What Is A Good Daily Word Count? Lessons From 39 Famous Authors
Wondering how many words to write each day? Explore the daily word counts of 39 famous authors and their writing advice.
What Is A Daily Word Count?
A daily word count is the total number of words you’ve written in a piece of writing in one day. In a standard manuscript, a double-spaced page in a 12-point font contains about 300 words. Most word processors, including Microsoft Word, calculate your word count automatically.
Word counts also matter whenever you need to meet a specific length for a finished piece of work. Magazines, competitions, and publishers often set strict limits, and novelists use word counts to track their progress. As a guide, most novels are around 80 000 words.
Must-Read: Word Counts – How Long Should Your Novel Be?
Why Are Daily Word Counts Important?
Daily word counts are one of the first things students ask about on our writing course. While we don’t recommend any particular number, we do think it is a good idea to have one as a daily goal. If you set a goal of 500 or 1 000 words and you keep to it every day, you will feel as if you have accomplished something.
If you want to become a published writer, develop a consistent writing habit. Almost every successful writer we’ve interviewed has a regular routine.
Creating a habit of writing every day—even when the words aren’t perfect—builds confidence. The more you write, the easier it becomes. Daily writing also helps you generate ideas, solve story problems, and discover what you really think about a subject. Many writers find the process both creative and therapeutic. Keep a notebook or digital file for the ideas that emerge.
The only way to become a better writer is to write.
If you’re struggling to stay on track, use a daily writing prompt to get started. Get a free daily writing prompt by signing up here.
But how many words should you write every day?
Nobody really knows. Every writer works differently. To help you find a goal that suits you, here are the daily word counts of 39 famous authors. (For reference, a double-spaced manuscript page contains approximately 300 words.)
The Daily Word Counts Of 39 Famous Authors
Click here to see a larger version: The Daily Word Counts Of 39 Famous Authors
The Last Word
There is no perfect daily word count. Some writers produce a few hundred words a day, while others write thousands. What matters is finding a goal that fits your life and sticking to it. A consistent writing habit will take you further than chasing someone else’s number. Do you have a daily word count? Tell us in the comments below.
Read: 7 Extraordinary Authors With Extraordinary Word Counts
by Amanda Patterson
© Amanda Patterson
More posts from Amanda:
- 10 Life-Changing Benefits Of Reading More Books
- The Author’s Promise: The Two Things Every Writer Owes Their Reader
- Why Every Story Needs Consequences
- Scenes And Sequels: The Writer’s Guide To Stronger Story Structure
- 50 Motivational Writing Quotes To Inspire You
- The Writer’s Guide To Good Description: 10 Mistakes To Avoid
- 10 Powerful Cliffhangers Every Writer Should Know
- How To Write A Vignette (With Examples)
- Mystery, Horror, Thriller – What’s The Difference?
- How Writers Use The Love Interest As A Literary Device
Top Tip: Sign up for our free daily writing links.
Sources: How Many Words a Day? http://www.authormagazine.org/articles/thayer_james_2009_04_09.htm / Famous Authors Routines: Rise Early, Work Early, and Count The Words http://www.davidpaulkirkpatrick.com/2013/11/18/famous-authors-routines-rise-early-work-early-and-count-the-words// How many words did you write today? / Daily Word Count Output of My Favourite Writers http://algonquinredux.com/daily-word-count-output-of-my-favorite-writers//Interviews and Birthday Posts by Writers Write
29 thoughts on “What Is A Good Daily Word Count? Lessons From 39 Famous Authors”
Probably one of the more valuable and insightful posts. (amongst the myriad of other excellent posts 🙂 ) Highlights the plight of the ‘weekend warrior’.
Thank you for the feedback, Gabriel. Don’t stop writing.
It is great to have an insight into something like this. I always wondered what was enough – what was the minimum. It does not really matter, as long as you keep on writing … every day.
Such a variety!
Nobody has a word count less than 500 words…
I am currently writing a book about a personal experience and i make sure to write atleast 1000 words for the day before i can watch tv or do something else. i thought it was too low.
I average 5K to 7K per day when on first draft. My production average has run 9+ novels a year for four years straight. I’m with Chricton on his philosophy, as well as Jack London. There’s a word for writers who wait for the muse to dance for them: amateurs.
my word count averages from 12-16,000 a day. Some days I can get up to 20k, some days I get 6k. But that’s an occupational hazard of ghostwriting/freelancing.
