Are you ready for the fun part? If you’ve been following along with the #Publish2022 method, your outline should be looking organized and ready to go! (If you’re new to #P22, click the link here to learn more!) If you’re outline is not ready to go, DON’T PANIC! Stick around and read my tip at the bottom for moving ahead on schedule(ish).
Without further ado, here is the no-nonsense, straight-forward way to write a 90k novel in 90 days.
Write 1000 words every day for 90 days.
Well, shit, it looks so easy when it’s written like that. Here’s the reality check. (Some of you may have already experienced this during the outlining stage.)
Life gets in the way.
There will be days when you don’t feel like writing, days you are too busy to write, days where you just need to take a break. And that’s okay. Because, today, we’re going to take some time to plan for these expected and unexpected breaks.
Step 1: Timing
If you have never timed how long it takes you to write 1000 words, I want you to do that ASAP. Sit down, start writing your novel, and every half hour, count how many words you’ve written. For example, at the 30 minute mark, make a note that you wrote 335 words. At the hour mark, it was 297. And so on, until you reach 1000 words.
Some people can write 1000 words in one hour; personally, I can write about 1000-1200 words in two hours. Since going over the word count goal is always a good thing, I know I need at least two hours to write 1000 words. Simply put, 1000words/2hrs.
Take some time to find that ratio for you. It can look like 1000words/1hrs or 1000/3hrs. Whatever it is, keep that timing in mind.
THIS IS IMPORTANT. The trick with this method is not just saying “I will write 1000 words a day.” The real trick is saying “I will write for two hours a day, which I know will be at least 1000 words.” WHY? Because knowing how much time it takes to write 1000 words, gives you a concrete amount of time to put aside each day to write it. (You can schedule two hours of writing time in your day, you can’t schedule in 1000 words.)
Step 2: Word Count Goals
I’m going to go in-depth next week about what your actual word count goal for your novel should be (genre-wise). But keep in mind now that while a fantasy book is often 90k to 100k words, a romance novel is only 60k-80k. If you are writing a romance book, you can either write your novel in a shorter amount of time, or give yourself up to 30 days of wiggle room!
Step 3: Be Realistic
There’s no other way to describe this step than being real with yourself. Whether you have the next 3 months already planned out in a calendar or you need to take a look at the last 3 months to see how busy you were, take a REAL hard look at how much time you have to spare.
For those who are following the #P22 method, this is a good time to reflect on how you worked on your outline. When you were working on your outline, did you work on it a little every day? Or did you spend one day a week working on it for 14 hours? Did you work on it during lunch breaks or right before you went to bed?
Now, as you turn to the writing stage, be realistic about how much time you can dedicate to writing and how much time you will dedicate to writing.
Step 4: Timing Part 2
So, you realized it takes about 2 hours to write 1000 words. You want your novel to be about 90k words. And you’ve taken a good hard look at how much time you actually have to spare. Let’s break it down into a few different schedules.
Daily
1000 words. 2 hours. Every. Day. This is obviously the simplest plan. It’s the easiest one to follow and definitely my goal this quarter.
Weekly
7000 words a week. 14 hours. Maybe this looks like two 7 hour writing days. Maybe you write three hours Monday through Thursday and two hours on Friday. Remember: the trick is not to divide the days by how many words you need to write, but how many hours you need to write the words.
Monthly
30,000 words a month. 60 hours. This could be five 12 hour writing days for those lucky enough to take a week long writing vacation. Or maybe it’s twelve 5 hour writing days—this could be 3 times a week for 4 weeks, you write for 5 hours.
(P.S. There are 13 weeks (91 days) in Q2, if you follow the daily or weekly plan, you’ll actually write 91,000 words!)
Step 5. Commit with Flexibility
Choose a plan. Stick with it. But understand the flexibility when you need it. If you are sticking to the daily plan like me, but know you have a weekend trip and won’t be able to write, write more during the week leading up to the trip. If you are following the monthly plan, but the writing days are too long, break it down to the weekly plan. You got this!
Which plan will you follow? Come join me on Discord and let me know!
