Word Count Worries On Thanksgiving Eve and Day, I had a creativity burst on my first YA novel Late Return writing 2,300 words in that 48-hour timeframe. I’ve never written that much in such a short time. I was proud of myself until I read one of my writer eZines in which the editor talked about producing 12,000 words in a week. I emailed a friend and she told me that her most prolific output was 17,000 words in three hours.
After hearing that, I was really depressed. I produce about 5,000 words per week on average unfortunately they aren’t all for any one project. Most of my word count comes from working on my newsletter, emails both answering and sending, posting boards and my weblog. My husband says I shouldn’t beat myself up over it because I just don’t write that way. He told me to keep in mind that not all of what they produce will be good and that I should think about how much has to be cut or rewritten.
I still feel that I should be able to produce more words for a single project in a week. Last night I wrote 500 words for Late Return and still feel like a failure.
