When I started My Own NaNo, I set myself the goal of 12 pages a day. Realizing that was too ambitious after such a long break from writing, I switched to 8 pages.
The fact that I'm using page count instead of word count indicates I'm old school. When I started, novel length was determined by page count and average number of words per page. The standard formula was number of pages times 250 words, no matter if the page had extra space at the bottom or top or not (beginnings and ends of chapters, for instance). These days it's done by computer word count.
Now, I've been getting pages done, although I haven't always made my goal, and I certainly haven't filled every single page. I've also changed the font I used and the size.
Today I decided to do a comparison between the amount I've written based on the old formula vs. computer word count.
By traditional count: 77 pages x 250 words = 19,250 words
Computer word count: 25,966
Either way you look at it, I've written what could constitute a novella in one week - if I weren't aware that probably a third of it is going to wind up on the cutting room floor.
Nevertheless, I confess I'm pretty thrilled. If I'm aiming for an 85,000 word first draft, I'm nearly a third of the way there, and in one week. That means I could have this draft nearly competed in another two weeks.
Even I am having a hard time believing that.
On the other hand, and as tough as first draft is, there will be plenty more hard work revising and rewriting before I'd have something ready to submit.
But to quote Mr. Kennedy from Gone With The Wind, "I'm mighty encouraged."
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