I've been trying to write for a very long time, and I'm brimming with so many diffrent ideas, in diffrent gneres. For example I have ideas for a teenage fantasy romance, I also have ideas for an adult romance and an adult crime thriller. I'm just full of so many diffrent ideas, I always writer my ideas down and I always intend to write a novel about each and every one. However... although I have all these fantastic ideas, I find it so diffuclt to actually write it. I never get anything finished, not even the first chapter, I end up doodling all over my work and writer 'Argh, I can't do it' HELP!
Everyone needs to do things differently. My advice would be maybe first to decide on the idea that you are most drawn to.Finding an idea you love with characters that you find easy to work with can just kickstart a flow of story like it did for me.
Then PLAN! Plan in what ever way seems best to you be it character mind maps, chapter by chapter break downs, whatever so long as it works for you and you won't come back to it in a week and think 'what on earth does all of this mean?!' I plan like crazy because I am writing what is becoming a pretty long trilogy and it's very easy to do something wrong if I haven't planned everything.
I've never really set myself word targets per day, but as I said everyone writes differently and that may work for you! Just experiment with your routine until you find something that fits. I also agree with Jennifer that it is a good idea to settle on just one idea at a time, otherwise things get very confusing.
Just find that idea and then write in a way that suits you! And good luck! :)
i agree with mr hopkins, but for me personally i write 4,000 words a day in lump blocks then draft them after leaving them alone for a week or two,so it leaves me with 112,000 words a month. but on saying this everyone finds there own way in how they pan out their writing.
In my opinion it's all about planning. Normally a novel is going to have one particular scene which is the crux of the story. What you need to do is work out what that is and then work back from there. How does the gun get in the room? Why was the man walking past? etc, etc.
Everything in your story has to happen because something else has made it happen and also it it'self must in turn cause other things to occur until it eventually culminates in the crux. If it doesn't do that then it shouldn't be in.
Once you have done that you'll have a list of events which you can turn into chapters, then you can start to write. Good luck.