JeffKirvin.net

This kind of goes hand and glove with the above tip about forward momentum. It seems counterintuitive, in a way. When I was just starting on The Unification Chronicles about ten years ago, it was a major accomplishment to write my 250 words (one typeset page, on average) before work every day. Writing ten times that much has to be ten times harder, right?

Actually, no.

As it turns out, the first 200 words or so is just as hard either way, but the words that come after that get easier in a big hurry. Momentum is very real in writing, and the more you write, the more you will write. King talks about this in On Writing. He says that he writes 2,000 words a day, which allows him to write the first draft of a novel, even one of his, in three months or less. Take any longer, he says, “and the story begins to take on an odd foreign feel, like dispatch from the Romanian Department of Public Affairs…”

He’s absolutely right. If you keep that momentum going, push for 2,000 words a day at least five days a week, you’ll stay interested in your story, and the reader will to. And, you’ll be happy to find that writing 2,000 words a day is really no harder than those first 200.