Write 250 words a day and you will soon have a novel

By Dennis Mellersh

One of the best ways to improve your writing, and to reach your goal of writing a novel, is to discipline yourself to write something every day.

Writing every day has two main benefits:

(1) Becoming a writer takes practice, and by working on your writing every day you keep your creative juices flowing and you establish a rhythm of creativity
(2) By writing a specific amount each day, such as on your planned novel, you will be surprised how quickly you will have composed a book

Few of us are born with a natural talent that would allow us, without any training, discipline or practice, to simply sit down and write a good novel straight off.

For the vast majority of people interested in writing a book of fiction, learning to write is an ongoing process of absorbing techniques and putting those techniques to work in our writing.

Writing something creative every day is the way to achieve this. You perfect your art by practicing it every day.

With the average length of a novel ranging from about 60,000 to 100,000 words, it can seem an overwhelming challenge. They key to meeting this challenge is to break it down into bite-size tasks.

By writing 150 words every day, you can write almost 55,000 words a year

By writing 200 words a day you can write 73,000 words a year

By writing 250 words a day you can write more than 90,000 words a year.

Do the math if you want to reach your goal sooner.

So, set a word count for your daily writing goal and stick to it. Before you know it you will have a completed the first draft of your manuscript.