In the past weeks, I’ve been shining a light on the idea of being a “prolific” writer. Today, I will share the fourth and last question I ask when trying to figure out what my clients want from their writing – How many words do YOU want to write per day?

Figure out YOUR ideal word count

How to Effortlessly Write 1000+ Words – Per HOUR. The 2kH Formula: How To Instantly Write At Least 2,000 Words PER HOUR. 5,000 Words Per Hour: Write Faster, Write Smarter. 10,000 Words A Day: The definitive guide to writing faster, writing better, and writing every day.

These are just a few of the books published in the last two years that stress the importance of learning how to write not only better, but also faster. 10,000 words a day? NaNoWriMo just became a piece of cake!

I am not against writing better, faster. On the contrary: what’s not to love about learning how to write better, faster? If you could write 10,000 words a day, or even 5,000 per hour, think of just how fast your career would pick up. Can you imagine how many words you would be able to write? A week? A month? A year?

Not 3,650,000—trust me. And not just because you need weekends. When we want to measure ourselves against the people who say they write so many words per hour or per day, we first need to understand what it means to write 1,000, 2,000, or even 5,000 words in a particular time. These word counts are plotter word counts.

What kind of word counts? Plotter word counts. No-one is hitting these hourly or daily word counts throughout the year: they start writing those amounts of words after they’ve outlined their new novel in such a way that, in Libbie Hawker’s words, ‘all it needs now is words.’ In that period, once the thinking and the researching and the plotting and the outlining is done, that’s when writers start producing crazy numbers. And afterwards? Most writers need a break to refill their well of creativity. Even the most prolific of my clients do (even though they don’t like to admit it).

So, before you start hitting yourself over the head because you don’t write 3,650,000 words a year, figure out how many words you want and can write. Not all day, every day, but in that particular period when ‘all it needs now is words.’ If you don’t make those words during the thinking, the researching, the plotting, the outlining, and the refilling, that’s ok. You’re not supposed to, anyway.

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(The Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, which means I receive a small percentage if you buy through these links.)