Toreas Blog

Thinking about the sizes of books in the fantasy genre and general speed of writings, I was thinking about the rather annoying bits that happen when you start writing a novel. The arch is clear in general, go from point A to point B, but the specifics are not. At the same time, although your specifics are hazy, you know precisely what happens at point B. But you also have the idea in your head that you can’t just go on, because you didn’t finish the part in front.

If it would be writing a test, you would skip that question and come back to it later. So I will do a push writing event just for myself. The goal is to figure out, how much writing can be done in how much time. I will dedicate as much of Saturday to this as I can.

The premise is simple. I will start to write early, without distractions, and just keep on writing for the whole day, only stopping for the basic needs. I will run a timer on the side, that I stop when I am not writing. For the writing itself, it’s all about getting forward. Some places the inspiration will strike instantly and a whole chapter or multiple chapters just flow out. Then again it will be though, so the text will be short and general description, maybe just a few words mentioning what should be at that point in the story, just to get forward.

It’s not about perfect text, quite the opposite. Worst case all of it gets rewritten at one point. The main objective is to push forward. So what if a text is bad or even horrible. In the least it’s the example on how that part should not be written.

So with this event I want to know how much I will have written in what time. So I get a words per hour minute/hour/day metric out of it in the end. Not quality rating, but a quantity indicator.

Also it might be fun to do, getting into the flow of writing and just see how far it goes. Of course once done, it also will give that glowing sensation of having progressed significantly.

After that, editing to hell and back ensues. Moving, rewriting, expanding, shrinking and outright deleting.

I intend to enjoy it.