How Much Do I Write in a Day?

In case anyone has been wondering where I've gone, I've been writing. It's been a lot of fun, but the fun must come to an end soon because I go back to university next week.

I wanted to do a blog post dedicated to my writing, but wasn't sure how to talk about it without giving away the plot, or for that matter, the concept - because my mum thinks someone might see this and steal the idea. 

I thought a fun way to commemorate my summer of writing would be to do a sort of daily routine where the focus of my day is mostly writing. 

Up to this point, the most words I've written in a day has been about 3,000 (I use the NaNoWriMo website to track my progress) but I don't think I'm going to write quite that much today.

Let's go. 

Part 1: prep work

So the reason I've found writing more than 3,000 words in a day hard is becuase I have to think of 3,000 words worth of plot. That is quite difficult. So in the evenings, I sometimes plot what I'm going to write the next day.

I plotted the events of chapters 7 and 8 of my book, (roughly) the night before this daily routine. 

Part 2: Morning

I'll admit, it was a slow start. I lay in until 10:30, so I lost a couple potential hours of writing time, but no bother - this tortoise would win the race (if there was one).

My starting word count was 30,124. 

Part 3: Afternoon

When I arrived at Costa, disaster struck: all of the seats with chargers had been taken. That meant I was inhibited by the limitations of a finite laptop battery (with 50% charge left). 

I put battery saver mode on and got to work on chapter 7. 

About fifty minutes later, the barista came over and told me that the cafe was closing because of 'electrical problems'.  By this point, I had done another six hundred words, so the word count was at 31,966.

I went home and wrote another hundred words, but by 2:00 this point I was starting to get a little bored of writing, so I went for a run.

After the run, I played Minecraft for a bit, then made some food, then got back to writing. 

By 5:30 I was at 32,736 words - bringing me up to roughly 2,500 words today.

Part 4: Evening

I wrote another thousand words in the evening, which brought me to a grand total of 3,415 words today. My novel was now at 33,584 words total - woop woop. 

I am now done for today, so I'm just going to play Minecraft for the rest of the night. 

Hope you enjoyed my daily routine!

Part 5: Reflections

And so, about a month or so ago, I decided to just choose one project and actually complete it. Some examples of projects I've been trying to juggle have been:

• Writing a novel

• Becoming a pro jazz improviser on saxophone

• Preparing a jazz band audition piece 

• Reading a bajillion books 

• Learning to speak arabic fluently 

• Creating an award winning blog

• Making a music album

The project I decided to actually do has been writing a novel. Mostly because it's the longest standing ambition I've had, alongside becoming a doctor of course. It is also the most accessible, because I don't need to commit any money to do it, and it isn't constrained by time, skill or equipment. The other main reason is that I actually really enjoy writing, so I've had a lot of fun writing this book so far.

The general concept of the book, which I have dubbed 'Project silver-tongue', is that seven Gods are playing a board game, and the winner of the game is the God that finds a silver chalice. The main characters of the book are a group of NPCs in the game, and they are trying to escape from the Gods who want to use them to try and find this silver chalice. 

I'm almost halfway through the first draft of the book which is exciting. 

And that's where I've been since my last blog post. I've been writing this book and playing minecraft. 

Part 6: Life updates

In case anyone is interested, life is about to change again! I'm going back to Cambridge on Wednesday next week and I couldn't be more excited. I've been doing preliminary research for my course (BBS, major history and philosophy of science; minor music psychology) and I've prepared my notion pages. This weekend I need to get my coursework done for the Preparing for Patients module, and then I'll be ready to start next year's course.

That's pretty much it from me. I think this year, with all the reading and research I'll have to do, I may be able to post some essays on my website. If you are on my mailing list, I'll let you know when I finish my novel!

Peace and love xx