Years ago, I read about an archive of Mark Twain unpublished drafts and manuscripts that had been found in a moldering library by a group of scholars. They were ecstatic at their discovery and they dove into the archives to discover how Twain wrote his masterpieces. Most of the work found here were deservedly unpublished drafts. But there were some diamonds in the sand. Some of the (unknown!) stories found in this archive were subsequently published in contemporary magazines like The Atlantic and Harper’s. Even a new children’s story was published.
However, one thing mystified scholarly researchers. They kept running across little columns of numbers — like this: 1245, 756, 899 = 2900. They couldn’t figure out why the columns of numbers were interpolated with the prose. What was Mark Twain doing? Was he doing his budget? Planning his grocery expenditures? What?
Finally, they brought in a working novelist for a consultation. The novelist took one look at the manuscript pages and told them that Mark Twain was counting words. Twain’s daily word count was listed every few pages. Twain clearly set a daily word count goal and then measured his progress as he strove towards his goal.
That’s how professional writers measure progress in their work.
So how many words do writers write per day? And how many words should you be writing a day?
I can’t tell you the answer to that. Famous writers in all genres have many different ways of writing, and many different word lengths they achieve per day.
Here’s a list of writers with their daily self-assigned word counts. This list is arranged from most words per day (10,000 by William Faulkner) to smallest number of words (90 – James Joyce).
Enjoy and keep writing!
Author
William Faulkner
Words 3000–10,000
Faulkner wrote at a great pace. He described himself writing 10,000 words a day, working from 10 in the morning to midnight.
“I write when the spirit moves me, and the spirit moves me every day.”
Author
Michael Crichton
Words 10,000
Books aren’t written, they’re rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it.
Author
Jon Creasey
Words 6000
How many words a day do I write? Between six and seven thousand. And how many hours does that take? Three on a good day, as high as thirteen on a bad one.
Author
Charles Hamilton
Words 4000
The business of a boys’ author is not to consider political issues, but to entertain the readers, make them as happy as possible.
Author
Anne Rice
Words 3000
I plunge into the work and write an episode; I can’t just clock in at 3 000 words. I have to have time free to resolve things. I write in episodic ways. But when I’m ready to plunge in, I write from late morning through all afternoon, all evening.
Author
Arthur Conan Doyle
Words 3000
Anything is better than stagnation.
Author
Iain Banks
Words 3000
I’m very self-disciplined, actually. It’s easy because I’ve always been able to write lots and lots of words really quickly. I can write about 3,000 words a day.
Author
Erle Stanley Gardner
Words 3000
The real trouble with the writing game is that no general rule can be worked out for uniform guidance, and this applies to sales as well as to writing.
Author
Ernest Hemingway
Words 3000
I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.
Author
Frederick Forsyth
Words 3000
Twelve pages a day, 3,000 words, seven days a week. But it’s the research that takes the time. And, yes, I have to force myself to write. Sounds ungrateful, I know.
Author
Norman Mailer
Words 3000
Writer’s block is only a failure of the ego.
Author
Anthony Trollope
Words 3000
I write with my watch before me, to require of myself 250 words every quarter of an hour. I have found that the 250 words have been forthcoming as regularly as my watch went.
Author
Maya Angelou
Words 2500
Nothing will work unless you do.
Author
Nicholas Sparks
Words 2000
I write five or six days a week, usually a minimum of 2000 words, sometimes more. 2000 words can take anywhere from three to eight hours.
Author
Patricia Highsmith
Words 2000
I like to work for four or five hours a day. I aim for seven days a week.
Author
Stephen King
Words 2000
“I like to get ten pages a day, which amounts to 2 000 words.”
In his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, King has clearly written about his writing speed. According to King, 3 months should be the maximum time for anyone to finish the first draft. If it takes longer, it will be harder to dig back into the story.
Author
Lee Child
Words 1800
I write in the afternoon, from about 12 until 6 or 7. I use an upstairs room as my office. Once | get going I keep at it, and it usually takes about six months from the first blank screen until ‘The End.’
Author
Neil Gaiman
Words 1500
A good day is defined by anything more than 1,500 words of comfortable, easy writing that I figure I’m probably going to use most of in the end. Occasionally, you have those magical days when you look up and you’ve done 4,000 words, but they’re more than balanced out by those evil days where you manage 150 words you know you’ll be throwing away.
Author
Jack London
Words 1500
You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
Author
Susan Wittig Albert
Words 1500
When I’m writing (about 8-9 months a year), I’m at the computer by 9, into the book by 10, and done for the day by 5, when the dogs insist on taking me for a walk. I aim for 1500 words a day.
