How fast do you write?

[Anondylar]

And by that, I don't mean how fast you can type. I mean how fast it generally takes for you to write something from the time you sit down to seriously think about it (or just look at the notes you take over the course of the day), put your hands to keyboard and then type it all out.

Me myself, I can do about 500 words in an hour (though this was a while ago; not sure how accurate it is now) but I can output something around 1300~1500 words in two hours.

 

[doomlord9]

I've never timed it but most of my ideas/snippets all come out of one sitting. Putting one down to sleep or do something else means picking it up is difficult even though nothing has changed and the idea is in fact growing in my head while I stall and get distracted repeatedly.

The most recent and most potent example is an idea I PMed Ack. 4k words in a few hours, went to sleep, 11 days to finish of the last 2.5k words to make the idea complete.

 

[Cambrian]

Usually several hours to write a chapter that can be anywhere from 1500-3000+ words. I have a really short attention span, so I'll open a word doc early in the day, write a bit, get distracted by the internet, go back to the word doc, write some more, and rinse and repeat until I'm finished with a chapter.

After that I either stop writing for the day or open a new word doc to start a new chapter and the process begins all over again.

 

[Biigoh]

I... I used to do 1000+/- words in hour.

Now I take several hours to do that.... lack of energy and time... -_-

 

[Zege]

Depends. I start out reeaaal slow, but I build up steam as I go on. I did nearly four thousand words in the span of two hours one day, having done only a couple hundred in the previous hour. If I'm feeling real inspired, and don't look at what I'm doing, then I can pound out a thousand to two thousand words an hour.

Lately though, I haven't done anything, but I'm planning to pick up the work again in a day or so.

 

[kinglugia]

I write slow in the day, but at night . . . well, it appears that my maximum is around 2000 words <3

 

[Master of Squirrel-fu]

My writing speed varies, same with my arts speed (though that's picking up). It depends on my muse, how exhausted I am, and whether or not I get distracted by something shiny while writing. Oddly enough I tend to write my fastest the closer I am to passing out due to lack of sleep, though that's also when my spelling and grammar is at it's worst. Usually if I'm feeling particularly creative I can spew out a 2000 or so word snip in a couple hours, less if you discount all the distractions like youtube, tv, and gaming I do in the middle of writing.

 

[Xicree]

Depends. I start out reeaaal slow, but I build up steam as I go on. I did nearly four thousand words in the span of two hours one day, having done only a couple hundred in the previous hour. If I'm feeling real inspired, and don't look at what I'm doing, then I can pound out a thousand to two thousand words an hour.

Lately though, I haven't done anything, but I'm planning to pick up the work again in a day or so.

Click to shrink...

Yeah this I can relate to.


Some days when I was writing Grue Quest I could pound out about 4 to 5k word updates within 2 to 3 hour spans when I Really got into it... Other days finding 100 words to string together were nearly impossible.

 

[Valette-Serafina]

Months. I am usually a very slow writer.
Sometimes I enter a state where I can focus absolutely on writing, and every word flows neatly into place. That usually happens after I've been awake for more than twenty-two hours.

I like that state.

 

[Megaolix]

My speed change depending on how inspired I am, myself.

 

[Green Sun Over Paradise]

Before I actually learned how to write, with plots and character development and all that jazz, I'd sometimes get 2000 words out in two hours if I pushed myself, now I barely get 1000 as I worry if this is IC, or if this joke is out of place etc etc.

Of course sometimes I get days where I just burn by keyboard down as I type and type until a massive 3000 word chapter is done in record time and with little need for spellchecking. It all dep

 

[Mr_John]

I pretty much have a solid process at this point. I contemplate the idea for maybe a day or two, but never very in-depth. I set up various jokes or scenes that I know are going to be in there, but once I sit down to write the rest is made up on the spot. Usually I get it all out in one sitting at 1000~ words an hour, but lately I keep getting interrupted and find myself working on it for period of time before I get distracted by a friend breaking an arm, or the electricity going out, or a friend dragging me to see a play and I have to set it down and come back to it.

 

[WizardTwo]

I commissioned an author to write something for me and he had a few hundred words of PERFECTLY on tone story that read exactly as I wanted within MINUTES. It blew my mind. I can understand fast writing, but writing that fast and having it be high quality? Crazy.

Takes me forever to write anything.

 

[Guile]

I consider myself to be on the ball if I manage to write a story or omake a week. I've tried quests, and I'm just not consistent enough for the medium.

 

[ArnaudB]

I commissioned an author to write something for me and he had a few hundred words of PERFECTLY on tone story that read exactly as I wanted within MINUTES. It blew my mind. I can understand fast writing, but writing that fast and having it be high quality? Crazy.

Takes me forever to write anything.

Click to shrink...

The problem isn't to do some awesome writing once or twice, it's to consistently pull it off.

I myself tend to get easily distracted by others things. Also I get too often worried about the entire story that I weave in my head and that tend to kill of writing the chapters. I'm working on that.

