{"id":10365,"date":"2016-01-01T14:01:21","date_gmt":"2016-01-01T21:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=10365"},"modified":"2016-01-13T23:12:04","modified_gmt":"2016-01-14T06:12:04","slug":"resolution-10k-in-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/resolution-10k-in-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Resolution: 10k in 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">1. Hit 10k words in a single day at least once this year. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/amwriting?src=hash\">#amwriting<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/ResolutionsFor2016?src=hash\">#ResolutionsFor2016<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Joe Vasicek (@onelowerlight) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/onelowerlight\/status\/682978197655261184\">January 1, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Back in 2012, I <a href=\"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=6702\">set a resolution<\/a> to write\u00a010k words of fiction in a single day. I had read <a href=\"http:\/\/thisblogisaploy.blogspot.com\/2011\/06\/how-i-went-from-writing-2000-words-day.html\" target=\"_blank\">Rachel Aaron&#8217;s semi-famous blog post<\/a> about it, and decided to give it a shot myself. The most I managed, however, was a handful of 5k writing days\u2014impressive, but still far short.<\/p>\n<p>In the years since, my writing\u00a0pace has slowed down a lot more than I would like\u2014not because of writing-related reasons, but because of things like procrastination, poor time management, and general disorganization. Well, it&#8217;s time for a change, and the new year seems like the best time to shake things up.<\/p>\n<p>Rather than set a goal like &#8220;write every day&#8221; or &#8220;write X,XXX words per week,&#8221; I think this goal will do a lot more to put me in the right direction. It&#8217;s\u00a0the difference between setting a goal to go to the moon vs. put something new in orbit every few months.\u00a0When NASA set the moon as their primary goal,\u00a0it not only provided them with the single-minded focus that they needed to get stuff done, but it led to a tremendous amount of scientific and engineering breakthroughs in the process. I&#8217;m hoping that something similar will happen with me.<\/p>\n<p>So here&#8217;s the deal:<\/p>\n<p>I can type at a maximum speed of about 100 WPM.\u00a0Logistically, that means that\u00a0the absolute minimum time needed to\u00a0physically hit 10k words is 100 minutes, or 1:40 hours. That&#8217;s typing at top speed with no breaks, no mistakes, and no time to slow down and think.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve <a href=\"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=6899\" target=\"_blank\">measured my writing in the past<\/a>, and found that my typical fiction writing speed is between 800 and 1,000\u00a0words per hour. To hit 10k words at that rate, I would have to work\u00a0for an excruciating 10 to 12 hours a day\u2014and that&#8217;s pure writing time. It doesn&#8217;t include things like breaks, water cooler chats, dinking around on social media, or any of the numerous\u00a0other ways that regular employees waste time while on the clock.<\/p>\n<p>Clearly, if I&#8217;m ever going to hit 10k words in a single day, I need to increase the speed at which I write. But how?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/writingrate_by_starttime.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-6904\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6904\" src=\"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/writingrate_by_starttime.jpg\" alt=\"writingrate_by_starttime\" width=\"968\" height=\"369\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/writingrate_by_starttime.jpg 968w, https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/writingrate_by_starttime-300x114.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/writingrate_by_starttime-600x228.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/writingrate_by_starttime-140x53.jpg 140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 968px) 100vw, 968px\" \/><\/a>Well, I know from my writing log experiment\u00a0that the time of day doesn&#8217;t really affect\u00a0my writing speed. That means I can start\u00a0as early as I need to, and the earlier I can start the better. So that pretty much sets up the first step to achieving this 10k goal:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 1:\u00a0Start off each day by writing as soon\u00a0as possible.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/writingrate_by_duration.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-6903\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6903\" src=\"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/writingrate_by_duration.jpg\" alt=\"writingrate_by_duration\" width=\"968\" height=\"368\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/writingrate_by_duration.jpg 968w, https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/writingrate_by_duration-300x114.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/writingrate_by_duration-600x228.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/writingrate_by_duration-140x53.jpg 140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 968px) 100vw, 968px\" \/><\/a>From the writing log, it looks like I tend to write fastest in\u00a0short sprints that are less than one hour.\u00a0That makes sense: the longer the writing session, the easier it is to get distracted and fall into the procrastination trap.<\/p>\n<p>I have a hunch that the best way to increase my writing speed is to write in short, focused bursts. I&#8217;ve never actually tried\u00a0to limit my writing time before, but it seems that\u00a0I could really achieve a lot more focus by doing so.\u00a0It will\u00a0take some experimentation to figure out the optimal session length, but judging from the data it will probably be less than one hour.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 2:\u00a0Increase speed by writing in\u00a0short, focused\u00a0sessions.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Obviously 10 to 12 hours of pure writing time is\u00a0unreasonable. Even without a day job or other time obligations, burn-out would be a major issue. A much more reasonable amount of time to plan for would be 4-6 hours of pure writing time per day.<\/p>\n<p>At 6 hours, to reach 10k words I would have to write at about 1.6k words per hour, which is reasonable. At 4 hours, I would have to write 2.5k words per hour, which is a lot tougher but still well below the 6k\u00a0WPH physical limit, especially if I&#8217;m writing in short, focused bursts.\u00a0From this, it&#8217;s not difficult to derive the next couple of steps.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 3:\u00a0Increase average writing speed to 2,000 words per hour.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 4:\u00a0Structure each day to achieve 6+ writing sessions.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The real trick to achieving this, as Rachel Aaron and numerous others have pointed out, is to take care of all the non-writing things that make the writing possible. This involves having an outline of some sort, or at least some idea of what is going to go on the page.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m a pantser, so I don&#8217;t write detailed outlines. However, I&#8217;ve found that it can help a lot to sketch out the next few scenes before I write them, and to browse <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\" target=\"_blank\">tvtropes<\/a> like a menu. In addition, long walks really help me to flesh out the story in my head. Without these pre-writing activities, the blank page can be really oppressive.<\/p>\n<p>In more specific terms, I think it&#8217;s reasonable to allot 1-2 hours each day to pre-writing activities.\u00a0Anything more than that would encroach on my actual writing time.\u00a0Fortunately, I can usually hit two birds with one stone: for example, using my time on tvtropes to find material for blog posts, or outline\u00a0the next few scenes in my head while hiking or exercising. But it&#8217;s important to make time for these things.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 5: Spend time each day in pre-writing activities for the next day.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>These five steps seem like a good place to start. I&#8217;ll post them on my wall and revisit them in a month or so to see how they&#8217;re working out.<\/p>\n<p>Ten thousand words in a single day is going to be tough, but if I can hit it at least once this year, I think it will remove a major block in my head and allow the words to really flow. It&#8217;s not just about writing faster, it&#8217;s about proving to myself that this is something I can do, and to use that as motivation to\u00a0accomplish much more.<\/p>\n<p>Best of luck with your own resolutions in 2016!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1. Hit 10k words in a single day at least once this year. #amwriting #ResolutionsFor2016 \u2014 Joe Vasicek (@onelowerlight) January 1, 2016 Back in 2012, I set a resolution to write\u00a010k words of fiction in a single day. I had read Rachel Aaron&#8217;s semi-famous blog post about it, and decided to give it a shot&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/resolution-10k-in-2016\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Resolution: 10k in 2016<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Resolution: 10k in 2016 #amwriting #ResolutionsFor2016","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[1035,46,512,251,675],"class_list":["post-10365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-10k-goal","tag-goals-and-plans","tag-writing-craft","tag-writing-habits","tag-writing-speed","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-2Hb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10365"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10366,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10365\/revisions\/10366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}