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datasciencewonk
Community Member

Writing Hangover

Anyone else ever experience this?

 

Symptoms include:

 

Inability. To. Construct. An. Articulate. Sentence.

 

Guilt because you should be writing -- but no werdz.

 

Constant self-distraction via visiting social media (or another social forum, ahem) -- "But hey, I'm writing!"

 

What have I forgotten?

ACCEPTED SOLUTION


@Edvin M wrote:
Wow, 10k in a single day? How much time does it take on average?

 As others have said, a lot depends on the content. If I'm writing fiction or writing blog posts/articles based on subject matter I'm very familiar with, I average about 1,000 words/hour. The most I've ever written in a single work day was just over 16,000 words, and that took about 11 hours (minus a few breaks). But, if I'm writing something technical or that requires extensive research, I can spend most of a day on a 1,500 word piece.

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14 REPLIES 14
nikkigaskins
Community Member

Like every few days. Lol. When you're writing a lot constantly, it's going to happen. I just keep on keeping on. 

martinceisel
Community Member

I would add creeping self-doubt and general malaise. Putting distance between writer and writing can help (walking away), but even that can seem like idealistic quackery during a slump...


@Martin C wrote:

I would add creeping self-doubt and general malaise. Putting distance between writer and writing can help (walking away), but even that can seem like idealistic quackery during a slump...


 LOL!

 

That's how I feel about it as well.

 

Some of us don't have the luxury of just walking away -- even if for "awhile."

e_luneborg
Community Member

I've more or less had this for months.

 

I tend to write a lot when I write, but then I can't get myself to do anything for almost a week after that, unless I really, really have to. 

 

It also has to be said that when I first write I will write about 25,000 words in just 2 or 3 days, so I tend to overdo it when I first get started. That's probably why I get really bad "hangovers". 

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@Eve L wrote:

I've more or less had this for months.

 

I tend to write a lot when I write, but then I can't get myself to do anything for almost a week after that, unless I really, really have to. 

 

It also has to be said that when I first write I will write about 25,000 words in just 2 or 3 days, so I tend to overdo it when I first get started. That's probably why I get really bad "hangovers". 


 I do the same.

 

Writing binges, then, uh oh. Where are the words?

tlsanders
Community Member

I have the opposite problem. The more I write, the more I get into a writing mode that doesn't allow for much else. i can get up and walk away and do other things, but my brain is still writing. When it's not generating some sort of article or blog post or something I'll need to transcribe later, it's narrating and describing what's going on around me, even to the point of throwing up dialogue with quotation marks around it and appending "he said" and such.

ryzaack
Community Member

The content I write while on a 'writing hangover' is a disaster. I can't even see it until I move away from the computer and come back to it the next day. 

 

How many words do you write per day that constitutes as a writing hangover the next?

 

I have no idea how many words I have to write to get a hangover, since I always write at least 10,000 words when I write. I can keep that up for a couple of days, but after that I'm just done with writing for at least a week.

 

Also: Thanks to Kat for starting this thread!

It's good to know that I'm not the only one that suffers from writing hangovers. I kinda started to think that there was something wrong with me...

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datasciencewonk
Community Member

Hmmmm...

 

Well....

 

For me, it's about the complexity of the writing task rather than how many words I can produce on any given day. With some of these highly technical pieces, I can quickly become hungover on as little as 1,000 words or beyond 10,000.

 

Often I'm tasked with taking something technical and then shifting the explanations to either C-level execs (aka "decision makers") for the casual blog reader.

 

If I were writing directly to that specific techie audience, it probably wouldn't be as cognitively taxing. 

 

Plus, I write within many different genres (though they are connected through a main topic: Technology). So, I'm constantly shifting between sub-topics. 

 

 

 

 

ryzaack
Community Member

Wow, 10k in a single day? How much time does it take on average?

I write anything between 1000 and 1800 word an hour, so it doesn't take that long. (It helps to be a fast typer..) And then I of course have to go back and fix any errors and read it through afterwards, and that takes maybe up to 1 hour.

 

But keep in mind that I am a writer that just writes web content for the casino industry, and the articles i write are not by far as advanced as I assume Kat's are. I have all the facts in my head, so I almost never do any research.

 

I'm a McWriter, as Jennifer M once called me. LOL

 

________________________
Freelancing is a gamble - To win you need skill, luck and a strategy


@Eve L wrote:

I write anything between 1000 and 1800 word an hour, so it doesn't take that long. (It helps to be a fast typer..) And then I of course have to go back and fix any errors and read it through afterwards, and that takes maybe up to 1 hour.

 

But keep in mind that I am a writer that just writes web content for the casino industry, and the articles i write are not by far as advanced as I assume Kat's are. I have all the facts in my head, so I almost never do any research.

 

I'm a McWriter, as Jennifer M once called me. LOL

 


 When I've written fiction in the past, the word count was higher. It goes back to that "having it all in your head."

 

Eve is correct. My writing is primarily in technology and it's not "how to use R to do X." It's "take this highly technical data and create a thought leadership pieces."

 

Or they are lengthy white papers that can range from an academic angle to a more marketing (but not too salesy) angle, while still keeping it at a high level. I can have all of the facts in my head, but have to adjust the language to appeal to different audiences. 

 

Some clients want a conversational tone. Others want to keep it formal. So, I'm perpetually shifting depending on the client's preferences. 


@Edvin M wrote:
Wow, 10k in a single day? How much time does it take on average?

 As others have said, a lot depends on the content. If I'm writing fiction or writing blog posts/articles based on subject matter I'm very familiar with, I average about 1,000 words/hour. The most I've ever written in a single work day was just over 16,000 words, and that took about 11 hours (minus a few breaks). But, if I'm writing something technical or that requires extensive research, I can spend most of a day on a 1,500 word piece.

It would seem I underestimated the amount of time writers here contribute to their work daily. I was always most comfortable working up to 3 hours a day, where the average word count is also 1000 words/hour.

 

That said, most of my work requires research. If I didn't have to do any, I'd probably write upwards of 2500 words an hour, and that's what I though those who write 10k words a day were doing.