I’ve been doing the math a bit more on my 2 hours for 1000 words or 500 WPH process. This has been working for me for a few weeks now, and I am developing the novel exactly on pace. There are days where I write more, of course, but I haven’t missed the mark. I am at 26,000 words, which given how much I have NOT written, puts this thing in the 60 K range at least. Still no idea if I will sell it or not, but I don’t really think that is as important as proof of concept. I believe this method works. I recognize that the last stage of this is 24 hours of revision over the course of seven days after seven days off to not think about the novel at all. Honestly, if you put that kind of time into your writing you are definitely going to perform peak revision. So, the three phases of writing–planning, drafting, and revising are all to be neatly laid out and developed. I have yet to touch the planning. I think that is going to require the same 24 hours as the revision process. There is more to be discovered in these bookends, but I am in the middle part right now and here is what I have learned.
It is hard to write for two hours without stopping to stand up and walk around. Thus, I suggest breaks at 40 and 80 minutes. Take ten minutes each time. This aligns with the 100 minute grid, which leads you to the 10 words per minute number as suggested in the title. You will be surprised how easy base ten thinking changes your mindset on writing. The stuff just flies out of your brain and on to the page–even in the tough sections. I am sticking to the 5 days a week. I skipped yesterday so I wrote today. That means I get tomorrow off as well. Then, come Monday it is back to the page.
This method is stackable up to the boundaries of your brain capacity. I may be starting a grad program soon, which entails a ton of writing. That means stacking another two hours to get the words done. It will be an entirely different beast, and I am ready to take it on.