Ok…. no matter what reason you have listed how much you write (Russell and Savannah), I am going to write more. For sure!
Depends on the phase of writing I’m in . . .
I’m currently working on a complete first draft of a play I’ve been working on for some time, and I guess averaging about 800+ words per day; though unfortunately I only really get one-and-a-half to two days writing a week.
Regardless, I always take Sundays off, not even writing down ideas that seem good. Seems to work for me.
Similarly, I no longer keep a notebook by the bed for writing down ideas at night (unfair on my wife!).
When I’m writing notes and thoughts (and when I’m lucky, whole scenes or fragments of scenes), my word-rate varies hugely.
http://www.stacyallenauthor.com
Thank you for this awesome post. Excellent.
I try to do five hundred words a day, five days a week. Most weeks I can only manage four days.
Well, I obviously write EVERY day, but I’m not counting e-mails and code here. I’m talking fiction and blog posts. 🙂
Also, like Hemingway, (although I didn’t know he did it until I read this article, so it’s not like I’m copying him or anything), I tend to stop when I hit my target for the day, even if it’s in the middle of a scene.
In fact, it’s BETTER if I stop in the middle of a scene, because then I spend the whole day at work the next day plotting what I’m going to write that afternoon, and the next session tends to wizz by! 🙂
Thank you for all the great feedback!
The emphasis is on ‘daily’ – and of course these writers didn’t write all day, necessarily. I advocate using a spread-sheet to keep account of the hours writing; when 8 hours are clocked up, that’s a day. So for my current WIP for example one 8hr day I clocked up 4,600 words. I’ll share this on FB, thanks!
@Nik Obviously, we cannot know for sure, but I’m fairly certain that what is meant by “day” in this context is “one twenty-four-hour period”. Not a “working day” of eight hours.
At least, that’s how I understood it.
By your definition, you could write for only 10 minutes each 24 hour period, then tally up your total after 48 24-hour periods, and call that one writing “day”.
Graham, that’s what I advocate in my book WRITE A WESTERN IN 30 DAYS. Naturally, there is more to writing a book than just writing, there’s the planning, research etc. But if someone says he wrote 300 words in a day, all he means is that he wrote 300 words in one hour (supply the time slot) of one day. Unless you’re Henry James, of course, who spent half a day debating about putting in a comma, and then the other half of the day debating about taking it out. If I say I spent 4 hours painting the kitchen, I mean it – I wouldn’t say I spent all day on it. 🙂
We can use a reliable handy word count tool to count the number of words in text: http://wordcounttools.com
very useful information, we know now , what is the meaning of consistent and focus..
whoa, maybe I should start to slow down a little. Reading through this list, I realised that I’m producing more than most of these famous writers. There are days when 10,000 words is a morning’s effort and others when that takes me all day but I have never allowed myself to write less than 5,000. I feel like I’m failing as a writer if I don’t meet that minimum.
Thanks for the info, quite useful for any writer trying to be a pro.
500 words by noon – five days a week but I am only paid 1/2 time to write.
I try and write 1000 words a day, though the last week or so I haven’t written anything. My goal is to average 1000 words a day by the end of the year, which means I’m playing catch-up right now.
Nice articel! Thanks to the author!
It would be great to see similar tips for Academic Writing. Are there any?
Thank you for the feedback. We do not know of any, Nur.
My great inspiration is Russell Blake! I’ve tried to keep up with his 7,000 words per day, then fell to 5,000 and currently at a low of 3,000. It is really NOT easy to juggle writing with taking care of VHK (Very Hungry Kids)!
Why George RR Martin is not on this list?
Hey Amanda,
I came here feeling that I’m the most unproductive writer, thinking that I’m not a pro yet, and it’s going to be hard for me to be one. This post made me realize that I’m rightfully playing my part.
This data is a blessing as I can evaluate myself in accordance to the standards to which other writers abide by.
Thanks.
Vishal, write what you’re comfortable writing. I’m glad you found this useful.
Great post Amanda. Thanks for collecting all those numbers in an easy reference. I was worried that I am not writing enough for my new website. In the past 2 months, I have added about 80K words on out-of-domain articles that I personally researched. Nothing to brag about, but the numbers you have shared are encouraging. So, I am writing enough, and as I turn writing into a habit, I will likely also write better. Thanks again. Here’s my site for those interested http://www.listgist.com