A mentor. I always wanted and hoped for a mentor. Somebody to guide me in my writing endeavors, somebody to help me along and share some tips or tricks of the trade.
I never found my mentor, is I was forced to trod along by myself trying to manage my life, my procrastination and my need to write.
One of the things I struggle with the most is to write daily, because of competing responsibilities, of course the easiest to give up is writing. Maybe sometimes I even use my life tasks as excuses as to why I do not write.
So, I was always curious about the amount of words proper writers write per day.
Also, I wanted to know some of their routines, so over time, every time I read a writer I liked, I researched some of their writing habits and tried to find out how many words they would habitually write per day.
You have writers like Ernest Hemingway or Graham Greene who wrote 500 words per day, and you have outliers like Michael Crichton who wrote sometimes even 10,000 words per day.
Most writers though would write between 1000 and 2000 words per day.
What differs is the routine each follows, some write in the morning, some write by hand, some consider the revision process more important than the first draft.
What is certain though is that they all (most of them) wrote daily.
In the past few weeks I tried to do a conscious exercise to see how many words I write naturally, and when is that point when I need to force myself to continue.
Not much I have to say, I am at around 500 words, but my issue is that I do not write daily.
So my first task is to make sure I reserve a slot for writing each day.
I think that after I manage to introduce that in my daily routine, then I can look at increasing the number of words I write.
Something very important that I have learnt and I am trying to think of every time I write and that nagging voice in my mind says ‘useless’; ‘boring’; ‘nobody will want to read that’, is that a draft is a draft, and it is just a skeleton which you flesh out later, then you choose lovely clothes and shoes, and when you are all done you present to the world.
If you don’t write it though, there will never be something to build on.
So yeah, the work continues.
I am leaving below for you some of the data about writers and their word count, maybe you find it as interesting (and motivating) as I did:
Famous Writers by Daily Word Count (Lowest → Highest)
Graham Greene → ~500 words/day (stopped mid-sentence once quota hit).
Tana French → 500–800 words/day, slow, careful psychological detail.
Ernest Hemingway → ~500 words/day, usually mornings, very disciplined.
Ian McEwan → 600–800 words/day, polishes heavily.
Haruki Murakami → ~1,000 words/day, 4–5 hrs each morning, marathon-like discipline.
Neil Gaiman → ~1,000 words/day on drafting days, variable otherwise.
Margaret Atwood → ~1,000 words/day when drafting.
Maeve Binchy → ~1,000–2,000 words/day, often in bursts.
Jack London → minimum 1,000 words/day, strict with himself.
Philippa Gregory → 1,000–1,500 words/day, alongside research.
J.K. Rowling → varied, but during Harry Potter peaks ~1,000–2,000 words/day; she often worked in cafés for long stretches.
Lee Child → ~1,800 words/day, writes fast with little revision.
Anthony Horowitz → up to 2,000 words/day, juggling novels and scripts.
Agatha Christie → ~2,000 words/day, handwritten, very consistent.
Stephen King → minimum 2,000 words/day, even on holidays.
James Patterson → 2,500–3,000 words/day (with heavy outlining & co-authors).
Anthony Trollope → ~2,500 words/day, wrote in 15-min timed slots before work.
Michael Crichton → up to 10,000 words/day in bursts when “in flow.”
And if you want to know how many pages per year that is:
Famous Writers — Pages Per Year
Graham Greene → 500/day → 182,500 words/year ≈ 730 pages
Tana French → 500–800/day → 182,500–292,000 words/year ≈ 730–1,170 pages
Ernest Hemingway → 500/day → 182,500 words/year ≈ 730 pages
Ian McEwan → 600–800/day → 219,000–292,000 words/year ≈ 875–1,170 pages
Haruki Murakami → 1,000/day → 365,000 words/year ≈ 1,460 pages
Neil Gaiman → ~1,000/day → 365,000 words/year ≈ 1,460 pages
Margaret Atwood → ~1,000/day → 365,000 words/year ≈ 1,460 pages
Maeve Binchy → 1,000–2,000/day → 365,000–730,000 words/year ≈ 1,460–2,920 pages
Jack London → 1,000/day → 365,000 words/year ≈ 1,460 pages
Philippa Gregory → 1,000–1,500/day → 365,000–547,500 words/year ≈ 1,460–2,190 pages
J.K. Rowling → 1,000–2,000/day → 365,000–730,000 words/year ≈ 1,460–2,920 pages
Lee Child → 1,800/day → 657,000 words/year ≈ 2,630 pages
Anthony Horowitz → ~2,000/day → 730,000 words/year ≈ 2,920 pages
Agatha Christie → ~2,000/day → 730,000 words/year ≈ 2,920 pages
Stephen King → 2,000/day → 730,000 words/year ≈ 2,920 pages
James Patterson → 2,500–3,000/day → 912,500–1,095,000 words/year ≈ 3,650–4,380 pages
Anthony Trollope → 2,500/day → 912,500 words/year ≈ 3,650 pages
Michael Crichton → up to 10,000/day → 3,650,000 words/year ≈ 14,600 pages
Assuming the industry-standard: 1 page ≈ 250 words (double-spaced manuscript format). Then multiply their average daily count × 365, and divide by 250.
You can do this!
I can too!
Let’s do it!
Thanks so much for sharing this, it's wonderful brain food. Over the last year I have written every day and am now averaging between 1000 - 2000 words, though some days its more. Not all of them get through my editing process, but I have reached a point where I can't not write...