I am writing this blog entry by hand. Why? You might ask. Because, if there is one point that I like to make about writing is: tools matter.
Using pen and paper, I am forced to slow down and think before I write. As my mind becomes immersed in the prose, and I enter the “flow” of work, I accelerate without noticing, and my handwriting becomes less readable. So, I am forced to slow down again, stop, think, and be mindful, to go back to the proper rhythm.
The first time I heard about a writer who writes by hand was when I was watching an interview with Elmore Leonard. He said that he liked to write by hand because it forced him to slow down.
Later, I learned that prolific writer Marcel Proust wrote by hand his massive work “In Search of Lost Time.” And, that Hemingway used to write on a standing desk, with a pencil. So, while it was obvious that a “faster” tool, like a computer, would output faster production, these prolific writers were outputting an impressive work using one of the slowest techniques for writing prose.
How? I asked myself many times. My first guess was that they were writing a near-production-ready prose—a term that I borrowed from software development, that means a prose that needs little to no revision. But, this was not entirely true. Elmore Leonard once said that he would throw away four out of every five pages of handwritten text. “Writing is rewriting” was his motto. Meanwhile, Hemingway advocated for a lot of editing: “Write drunk, edit sober.”1
So, my guess on how these writers were so prolific is: they wrote a lot. I mean, for most of the day, from nine to five, with a few coffee breaks, they wrote all day, every day. For months unending, they wrote.
This theory seems consistent with their biographies. Even Proust, for example, was still writing in his deathbed. They wouldn’t stop.
So, what would have happened if they had used a faster tool? If, instead of longhand, they had typed the work using some kind of fast touch typing technique? Would they have worked faster? Would they have written more, leaving us with more of their excellent work?
The excerpt above took me twenty-nine minutes to write. It has 378 words. The prose itself was done almost production-ready. The changes that I made from the original manuscript were miniscule, and I did them while I typed the text.
This kind of exercise keeps me thinking: if I wrote 378 words in thirty minutes, my handwriting speed is around twelve words-per-minute. I’m sure that I can’t write any faster than that when working with pen and paper.
As such, with an eight-hour day’s work, I can only hope to write around 5,780 words—not counting the time that I take to type it all into the computer later.
This number is, of course, not realistic. No one can write eight hours straight without pauses. So, this number is actually a total maximum. I can never hope to pass it, or even to achieve it, but it serves to me as a mark of how fast or slow I can finish a project.
For an author, knowing this number—the total maximum—is very important. It helps authors set a realistic deadline for a project. For example, if I’m writing an 80,000 word novel, then 80,000 divided by 5,780 words/day will be almost fourteen days.
As such, if someone comes to me and says, “Write this volume of work in ten days,” I’ll say, “This is physically impossible.” And, if they say, “Write in fifteen days, then.” I will reply: “That’s highly unlikely.” Because, to accomplish that, I would have to spend almost half a month outputting words close to my absolute maximum—which is not possible.
Handwriting also has another problem: the physical strain. Unless I’m writing with perfect posture and calligraphic technique, I will feel strain after a few thousand words. Some people write with such a poor posture that they feel strain after a few hundred words. So, my speed would probably be even less than 12 words/minute. It would probably be something like 6 words/minute, and a daily maximum output of around 3,000 words.
With these numbers, if I had to write an 80,000-word book, I would say: the deadline needs to be at least a month. In this time, i will write, edit, type it into the computer, and generate a decent final product. But, it could only be done if I skipped every weekend, worked eight hours/day every day, and didn’t stop at all. This is a frenetic rhythm of work. It’s workaholism.
What is the best option, then? Considering these numbers, I would say that my daily output of prose, written, typed, and finished, wouldn’t be more than 2,000 words. I know this for two reasons: an approximation of the numbers I listed above, and my own experience. Indeed, when I move to 100% handwriting, I can’t write more than 2,000 words/day.
Now, if I want to separate the weekends, I only work five days every week, four weeks every month. As such, I will be writing 2,000 words * (5 * 4), which is 40,000 words). Therefore, to create a realistic deadline, I would have to separate two months to create a book with 80,000 words—assuming the story and the scene progression are already defined, and all I have to write is prose.
If I had to create the story from scratch, and define the characters, plot, list of scenes, and world building, it would take at least three times more.
So, let’s say I defined that the deadline for an 80,000-word book, written from scratch, is nine months. Well… Shit happens in life. This is something that I learned the hard way. Sometimes, you get sick. Sometimes, your computer breaks and you can’t afford a quick repair. Sometimes, your shitty Brazilian neighborhood goes without power for days at the time. Sometimes, you have to spend entire days running errands, unable to write.
What then? If we define a deadline that’s too close to what is physically possible, we may delay our work. So, the best thing we could do is a mixture of the Scotty Principle and the Boimler Effect.
These terms come from Star Trek. The Scotty Principle is the idea that Scotty, the ship’s engineer, would always give an exaggeratedly long deadline for a project. As such, when he finished the project before the deadline, everyone thought that he was highly efficient. Meanwhile, the Boimler Effect comes from the idea of a buffer time: if you can finish a task in one hour, say that it will be finished in three, and take two hours to rest and relax. It’s buffer time.
If you can finish your novel in two months, tell the editor that you will take six. If you can finish in six, tell him that it will take a year. Make them proud when you deliver the book in eight months instead of twelve. If you finished in five months after saying it will take a year, keep it in the drawer for a while, and only deliver two months before the deadline, saying that you just finished. Be smart.
For artists in general, it’s very easy to over-work. We want to be efficient and great. As such, we like to deliver stuff before schedule, or just in time. We like to say, “I can write a book in two months.” But, if you do that, you will be burning the candle from both ends.
We cannot live to work—even when we love our work. Writing is a marathon, not a sprint. You will not gain any points by being a workaholic who sacrifices their health and well being to fulfill deadlines. We are not machines.