Nicholas Sparks keeps a steady, almost ordinary schedule for a bestselling novelist. He writes five or six days a week, aims for at least 2,000 words a day, and does it with the television playing the whole time. This is what a typical writing day actually looks like.
Five or Six Days a Week, 2,000 Words a Day
The core of the routine is consistency. Sparks shows up most days and hits a word target rather than waiting on inspiration. That steady output is what carries a book from blank page to finished draft.
I write five or six days a week, usually a minimum of 2000 words, sometimes more.
Nicholas Sparks, on nicholassparks.com
Two thousand words might sound quick, but Sparks has said it eats up about five hours. A lot of that time goes to thinking, eating, and drifting rather than typing. The words come in fits, and he counts the day done when he hits the number.
The discipline is really the whole point. Sparks has said the difference between professional writers and hobbyists is that professionals keep consistent habits and hobbyists don't. He treats the daily count as a job, so the book keeps growing whether or not the writing feels good that day.
How a Writing Day Runs
In a Daily Beast interview, Sparks laid out the shape of a working day. He's up around 5:30 in the morning and exercises through to late morning. Writing starts near 9:45, runs to roughly 12:30, breaks for lunch, then picks back up until about 3:00 or 3:30 in the afternoon.
His setup is casual. He leans back, puts his feet on the desk, and works with the laptop in his lap. And the TV stays on the whole time. He plays reruns of shows he already knows well, like House, Seinfeld, and Cheers, so the noise is familiar and never pulls his attention the way something new would.
By mid-afternoon the writing is usually done for the day. The count is hit, the rest of the day is his, and the next morning he does it again. That's how he's kept the pace up book after book without burning out on any single one.
Almost No Outline
For a writer this structured about hours, Sparks plans surprisingly little on paper. He's said that everything he needs to know before starting a novel fits on about a page and a half of bullet points: the beginning, the ending, the major turning points, the characters, the setting. From there he lets the rest of the story fill itself in.
Knowing the ending before he begins is the part that matters most. With the destination fixed and the big turning points marked, the daily writing becomes a matter of connecting the dots. At roughly 2,000 words a session, five or six days a week, those short bullet lists turn into a full novel in a matter of months.
See the full Nicholas Sparks writing routine for how the pieces fit together.
What You Can Steal
- Pick a daily number and defend it. Sparks uses 2,000 words as the line between a working day and a wasted one.
- Give yourself set hours. A start time and a stop time do more for output than motivation does.
- Find your version of the TV. The right background can steady you as long as it isn't genuinely new or interesting.
- Plan light, then start. A page and a half of bullets was enough for him to begin.