- From Air & Light & Time & Space: "Studies by Hartley and Branthwaite (1989) and Kellogg (1994) suggest that the most productive writers typically write several times a week for one to three hours per session. (Sword, Helen. Air & Light & Time & Space: How Successful Academics Write (p. 50). Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition).
- Do you count reading and research in that time?
- How about visits to the library?
- Or making a bibliography?
- Do you keep track of the hours you devote to class prep (including reading and grading) and to administrative tasks?
- If so, do you keep track of your writing hours in the same space, if you keep track of them?
- The big question:
- Do you set yourself a number of hours each day to write?
- Or do you write until you have a certain number of words?
The writing formula for a piece of writing that you promised but don't want to do: twice as long to write and at least four times as much procrastination beforehand. All this means my time is up and I have to try to write tonight what I could not write all day.
6 comments:
I have two proposals to write in September and October, and at least one and ideally three papers to polish to submission in the next month.
As a result, I have written and submitted for publication four flash-fiction stories.
Ah, procrastination.
1. yes, I count all those things. I'm not one of those people who procrastinates by doing endless research, so I feel the research (schlepping to library, photocopying) do count. Also, some days that's all the work I can do.
2. No. I don't care. That'll get done. I track my research time because it makes me prioritize that time and ensure it gets done.
4. Neither one, though I have a *weekly* time goal (10hrs or more), and when I'm drafting I do often set a daily goal of 1,000 words. I'm a slow writer and an endless--endless!--reviser, so it would just be too depressing to have a regular word count expectation. I do set individual daily hourly goals, depending on circumstances: 90 min, 3 hrs, or whatever, and I agree with myself that I won't break for anything other than bathroom or a brief snack for x amount of time, so it's good, focused work. But some days are better than others, and though I can block out time I can't guarantee words.
xyk--That's not procrastination; that's awesome! I didn't realize you were a fiction writer as well.
Flavia--the word count is getting to me because of the endless revising. I like your system of time instead of trying to guarantee words.
I write a daily minimum and generally for a set number of hours but this is not set in stone. I tend to draft at a pretty fast clip. Revising is painful. I'm at the point that I need to track all this stuff better. I don't tend to count reading toward writing, and I don't use reading to procrastinate. Like xyz, I'm more prone to write what isn't immediately pressing...
Undine, I do write fiction, but we'll see if it's any good. I will drop you a line if I get anything accepted for publication (I'm trying to keep that pen name separate from academic blogging or IRL identity). It's a tough business figuring out the relevant markets, further exacerbated by my extreme impatience!
Thanks, undine. We'll see if what I write is any good...
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