How to set up your book writing schedule?
meet your creative goals with ease
My book, Brave The Page: How Writing Our Hard Stories Brings Healing and Wholeness, is now available for preorder! Get your copy and begin writing to heal your life.
In our last article, we talked about setting up a word count goal for your book writing project. If you haven’t read that yet, check it out here.
Now that you have picked out your ideal page count, you can create your writing plan based on that. Be sure to consider your writing personality, too. Are you someone who does well writing daily or having weekly or monthly writing retreats? Remember to honor your personality and expectations realistically.
Here's some math for you: Choose your word count and divide it by the length of time you plan to spend writing it to determine your word count for each month.
Here is the book writing plan algorithm:
(word count) divided by (months to complete) = (word count in a month)
(word count of a month) divided by (4 weeks) = (word count for each week)
(word count) divided by (7 days) = (word count for each day)
Below, I will- give examples of writing your first draft in 3, 6, and 9-Please feel free to choose whichever week/month increments based on the word count. Please feel free to choose whichever works best for you.
To write a 60k-word nonfiction or memoir in three months:
Write 20,000 words a month for three months Or 5000 words a week for three months, Or 714 words a day
To write a 60k-word nonfiction or memoir in six months:
Write 10,000 words a month for six months Or 2500 words a week for six months, Or 357 words a day
To write a 60k-word nonfiction or memoir in nine months:
Write 6,667 words a month for nine months, Or 1667 words a week for nine months, Or 238 words a day
Based on the examples above, You can choose the length of time for your writing project and begin plugging your writing days into the calendar to meet your weekly or monthly word count. You can use the 60k amount above or calculate your word count by dividing it by the number of months you hope to write it.
Take some advice from authors who have gone before you:
“I like to surround myself with the wisdom and writing practices of age old writers. Here are some of my favs and how many words they wrote a day while writing their book. 1000 tends to be the magic number among these.”- Ernest Hemingway: 500 Words/day
“When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. You have started at six in the morning, say, and may go on until noon or be through before that.” -Stephen King: 2,000 Words/day
“I like to get ten pages a day, which amounts to 2,000 words. That’s 180,000 words over a three-month span, a goodish length for a book — something in which the reader can get happily lost, if the tale is done well and stays fresh.” -Sarah Waters: 1,000 Words/day
“My minimum is 1,000 words a day… Those 1,000 words might well be rubbish- they often are. But then, it is always easier to return to rubbish words at a later date and make them better.” -Kate DiCamillo: 600-900 Words/day
“My goal is two pages a day, five days a week. I never want to write, but I’m always glad that I have done it.” -Anne Rice: 3,000 Words/day
“I plunge into the work and write an episode; I can’t just clock in at 3,000 words. I have to have time free to resolve things. I write in episodic ways. But when I’m ready to plunge in, I write from late morning through all afternoon, all evening.” -Maya Angelou: 2500 words/day
“Nothing will work unless you do.” -Lisa See: 1000 words/day
“Read a 1000 books and your words will flow like a river.” -Barbara Kingsolver: 1000 words/day
See? Everyone is different in how they approach the page and write their book. The important thing is that you find your rhythm, your ritual, your practice. I always recommend that you write at least 10-15 minutes a day for the hell of it, the goal being to keep your writing brain intact so that your words don’t become arthritic. Don’t worry about whether it is good, just write. The page is calling.
Thank you so much for reading. I hope this space inspires your voice. This is a free and paid platform. You choose how you would like to support me below.
If this feels like too big of a financial commitment, subscribe for free here.
Thank you so much! Your subscription supports my work as a writer and creative. It says, Megan, I believe in you. This work is essential. Keep going! I hope you enjoy it and that it inspires your writing and healing journey. Love, Megan