A target word count plus an honest daily pace equals a date on the calendar. Set both and see when your first draft lands.
At 500 words a day, 5 days a week, a 80,000-word draft takes about 7.4 months of steady writing sessions — the calendar date lands above.
Five writing days a week, starting today.
| Daily pace | Sessions | Calendar time |
|---|---|---|
| 250 words | 320 | ~15 months |
| 300 words | 267 | ~12 months |
| 500 words | 160 | ~7.5 months |
| 750 words | 107 | ~5 months |
| 1,000 words | 80 | ~4 months |
| 1,667 words (NaNo pace) | 48 | ~10 weeks |
| 2,000 words | 40 | ~8 weeks |
The math above hides the real variable: how many sessions you actually show up for. A modest pace held for months beats heroic weeks followed by silent ones — which is why habit tools obsess over streaks, not sprints. Whatever number you choose, choose one you can hit on a tired Tuesday.
Not sure what target to type? Genre conventions are collected in how many words in a novel — and when you want to know what the finished stack of pages will feel like, there's the words-to-pages converter.
At a sustainable 500 words a day, five days a week, an 80,000-word first draft takes about 7.5 months. At NaNoWriMo pace it's 48 days. Most writers land in between.
Famous routines range from Graham Greene's 500 to Stephen King's 2,000. With a day job, 300–1,000 per session is the realistic, sustainable band.
Yes — it finishes an 80k draft in ~7.5 months at five days a week. Consistency beats intensity.
A 50,000-word draft in 30 days is exactly NaNoWriMo: 1,667 words every single day. Doable, intense — and it produces a first draft, not a finished book.
Be Write tracks your sessions, word counts and streak against this exact math — and celebrates the milestones on the way. Coming soon to Google Play.
Meet Be Write