250 Words a Day

This fall (or was that late summer?) Word Nerd was on a streak. Writing every day. Every day.

It was reminiscent of grad school, when the Word Nerd would get home from writing thrilling journalism and then have to turn quickly to her creative fiction homework. Because of the due dates for stories in that class, there was no time for writer's block.

Last night, Word Nerd decided it was high time she picked up the writing every day habit again. Time because she's got to have a piece ready for the red pens of fellow Oshkosh Area Writers Club members by mid-March. It's never going to get done if the writing only happens "when there's time."

So. 250 words a day. That's about one page of double-spaced type in a normal font, for those of you who don't think in word counts. If there's more time, the writing can go longer than that, but no less. One page is also easily crammed in between other activities.

And do the math: 250 word * 7 days a week = 1,750 words/week. If a writer kept that habit every day for a whole year, that's more than 90K words, which easily the length of a novel.

250 words adds up to a good habit.