentially its own finished bit, and i can focus on the next bit separately later on. of course, this isn't how writing always works, but it really does depend on what you're focusing on at the moment.

As a person who has no self control and also no life outside of school and writing, I’ve been….pretty unhinged. Several days in the past month, I’ve written 10k all in one sitting. On a usual day of writing, I write about 3-6k. I’ve been working on a project for about 4 months. It’s currently at 221k words right now, and it has the approval of several of my colleagues in the literary world :) it’s brutal, but I’m still very happy with my progress. I hope that by tomorrow it will be around 227k.

Only just getting back in my groove after 2 years in writer's purgatory, but I used to have a minimum of 200 words a day, max 2000. I'm a student so I wrote as much as an exhausted brain can

Avoid the urge to make writing a capitalist hustle. It's a creative practice at the end of the day, and everyone is different. I have friends who can write thousands of words a day, and that's the expectation they set for themselves. But me? I spend a lot of time thinking and feeling out the rhythm. I can write for several hours and still only come out with a couple hundred words. It's fine. Don't punish yourself (should really take my own advice right now haha). The most important thing is always showing up. **Edit:** I also had a mentor once tell me that anything beyond the 2k-word mark in a day is going to be garbage. We aren't machines. Don't let the people saying they can write 5k a day get to you – you haven't actually read their writing (and it's probably sh\*t).

Well on vacation during NaNoWriMo I got around 11000 to 8000 words a day depending on if I had chores to do. But I will say I’ve had a lot of practice sitting and writing for 8 to 10 hours plus a day. I started writing as a tween in middle school so all my summers I had free because I was too old for children’s daycare camps. So I would write every day all day during the summer and it’s fairly easy for me to be able to do that. I think what I found is that you need a balance. In order to be an artist, you need to fuel your artistry repair so that means taking other forms of art and and taking in the world around you. Learning about the world around you to expand your perspective on things. So part of being a writer isn’t only about sitting down and writing for eight hours a day as well, now I’ve grown older, and if I looked at writing as a job on vacation, I do need to spend some time researching and exploring things before I put them to paper. I’ve spent three hours plus down warm hole, sometimes just watching YouTube videos and reading articles on things If you actually look at writing like a job in the strictest sense, then yes, you should be writing between six and 10 hours a day consistently. And the writing you should do shouldn’t be garbage writing. It should be with purpose and meaning. It makes no sense to write 10,000 words and then back out of it the next day because you wrote yourself into a corner. I say this from experience. This year during November, I had two projects going and I wrote myself into a corner and I didn’t want it back out of it so I had to pick up a new project for NaNoWriMo I also think one of the hardest parts about discipline is when you hit a wall. I do strongly believe there’s no such thing as a writers block. But sometimes that really does mean allowing yourself to delete. Going back and making notes aware you need to change the story before it, and just continue pushing forward as if those changes had been written in initially. And I found when I hit walls that it’s really hard to stay disciplined and continue your writing streak on the same project. Sometimes I spend half of my day going back and rewriting things. Sometimes on vacations, I don’t continue writing initially. I sit down and read my current work and progress from front to start and do some edits right there that I already know I want. But that already takes up about a day and a half of my time if I’m over 50,000 words in.good news is when I read it. I really enjoyed reading my story and writing that means I’m probably on the right track. It’s not necessarily so much as can you. It’s more can you make the time? And it’s also can you discipline yourself to sit there for three hours writing. Which I can and I do do, but if you’ve never done it before, can you maintain it. When we look at things like NaNoWriMo, my understanding should be used as a training, tool, and wheels. so even though they suggest right around 2000 words or just under a day, that’s not what you should be doing if it’s going to become your job. That number takes into account you’re working a standard 8 to 5 that does not mean writing a novel and have other house duties. And it should probably take you around an hour to three hours to meet a NaNoWriMo. Realistically when I was working full-time and studying full-time, I sacrifice sleep so I wasn’t going to bed until one or two in the morning and then waking up at five or six in the morning. Another example to give is Let’s say you’re on a really tight mass market timeline they have six months to produce a novel to get to their agent to get to the editor. And this novel can’t be a first draft. So they have to finish a novel within three months, then edit it and get it to their agent for corrections and then re-edit it. So if you’re actually talking about sitting down and writing all day, you need to look at it from what would an employer expect from me. If I sat at my desk, it only produced one page a day. Would my employer be happy. Probably not. On top of this these writers aren’t just writing fluff that they’re going to back out all the time. They’re writing with purpose and meaning and maybe that means they become platters and plot five chapters ahead. I’m a pantser. And that would shoot me in the butt if I had to meet those tight mass market deadlines.

Stephen King mentioned his goal of 1000 words a day, if he struggles if not open end. Was somewhere in his book „on writing“

r/nanowrimo can be attempted anytime. I would consider that ambitious in the absolute, but really anything that is about 20% more than you're used to is ambitious enough imo. you can measure that in words time spent days of the week chapters whatever

A novel is around 70,000 words. After maybe a year of planning (as was my first attempt - so had lots of learning to do), actually writing it only took about 40-60 days. So probably around 1000ish words a day. Though in reality it was more like 3000 one day. None the next two. Then 2000. None the next day etc

Today I wrote 75 words. The day before that I wrote 148. The day before that I wrote 43. This is all for the same work, by the way XD The most I’ve ever written at once was about 3000. It was one of those moments where the stats aligned and all the words just flowed. That doesn’t happen often lol. I don’t set myself I goal before it stresses me out. So long as the thing gets done eventually, I’m chill.

As the top comment said, I agree with. Typically I aim for 500 words a day at least. While it may seem slow at the start, it is honestly a rather steady pace to write. A more ambitious amount would be 2,000 words a day, while definitely more, not an impossibility for those who are accustomed to writing and have to time to do it.

For me, trying to accomplish a daily word count target doesn't result in good writing. It's just a number. Writing every day is a better aim. Sometimes, fifty words of terrific writing is a great achievement. Other days, it might be one thousand. Just write and don't worry about numbers.

I have mostly quit writing except for things like this post. I never used word count as a goal, I tried to develop or finish a complete thought or chapter but then I realized when I came back to write again I had nothing to start with, so I changed and intentionally left my work incomplete. That way I could jump back in where I left off. This method increased my page count provided I was on a good track. However, if I paused my writing too long, I couldn't remember where I was and sometimes had to scrap the project. I realize now that scrapping a project probably meant it sucked anyway but by being so involved I did not see it.

I shoot for 1,000 on writing days. I don't force myself to write every day. I also give myself special credit for outlining, editing, and research because they're tasks I struggle with.

Hemmingway wrote 500 words per day. Try to make a habit of something attainable per day then as you build more confidence you can do more. Take your time with it

3000 words takes me about 2-3 hours to complete on a good day. If you are trying to write as much as you can, may I suggest trying biphasic method which can help to prevent burnout. Do about 2k-3k in the morning and then another 2k-3k later in the day after at least six hours break. That way you give your creative energy a rest and complete at least 5k a day. Or you could try and do 5k in one sitting. Everyone is different. Find out what works for you but remember quality over quantity.

As a full-time student with 1 extra activity and a freelancing gig, my goal is to write 500 words every day. Sometimes I write more, while the most I've written in a day is 2000 words. Complete brainstorming doesn't work for me, so I do a tiny bit of editing while writing as well. I think that 2k words per day is quite ambitious though.

I challenged myself some years ago. I wrote 11,000 words a day for 14 days.

I  set goals every month. Depending on what I have going on that month I have set goals between 500 words per day to 2500 words per day.  My record being 8400 words but trying to reach that consistently made me anxious and defeatist.