The number most often quoted is 500 words a day, and that's close to right. But Hemingway's word count is more interesting than a single figure, because he tracked it obsessively and kept it deliberately low for a reason most writers get backwards.
The Chart on the Wall
We know Hemingway's numbers because he wrote them down. In his 1958 Paris Review interview, George Plimpton described a large chart Hemingway kept, made from the side of a cardboard packing box and propped against the wall of his home in Cuba. On it, Hemingway recorded the word count of each day's work. His stated reason was blunt: he did it "so as not to kid myself."
The figures Plimpton copied down tell the story better than any average. They ran 450, 575, 462, 1250, then back to 512. The normal day landed somewhere near 500. The big days, the ones over a thousand, weren't breakthroughs. They were Hemingway banking extra words so he wouldn't feel guilty taking the next day off to fish the Gulf Stream.
Why 500 and Not 2,000
Five hundred words is a small day. Stephen King aims for 2,000. Anthony Trollope cleared 3,000 before breakfast. So why did one of the most productive novelists of the century cap himself so low?
Because Hemingway wasn't optimizing for words per day. He was optimizing for words per year, and for the quality of the next morning. His whole method depended on never draining the tank. If he wrote until he had nothing left, he would sit down the next day facing emptiness. By stopping near 500, while he still knew what came next, he protected tomorrow's session. The low number was the point, not a limitation.
It also reflects how he wrote. Hemingway revised as he went and chose words with a jeweler's patience. His prose is famous for what it leaves out. Five hundred of his words could carry the freight of two thousand of someone else's.
I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.
Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
For the complete picture of how Hemingway worked, including his desk, his pencils, his revision habits, and the famous theory of omission, see the full Ernest Hemingway writing routine page.
What You Can Steal
- Count your words, but don't worship the count. Hemingway tracked his to stay honest, not to win a race. A visible daily number is a quiet form of accountability.
- Pick a target you can hit on a bad day. Five hundred words is reachable when you're tired, sick, or flat. A target you actually hit beats an ambitious one you abandon.
- Bank ahead when it flows. On good days, push past the target so a future day off costs you neither guilt nor momentum.
- Stop before you're empty. The whole reason for a small number is that you finish with fuel left for tomorrow.