I type at about 80 wpm, so I should, theoretically, be able to type about 4800 words per hour, or about 19 pages. In reality, that has never happened. I’m happy when I hit my personal high of about 12 to 14 pages per hour. That only happens, though when I’m blitzing and I know exactly what happens in those scenes and the story in general.
When it’s going slow, leaving the dead stops out of it, I can manage about 6 pages an hour. Pulling teeth, painfully slow at that speed. Feel like hitting myself on the head at that speed.
When I do proper plotting / world building / character development ahead of time, I can reach higher speeds much more frequently and for longer durations. But then, I require structure before I start a story. I can’t sit down and write – that’s the most painful version of writing I know! And since I started snowflaking recently, even though I haven’t started writing on that project, it already feels so much better, more complete, clearer, more logical, etc etc etc than anything else I’ve ever done. (I’m starting to wonder why I didn’t do it sooner. Sheesh!)
Things to keep in mind about writing speed – I’m not worried about perfection. This is a first draft. I’m not worried about holes, grammar, typos, spelling errors, or the like at this stage. I’ve been known to wear blindfolds to shut the infernal editor up. Also, it takes time – and practice – to build up the ability to blitz, both in terms of page count per hour and how many hours you can keep it up in a day. Where you are today is not necessarily where you’ll be in a half year. Where I am now is not where I was four years ago.
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- Writing without editing. Also known as Blitz-drafting.
- Dvorak vs. Qwerty
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