 

[Mu-Sensei]

Depends on Muse, Mom and Dad. The first because she is fickle and finicky, requiring constant input of good materials to come up with good ideas, and the latter two because I can work better when they aren't at home. Seriously, I love my parents (in a completely proper way you pervs), but they tend to call me way too often which makes me hit that brain switch that non-native speaker have for the language to be able to respond to their requests... such as right now. Also, they are very conservative, so I don't tell them what exactly QQ is, and I have to take... steps to ensure they don't find out.

So in a math formula: Time = Inspiration * Muse Will - Parents Demand - Work. Yes, I'm aware the result can be a negative value. They tend to result in stress.

 

[VaporDeagle]

I can do 1000 words per hour.

But then I need spent a few hours more to spellcheck and edit because my writing is shit.

 

[evildice]

It's difficult to say.

How much of my pre-writing ruminations ought to count?

If I'm sufficiently prepped, and sufficiently inspired, I can do 1k words an hour.

But I can't do that on demand, nor can I (usually) go for more than a couple of hours like that.

 

[mantis]

It varies. Like if I have a really good idea of what I want to write and how I want it to go, I can bang out like 1500-2000 words in around an hour or two. If not, it can take days, and that's if I ever finish it.

 

[NaughtyBanette]

I usually get everything I intend to write done in less than an hour, whether that be a short 500 word blurb or even a 4k word chapter. I've done some of the latter in less than half an hour before work.

When I get inspired, it all comes easily. I usually pick up an idea for a story and spend about a month pondering the details, everything from character motivations to possible interactions, to larger things like overall plots and themes. Once I've got all of that together, it's relatively easy to actually just start throwing it out into print. I rarely even stop to edit, aside from simple corrections as I type (a bit of a flaw, but not one I'm keen to work on fixing a the moment.)

Generally, in the first few day I can get several chapters done in a single sitting. After that, things start to slow down as the high wears off. (I've begun to think of these creative bursts in the sense of an actual physical drug due to what they actually do to my mental state). Eventually, it becomes too difficult to continue writing, and my pace slows down. Even though in my mind, I know how everything I've ever written ends, I have issues actually putting fingers to keys on most of my older works.

So yeah, I've done crazy things like 13k words in a day, but those are usually at the beginning of a writing spree. On average? I rarely write for more than an hour at a time, but the time between writing attempts tends to grow as the story ages.

 

[Ack]

If I'm in tune with what I want to write, I can hammer out a thousand words an hour. (My record is fourteen thousand words in one 24 hour period). If I'm having to stop and think and work my way through plotting angles, that can slow down dramatically.

 

[Plotvitalnpc]

This NPC writes at the speed of Plot!
Sometimes it's slow, sometimes it's fast, sometimes it's meaningless filler, and sometimes it's not accepted as canon.

 

[Jim Starluck]

I used to write fast, I think. I never measured it or kept track, but I felt like there were times in my life where I could just sit down and pour an idea out into words. These days it's like pulling teeth. I'll eke out a sentence here, a paragraph there, separated by hours, if not days. I've got several fanfic projects going, most of which I've been working on for years and yet are no-where near ready. The few snippets I've written for Worm took months to get out, where other authors hammer equivalent chapters out on a weekly basis.

And this has been really annoying me lately. I really wanted to write a full-on Worm fic, starting more than a year ago, and yet I've only got the first three chapters of it posted in the Ideas thread on SB, and by this point I'm not even sure I should bother continuing. My other current main project -- which I should actually post in the SFW section here, now that I think about it -- has been something like 15 years in the making, though its current form is more like 5 years old.

I suspect I spend way too much time reading fanfic. Worm stuff especially; I devour anything that looks even remotely interesting and halfway decent, to the point that I sometimes have trouble keeping track of what's gone on in which fics.

 

[OverReactionGuy]

If I have a good handle on what I want in a chapter, about 2k words in one to two hours.

But it also depends on my attention span, how tired I am, and shit like that.

Long chapters are hard for me to write in one sitting and would take several days since I start to loose interest in finishing the chapter and feel like doing something else.

Yeah. I do not get it either.

 

[Korburss]

Depends a lot on what I'm writing.

If I'm just spitting out a short story on a wild hair or starting something, maybe five hundred words an hour. If it's a long term project it will consume my thoughts until I just know what I'm going to write before I do and shoot off a few thousand an hour. I believe my record was three thousand words per hour over four hours, after which I fell asleep.

 

[ShaperV]

My average writing speed is about 700 words per hour on large works, although if I get inspired I can frequently crank out a drabble or opening scene for a new story at twice that speed. When I'm writing a novel I generally turn out a chapter (~5,000 words) in one sitting, although I normally only spend 2-3 days per week writing.

Interestingly, I've found that my ability to spend large blocks of time writing has been slowly improving with practice. Back when I wrote Time Braid I could generally only work for 2-3 hours at a stretch before I'd get burned out and have to stop for the day. Now I can actually write for 6-8 hours at a stretch before that happens.