I can’t answer for him, but I personally have a minimum of 2000 words per day, every day until the book gets finished. Doesn’t matter if I’m done at noon or 1AM, 2000 words get written. I don’t know about anyone else, but for me, it would be very difficult to keep that pace if I didn’t outline. Back when I first started out writing, I was a pantser, and the books took nearly a year to write. Then I started doing detailed plot outlines and that turned into 1.5-2 months per book.
Also, there’s something of a learning curve that accelerates by the process of actually completing your first book. The first two books I wrote, I was working on them on and off for 6-7 years.
Then the next was 14 months, then 12 months, then 10 months each for the next two, and then I started plotting and the seventh book I wrote I finished in 3 months. In December of 2016, I had seven books self-published on Amazon. As of last month, I have 15, with seven of them written and published in 2017 and one finished between the middle of January and the end of February.
I have a couple questions, too. And congrats on publishing so much.
Are you making a living writing at this point? Seems like a hard thing to pull off.
Who is editing for you? Are you editing your writing yourself?
Since he didn’t answer, I thought I’d give you my experience with editing.
If you’re just starting out, or have very little experience writing, it’s almost always a good idea to pay someone you don’t know to edit for you. The people you know will tell you what they think you want to hear, and you will miss your own mistakes and miscues and logical lapses, guaranteed.
At some point in your career, if you get experienced enough, you SHOULD be able to write without a developmental editor, that is, someone who critiques your story on a plot level. You’ll very likely still need an editor for continuity and consistency, and you’ll definitely still need proofreader.
Some indie writers get by with what are called “beta readers,” that is, fans who have some knowledge of grammar and experience with editing who basically edit the book for the privilege of getting to read it before anyone else, and free. This is risky in the sense that you don’t know how reliable the beta readers are, and they may not meet the deadlines you’ve set for yourself.
Oh! I’m sorry–I didn’t see your question.
Am I making a living as a writer? Yes and no. In pretty much any other part of the country than where I live now, I could probably do it. In the Silicon Valley, not so much. However, I’m married to an Apple engineer with a good salary, so between what he makes and what I bring in (which is still pretty respectable) we’re doing fine.
I don’t edit my own writing. I have a pro editor who works with me. Editing your own stuff is possible but not advised.
Sorry–I didn’t get an email notification about these replies!
I shoot for 2,000 words a day, in the morning. Sometimes I don’t hit it, and sometimes I exceed it, but it all averages out. I’m somewhere between a pantser and an outliner–I like to have a general idea where the story is going, but I want to leave the details looser so I can fill them in as I go. That line about writing a story being like driving on a dark road (you can only see as far as your headlights illuminate, but that’s as far as you need to see) applies very well to me. I find that I need to rest between sessions because ideas will often suggest themselves to me in that rest time, where if I try to do too much in a day I feel like I don’t do my best work.