Some days are great writing days. Like last Monday, when I was on a train back from home and wrote 3000 words, without interruptions, that I was pleased with. I had some comments to myself to add bits, check quotations and extend my reasoning, but overall a very good writing day. Then, of course, I had Tuesday and Wednesday at work and didn’t really do much on it other than having it ticking away in the back of my mind.
Then there are days like Thursday, when I struggled to reach 500. Not because I was particularly distracted, but because I found it so difficult to put into words the particular section I was working on. In the end, having reached 500, I called it a day on writing and did some reading of articles and checking which books I needed from the library.

Days like today are about standard, I think, when writing is concerned. I’ll probably make somewhere around 1000-1500 before I call it a day, a perfectly respectable number I think considering where I am in research. There’s the same number of comments to remind me to extend or prove or rewrite when I’m editing, but overall it will be a reasonable day if I get that done.

To put this a little bit in context, the total length I’m looking at is either 50,000 or 90,000 depending on which route I end up taking, MPhil or Phd, and a chapter is roughly 8-10, so it is possible to write a first draft in a few days, which is nice when it happens. Of course, editing takes a lot longer but I tend to work on the principle that having anything written is better as it gives you a starting point to edit from. I still find Stephen King’s On Writing a very useful inspiration when I’m struggling to write, though for editing some of the advice isn’t as appropriate - I don’t have the luxury of putting it in a drawer for three months after the first pass.
And now, back to work.