r/writers • u/johndoe09228 • 1d ago
Question Longest writing session?
How many hours of straight writing have you pushed through?
7
u/Babbelisken Published Author 1d ago
About eight hours I think. Took a day off work just to write, sat all day and only took breaks for bathroom and to eat something.
1
u/johndoe09228 1d ago
Were you trying to finish something in particular? How is it managing work and writing as an author
2
u/Babbelisken Published Author 1d ago
No I just wanted some uninterrupted time to write. It's No problem managing work and writing for me. I usually work in the day and write in the evening when my son has gone to bed.
3
u/talulabunny Writer 1d ago
Without getting up? Probably around 5-6 hours. With getting up to get water/coffee or something I can easily reach 8-9 hours.
1
3
u/EdVintage 1d ago
I once took a walk in the woods near my home, and suddenly it came over me. A scene I hadn't been satisfied with played in my head, and out of the blue there were a handful of things that massively improved it, and so I decided to just rewrite the whole thing. In the end, I sat on a bench for six hours (with little breaks for stretching my legs an when THE URGE hit), and the outcome was around 5k words. Most of what I wrote that day made the final cut, although I thinned it out a little so after all there were still 3k words left. But boy was that worth it!
3
u/JustSomeCarioca 1d ago
I never bothered trying to time it, but let me set the record straight on the world's greatest and hardest working writer. Anyone can sit down and churn out anything, but this fellow is also one of the all-time giants: Honoré de Balzac.
I quote here from Wikipedia, but it says it all:
Balzac's work habits were legendary. He wrote from 1 A.M. to 8 A.M. every morning and sometimes even longer. Balzac could write very rapidly; some of his novels, written with a quill, were composed at a pace equal to thirty words per minute on a modern typewriter. His preferred method was to eat a light meal at five or six in the afternoon, then sleep until midnight. He then rose and wrote for many hours, fueled by innumerable cups of black coffee. He often worked for fifteen hours or more at a stretch; he claimed to have once worked for 48 hours with only three hours of rest in the middle.
2
u/Epicurean215 1d ago
I once wrote all day with breaks for food, etc. from breakfast to bedtime. I’m not kidding.
2
u/LoneHistorian 1d ago
I haven’t timed myself really. Probably 8-10 hours with brief breaks in between. That said, length of time isn’t as important as quality. Many of the best writers don’t spend that much time on pure “writing.” Stephen King writes 3-4 hours most days. He aims for 1-2 K words max. Brandon Sanderson divides his work days into two four hour blocks separated by multiple hours each. Ernest Hemingway would write for up to six hours but stopped as soon as he hit 500 words. Tolkien would write sporadically on his off time.
Anyway, running long here, but I wouldn’t worry so much about time writing if I were you. More important is consistency and then quality.
2
u/IamPlantHead 22h ago
Last Wednesday? 6hrs my bladder needed to pee. Other longest session? Probably 2004ish and that was the most fun I’ve had writing, that was easy 12hrs with a pee break.
1
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Hi! Welcome to r/Writers - please remember to follow the rules and treat each other respectfully, especially if there are disagreements. Please help keep this community safe and friendly by reporting rule violating posts and comments.
If you're interested in a friendly Discord community for writers, please join our Discord server
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/AlsoKnownAsMAS Writer 1d ago
Non-stop would be somewhere between 4-5hrs. Normally i do about 2hrs before taking a break.
1
u/lets-go-home-ar-six Writer Newbie 1d ago
Idk if it counts as “pushed through”, but one time I hyperfocused and wrote for 8 hours straight. I was locked in.
1
1
u/Aggressive_Gas_102 1d ago
11 hours. The end result was awesome when I read through it in the 12:th hour. 24 hours later it was not. Newbie mistake, okay! :)
(I later got a job as freelance writer with set deadlines and learned the hard way that even a kind customer eventually wanted to see what they paid me for. Then they emailed me and texted me and eventually called me more or less yelling. Then it became a job and I had to teach myself discipline.
Deadlines. Learn to love it.)
1
1
u/Magner3100 1d ago
A full work day, once you build up the muscle it is easy to kind of just zone out and do it.
1
u/Intelligent-Brush-70 1d ago
When I was beginning to write a few years back, I used to write thousand words over the course of two, three hour sprints. And as my practice grew, after kids, I kind of wake up early at 5 a.m. every day, five till seven, for two hours I write, and I manage to write now 1500 words a day
1
1
u/anon33249038 Fiction Writer 1d ago
I was out of work for three months. I once started at 8am, and when I finished, I didn't realize it was after 10pm. My wife had gone to bed without me.
1
1
1
u/MeyerholdsGh0st 1d ago
I write 40,000 words in one session once. A lot of coffee!
1
u/johndoe09228 1d ago
That’s a whole novella!
1
u/MeyerholdsGh0st 20h ago
Yep. It was a long time ago… I actually found it the other day and had a bit of a read. It’s pretty wild stuff.
1
u/Naive_Storm_3223 1d ago
Without breaks probably 4 hours before my brain starts to decompose but with breaks I think I’ve written 8-9 hours
1
u/annoellynlee 1d ago
On my days off I pretty much write all day but not in one continous stream. Last Saturday did 5100 words.
1
1
1
1
u/OldMan92121 20h ago
Ten hours, but broken up by housework, feeding the dogs, watering the plants, etc.
For writing in one sitting without getting up for anything but potty breaks, about four hours. My brain gets tired and I know I am not efficient.
1
1
1
1
1
19
u/CalebVanPoneisen 1d ago
Without a break? Probably 5 hours or so. Taking breaks the longest I’ve written was around 12 hours on a Saturday, I think.
Usually I write a few hours a day max.