Writing Strategies 101: Follow the 500-Word Rule
July 29, 2010
Back when I was the editor for Software Engineering at Prentice Hall PTR, I came across an anecdote about noted historian and author Shelby Foote that stuck with me for the rest of my careeer. Apparently, in writing his exhaustive, three-volume discourse on the Civil War, he approached each day with only one goal in mind:
write 500 words. No less and no more. He recognized early on that thinking about such a massive and detailed project as a whole would subject him to the counter-productivity inherent in considering the enormous. Approaching it 500 words at a time helped him focus on only what needed to be done that day. A little at a time, 500 words a day became what is now considered the magnum opus of Civil War history.
I’ve passed along a modified version of this anecdote to every author I’ve worked with since. While I don’t presume to know better than Shelby Foote, I always include a caveat that sticking to the 500-Word Rule might only yield 400 words on some days…but might yield 3000 words on other days. The important point is that if you sit down to write 500 words every day, even if you only write 400, you still accomplished more than if you hadn’t sat down at all. Instead of planning to “knock out a chapter” over the weekend, adopt the 500-Word Rule. You’re likely to be very pleased by the results.
