How much should you write in a day? Perhaps the question should read more like: how much do you write in a day? Or, does it really matter? For me, it’s more a matter of writing every day, not how much, not when or where, just doing it. The same should hold for all writers. If you write solidly for an entire day and complete several chapters and a few articles, that’s great. But, in the end, it’s not a matter of quantity. Rather, it’s a matter of quality.

If you have deadlines to meet, then writing projects take precedence over everything else; it might be a long day of consistent writing. Writers dream of the big assignments, the ones that pay well. Everything else is second to the ‘big’ project when I get these assignments. So, some days may be longer writing days than others, just like any other type of work. Prioritize. Spend time when needed, but don’t bank on always long writing days. Like everyone else, writers can wear out from overwriting.

Taking the question and working it in reverse, one might also ask how long it takes to write a big work, like an epic novel. The ‘experts’ say about six months. Stephen King claims he writes his novels in about three months, though one of his novels, “You Like It Darker,” took 45 years to write. J.K. Rowling took five years to write the first book in the Harry Potter series.

My first novel, “Spring,” took several years to write (I’ve lost track of the exact number of years). I think what I lacked at the time was confidence. It took a lot of determination to continue writing, not knowing if anyone would read my work, or even want to read it. New writers are driven by fear of not being good enough and that slows the writing process. Now, it usually takes me six months to a year to write a novel.

I have to chuckle when I read about these writing prompts that encourage writers to sign up and write so much per day to complete a full-length novel in record time. National Novel Writing Month began in 1999 with the challenge of writing a 50,000-word novel in thirty days. This is now an annual event seeing hundreds of thousands of writers around the world, dedicating thirty days to non-stop writing.

Make that thirty-day mark even shorter and you have a three-day novel writing challenge. Is it doable? Some have tried and succeeded, but I can’t help but wonder about the quality of the work produced. After all, it’s not about the speed of the process, but the final results: yes, the quality.

I think it’s important to set goals, but it’s also important to be realistic when setting our goals. Are they achievable? Will our expectations mar our finished product? How much time we spend writing in a day, or how much we write in a day, is not as important as actually writing each day. Don’t get bogged down with the ‘how much’ syndrome. Just write and let the finished product speak for itself.