Do you feel guilty because you can’t crank out two thousand words every morning like your writer friends? Have you ever been frustrated when you tried a writing expert’s sure-fire method to write faster, only to find you’re writing time was worse than ever?
Me, too.
The fact is, each of us needs to figure out what writing process works best for the way our brain works, and our unique writing personality. That being said, most writers fall into one of two general categories, those who work best in small spurts and those who work best in longer, more focused writing sessions. We all have a sweet spot that represents the optimum number of words our particular writer brain likes to handle in one sitting.
Optimizing writing sessions for small spurt writers
Are you a multitasking pro? Do you enjoy writing in coffee shops or the local park, and you often squeeze little spurts of writing into your life when you can, you are probably a short spurt writer. If so, your optimum writing session is probably in the 400 – 600 words range. If you’re a small spurt writer, you can productively use small pockets of time to work on your project. However, when you force yourself to keep working until you’ve reached 1,500 words in one sitting, you’ll struggle. You’ll find it tough to keep focused, so your productivity will drop, and you’ll feel frustrated.
Good news! You can reach that 1,500 word goal, but you’ll be more successful when you do it in two or three smaller sessions rather than one continuous stretch. Also, you’ll probably write better at each session if you switch tasks and work on something else in between your writing sessions.
Optimizing writing sessions for deep focus writers
If you need silence and solitude to do your best work, you are probably a long session writer. Your optimum writing sessions are more like 1,000 – 2,000 words. You write best when you can go deep into your story world. It may take some time to get into the flow, and once you find it you don’t want to be dragged away until you’ve finished the whole scene.
Like all humans, you eventually need to come up for air and give your brain a brief rest, but you may find that you can utilize your time most productively when you allow yourself to focus on several writing sessions in a row, rather than switching from writing to other tasks and then back to writing.
Which is best?
The one that works for you!
Neither style is any better or worse. The key to becoming a more productive writer is to figure out your optimum writing session scenario and then plan your writing accordingly.
Do you need to stop beating yourself up because you can’t concentrate on writing while waiting for your kids to at soccer practice? Do you need to give yourself permission to quit forcing yourself to complete marathon writing sessions?
If you’re not sure which style works best for you, experiment. Try setting a variety of goals from short 300-word sessions to longer ones of 1,000-words or more. See how long you can work before your brain starts to lose focus.
This isn’t rocket science, so don’t get hung up on finding your exact ideal word count. The goal is to determine the approximate number of words or length of writing sessions that works best for your brain, and then do what you can to create writing times around that length.
A note on editing: Editing is not the same kind of thinking as composing. Therefore, most writers have a different ideal writing session length when it comes to editing their ms. Once again, you can experiment to find your optimum editing session length.
Learn more
If you want to learn more about optimizing your writing sessions, I recommend you read The Chunky Method Handbook by Allie Pleiter.
I hope this post has encouraged you in your writing journey this week.
An engineer-turned-mystery-writer, Lisa E. Betz infuses her novels with authentic characters who thrive on solving tricky problems. Her debut novel, Death and a Crocodile, won several awards, including Golden Scroll Novel of the Year (2021). Her second mystery, Fountains and Secrets, released in January, 2022.
Lisa combines her love of research with her quirky imagination to bring the world of the early church to life. She and her husband reside outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with Scallywag, their rambunctious cat—the inspiration for Nemesis, resident mischief maker in the Livia Aemilia Mysteries. Lisa directs church dramas, eats too much chocolate, and experiments with ancient Roman recipes. Visit her at lisaebetz.com or her Facebook page, LisaEBetzWriter.
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