Word Counts

Gina asked the other day how many words I try to write a day. My bare minimum when I am under deadline is 1500 a day or almost a chapter. I find that if I am able to focus and not get distracted by anything and everything, I can write 1000 words in an hour. And those words will be keepable for the most part. Sometimes I write faster. Other nights much slower.

Tuesday night I got 1660 words done. Then Wednesday I bombed. A whopping 304 words. It was like I hit a wall and the more I panicked the less I could write. Yesterday I was able to write 1000 words in the morning, and another 1100+ at night. Almost has me back on track.

I have an excel spreadsheet that I maintain as I write for personal accountability. I suppose I could do the same thing with page count; one page equals roughly 250 words, but I like to watch the word count tick up. At this point, I'm 21,524 words into Sandhill Dreams. That means by the end of the weekend I should be halfway. Woohoo!!!

The class I'm teaching at Purdue wraps up next week with a final the following week. Once that's done, I'll have a bit more time to focus on finishing Sandhill Dreams. I'm also a little nervous about my revision letter on Deadly Exposure. Okay, really nervous.

So if you're a writer, how do you stay motivated? I'm hoping some of you have far more interesting ways than excel spreadsheets!

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On the Name Contest, Miss Bookwarm and Sherrie B are the winners. Congratulations! Please contact me so I can get you your book!