In all my previous failed attempts at crafting a novel, my writing style was that of a pantser (one who writes by the seat of their pants) in the truest sense of the word. I didn’t plan any part of the book. From the moment the idea hit I let the words fly. Characters? They’ll come. Setting? Whatever works. Story? It’s on the blank page all I have to do is find it! Where this haphazard methodology led was stalling out when ideas ran dry and leaving the work behind. That is until I learned to use the concept of a roadmap to help give direction to my pantser style.
Month: April 2022
To write or not to write….every day
A current piece of advice floating around Twitter is that one way to approach writing a book is to take the total word count and divide it by the days in a year. Alright, let’s assume 100,000 words is our goal. This is considered a “generally safe” range for mainstream fiction. Taking 100,000 words and dividing it by 365 you get 274. If you take off a couple of days a year for birthdays or holidays then you’re looking at somewhere around 280 words a day.