My writing software, Scrivener, tells me that on my writing days, my daily average is 720 words. I’m working harder than that, on things like research, marketing, and thinking about the plot. I’m sure I could physically write more, but I think the plot would suffer. It seems as if 720 words of plot is as much as I can carry around at a time. Then I need to rest, do other things, and let the next section take shape in my mind’s eye.

When I was writing my non-fiction book, Project Sponsorship, I wrote a lot more, at least between drawing diagrams. I knew the subject inside out. With fiction, and in my case, historical fiction, I have a theme and a plot outline, but things change along the way. New ideas are revealed which you have to pause and explore.