Author
Somerset Maugham
Words 1500
There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
Author
Mark Twain
Words 1400
In 1897, when we were living in Tedworth Square, London, and I was writing the book called Following the Equator, my average was 1800 words a day; here in Florence my average seems to be 1400 words per sitting of four or five hours.
Author
Margaret Mead
Words 1000
Do they know I get up at five o’clock every morning to write a thousand words before breakfast?
Author
J.G. Ballard
Words 1000
All through my career I’ve written 1,000 words a day-even if I’ve got a hangover. You’ve got to discipline yourself if you’re professional. There’s no other way.
Author
Holly Black
Words 1000
I try to write a thousand words every day. I’ve actually put up my daily word counts online for my last several novels. I do this to keep myself honest, saying exactly when I wrote what part of the book.
Author
Lisa Jewell
Words 1000
Pace yourself. If you write too much too quickly, you’ll go off at tangents and lose your way and if you write infrequently you’ll lose your momentum. A thousand words a day is a good ticking over amount.
Author
Lisa See
Words 1000
Write 1,000 words a day, five days a week, before you do anything else. At the end of a week, you’ll have twenty pages-a chapter. If you do it first thing in the morning, then you won’t get distracted by all the things that tempt you not to write.
Author
Sophie Kinsella
Words 1000
I try to write 1,000 words a day. Sometimes I do that by 11 a.m. Other times I’m still struggling at 3 p.m. Then it’s time to give up for the day!
Author
Peter James
Words 1000
Once you start writing a book, make time to write every single day. Find a comfortable number of words for you to write each day and stick to that number. I am comfortable with 1000 words.
Author
Sarah Waters
Words 1000
My minimum is 1000 words a day… Those 1000 words might well be rubbish – they often are. But then, it is always easier to return to rubbish words at a later date and make them better.
Author
Barbara Kingsolver
Words 1000
I tend to wake up extremely early with words flooding into my brain. If I don’t get up, they’ll continue to accumulate in puddles, so it’s a relief to get to the keyboard and dump them out.
Author
John van de Ruit
Words 1000
Find your groove / rhythm / pattern and write according to that. Make sure you write a minimum number of words every day. 1000 words should be the least you do every day.
Author
Sebastian Faulks
Words 1000
When I am writing a book I work from ten till six every day in a small office near my house. I never write less than a thousand words a day. Writer’s Block is God’s way of telling you to shut up. More people should have it.
Author
Kate DiCamillo
Words 600-900
My goal is two pages a day, five days a week. I never want to write, but I’m always glad that I have done it. After I write, I go to work at the bookstore.
Author
Arthur Hailey
Words 600
I set myself 600 words a day as a minimum output, regardless of the weather, my state of mind or if I’m sick or well. There must be 600 finished words-not almost right words.
Author
Carol Shields
Words 600
I would give myself one or two pages a day, and if I didn’t get to my two pages, I would get into bed at night with one of those thick yellow tablets of lined paper, and I would do two quick pages and then turn off the light. I did this for nine months, and at the end of nine months, I had a novel.
Author
Ian McEwan
Words 600
I aim for about six hundred words a day and hope for at least a thousand when I’m on a roll.
Author
Graham Green
Words 500
Over twenty years I have probably averaged five hundred words a day for five days a week. I can produce a novel in a year, and that allows time for revision and the correction of the typescript. I have always been very methodical, and when my quota of work is done I break off, even in the middle of a scene.
Author
Shelby Foote
Words 500
And I’m a slow writer: five, six hundred words is a good day. That’s the reason it took me 20 years to write those million and a half words of the Civil War.
Author
James Joyce
90 Words
A story about James Joyce:
- “A friend came to visit James Joyce one day and found the great man sprawled across his writing desk in a posture of utter despair.
- James, what’s wrong?’ the friend asked. ‘Is it the work?’
- Joyce indicated assent without even raising his head to look at his friend. Of course it was the work; isn’t it always?
- How many words did you get today?’ the friend pursued.
- Joyce (still in despair, sprawled facedown on his desk): ‘Seven.’
- Seven? But James… that’s good, at least for you.’
- Yes,’ Joyce said, finally looking up. ‘I suppose it is… but I don’t know what order they go in!”
Resources:
➤ Pantser or Plotter: What Kind of Writer Are You?
➤ How Many Words Should Be In Your Book?
➤ Word Count Examples from Published Books
➤ Word Count in Microsoft Word
➤ Word Count in Google Docs
➤ Word Count in Scrivener
Keep Writing and Good Luck!