Last time, I wrote about how to calculate how many words to write each day in order to have enough content for a 80,000 word book.
If I were to write 750-1,000 words per day, I’d have enough for four books, about one per quarter.
But I don’t have a habit of writing that much. So I need to start small, stay consistent with it, and then ramp up the amount that I write.
In James Clear’s Atomic Habits, he brings up the 1 Percent Rule, how a 1% improvement every day would result in being 37 times better over the course of a year.
If you start with a one pound barbell for exercising your biceps, and increase the amount by 1% every day, you’d end up with using a barbell closer to 40 pounds in late December. Now good luck finding an 11-pound barbell, but hopefully you get the point.
I started with a goal of writing 100 words consistently, every day, no exceptions — and increasing that by 1% everyday. According to my spreadsheet in Apple Numbers (yes, I do these things), by week 34 I should be writing close to 1,000 words a day. I don’t know how long it will take to write 1,000 words per day, but by that time I should have written over 90,000 words, which is enough for a book.
Have you ever written 100 or 1,000 words in one setting? How long did it take you?