Writing with a Work Ethic

(Photo by Charlie Reiman)

I was reading in Wikipedia about Michael Chabon because he's got a collection of short stories new novel out called "Telegraph Avenue" that looks interesting. "He tries to write 1,000 words a day. Commenting on the rigidity of his routine, Chabon said, "There have been plenty of self-destructive rebel-angel novelists over the years, but writing is about getting your work done and getting your work done every day. If you want to write novels, they take a long time, and they're big, and they have a lot of words in them.... The best environment, at least for me, is a very stable, structured kind of life."[1]

Telegraph Avenue looks like a good read so far. I like Berkeley and I also like Telegraph Avenue. There are a bunch of Ethiopian restaurants on Telegraph Avenue. I've had Ethiopian lunches and dinners there several times. Love it. I just started reading the novel on Google Books while I wait for a copy from eBooks at the library to become available.

Chabon isn't the first writer who's said he aims for a number of words per day in his writing job. Who else writes a number of words or pages per day? I think I heard Hunter Thompson say in an interview that he wrote a number of words per day.  Stephen King reportedly writes 10 pages or 2000 words per day.

1. Binelli, Mark (September 27, 2001). "The Amazing Story of the Comic-Book Nerd Who Won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction". Rolling Stone (878): 58–62, 78.