Am I a slow writer? How much time do you spend?
Today I started writing a new blog post. In the process, I wondered how little I wrote after approximate 2 hours.
260 words.
I know from various sources, that a good to read article should aim for 1200-1500 words. With my current speed, I would need approximately 6 hours, just for writing the first draft.
Is that too slow? Do you know techniques to write faster?
PS: I’m not a native English speaker. In fact, I have no practice in actually „speaking“ English.
I write blog posts at pretty much the exact same speed, primarily because I spend so much time editing and rethinking things while I write. However, I can bang out posts on forums like this one or Hacker News at a much faster rate.
I am not a native English speaker either. I usually take 1 hour for a 1000-1500 words article and another hour or sometimes two of editing. If I do not publish the article right away I might go and re-do it completely after I have changed my ideas or thought more deeper about the subject matter.
http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ I rattle and re-edit, this helps.
The thing that helped me the most was separating creation and editing: I write as I think (even if it doesn't make much sense at first) while leaving typos and not correcting or stopping for anything at all; then, after I have a lot of content, I stop to remove and refine.
I'm not a native English speaker either, and journaling daily in English has helped me practice just writing (no perfectionism, no editing, no judgement).
Good, better, best, never let it rest -- until the good is better, until the better's best.
As long as you are practicing and improving don't worry about how others are doing. Just remain calm and continue on ;)
How long have you been writing for?
when I talked to my writer friend he said he could write thousands of words an hour. When i was starting off i thought that was a lot.
Then after a few months of writing consistently, I was able to write 2000 words in an hour in a topic that I knew a lot about and had a lot to say. If I didn't know anything about what I was writing about then it took a lot longer.
I would say I write more regularly in English for about over a year now.
2000 - That’s a lot oO
What I can notice is, that my writing skills are continually improving. I do not get faster, but the right words and grammar are getting out much better than half a year ago.
So maybe I just miss a technique to write faster? Do you do any outlining when writing so quick?
Everyone has their own style. When I was writing about Dota 2 which is what I was paid for I knew a lot about it and only had to do a little bit of research maybe 10-20 minutes and then the rest of the hour I could write like 2000 words. Mostly just a stream of consciousness and writing without thinking just letting it flow. It wasn't the best and some editing was required but it was pretty good. And I got better as time went on.
If I had to do a lot of research and write about something I knew very little in, then my writing speed would decrease a lot. Like hardcore research to struggle to write 500 words.