I have espoused the Million Word rule many times before, particularly about my post about whether you’re ready to publish. This precious rule is my meow meow, my oshi, my beloved.

Angry young writers continue to push back, insisting they’re ready right now … when they are almost certainly not. That means I have to talk about it more.

I am more persistent than just about anyone you will ever meet. Come hell or high water, I will convert you.

For your own benefit. I already did the work, so telling you this doesn’t do anything for me. It might even make you mad at me, and then you won’t want to buy my books. That’s okay; I can take the rejection. I just hope you’ll listen with an open mind.

We see the anti-Million Word backlash anywhere that writers like to hang out.

All the writing subdreddits are plagued by new writers asking the same thing over and over again. They haven’t even completed one draft and they’re already counting their royalties.

“I am a 14 year old girl and I’m starting my first book, and now I’m scared because I have to find an editor and that costs a lot of money, and how am I going to find an agent? I can’t sign a contract when I’m underage, so my parents will have to do it, and they say I’m too young, and and and and ….”

Jesus Christ, girl. Slow down. This is the one precious time of life where you do not legally have to file your taxes. Don’t get the IRS involved so soon.

In a particularly sad post, a 17-year-old boy asked if he was “too old” to start writing. I had to pop a few aspirin because my blood pressure was approaching rice-cooker levels.

And, as per usual, every time I remind them that they should write a million words before publishing, I get yelled at.

Why are you booing me? I’m right. As are the many other authors who stick by this rule. But there is a problem with just telling people to write a million words; they get it all twisted.

Let’s explore why people don’t like the rule, then explain that my million word baby is a poor, misunderstood little soul. And then we’ll talk about how you, too, can get to that milestone.

People do not like the Million Word Rule because they want instant gratification.

Instant gratification, in this circumstance, typically means instant paycheck.

Million Word haters think that writing = money. They get angry at the idea that they can’t immediately get a return on investment from their writing. To them, their KDP page is a gumball machine: insert word, get coin. As such, they resent someone telling them that they should actually practice if they want to do something well.

But you’re not going to make money if you put out a shitty product. Certainly not enough to justify the expenses. Even if you do put out good products, building a fanbase takes a lot of time: years, decades. You might not have a fanbase by the time you die. You could be like Herman Melville, who blew up decades after his death.

I’ve published four books and a novella by now, but I still wouldn’t say I have a fanbase. I might conclude the Eirenic Verses and still only have a few fans. Oh well.

Does the concept of mediocrity make you break out into a cold sweat? It shouldn’t. And if you truly enjoy writing, it won’t.

They believe that the first million words are “wasted.”

As I’ve mentioned before, I wrote 1.6 million words of fanfic before I embarked on the Eirenic Verses. I can never monetize that work; it would be illegal.

But was it wasted? Hell no.

I had so much fun writing those 1.6 million words; it’s a time I remember fondly. Sometimes I even daydream about new stories in that series, but I don’t write them because I’m busier now.

Through my practice, I learned more than the basic level “how to make words convey information.” I already had two college degrees and had read hundreds of books; I even tutored other academic writers, so I was pretty solid on the whole “putting words together” by then.

However, fiction writing is an entirely different beast. I had a lot to learn about characterization, audience, emotion, melodrama, plot, avoiding infodumps … on and on. These are quite alien from the academic sphere I had been in for so long. Even in my English Lit degree, these aspects weren’t taught; I only had to do a handful of creative writing classes for my major, which certainly wasn’t enough.

So fanfic gave me a place to play around without panicking about publishing (because I couldn’t).

And, most importantly, I got a lot of encouraging feedback that spurred me to keep going. I wouldn’t have tried to write original fiction if I didn’t already know that people like my style. This gave me great self-esteem, and feedback.

The people who think that the million practice words are a waste have one (or all) of these poor mindsets.

“If I can’t publish it right now, then I’ll never be able to publish it.” Who said that? They’re stupid. Brandon Sanderson wrote 12 books before publishing his first one after massive revisions. You can go back and revise it as many times as you want. The book isn’t set in stone until you publish it.

“I don’t want to write things no one is ever going to read. That’s not fun.” I covered this issue in my post about perfectionist writers, so look at that for a full takedown. But if you do really want people to fawn over you, write fanfic. You will build it, and they will come, especially in a niche fandom.

“If I can’t monetize it, there’s no point in writing it.” I see would-be authors sniff that at fanfic writers all the time, but it’s nonsensical. What, do you demand a Venmo payment for texting your partner? Get real. You write stuff for personal joy all the time. Apply that to your fiction, too.

Irene Radford wrote a post saying that the million word rule is a myth. When framed from her perspective, then yes – it is.

Her thesis – which I agree with – is that you can’t just write a million words of slop and think that it will teach you anything. That is very true. Just hammering out bullshit isn’t going to improve your writing.

That’s why there is a little secret addendum to the Million Word Rule. You have to do it intentionally – and you have to combine it with other training.

People decry the 10,000 hours rule as bunkum. Just as with the Million Word Rule, this is because they do not want to do the work. They want the immediate reward and validation of doing something, and they recognize that 10,000 hours is a long, long time.

Others offer all sorts of cheat codes and shortcuts for the people who don’t want to do the work, decrying that the “long way” is for losers. No different than people selling you sawdust pills and saying it’ll turn you into Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Welp. Sorry to tell you this, but those crowing “you can be the best writer ever in just two months!” are scammers who don’t give a shit about whether you succeed or not. They want your money, and that’s it.

I’m giving you all this advice for free, so I have no reason to lie to you. And I want you to succeed, so I give my advice for free.

Writing is hard. I say that a lot. And becoming a great writer takes a lot of time. About, oh … 10,000 hours, I’d say.

“Wait a minute,” the receptive reader might say. “If you write 1,000 words an hour, then writing a million words will take you about a thousand hours. Where are the other 9,000 hours coming from?!”

You are very right in that observation, and I have an answer for you.

The other 9,000 hours are the time you spend on all the other activities around writing. Plotting, characterization, reading, editing … they all contribute to your mastery.

If you are really dedicated to your training, those other 9,000 hours will emerge naturally. It’s the time you spend asking for feedback. The hours you spend reading blogs like this one. The time you spend actively reading other fiction to understand why you like it or not. The hours spent in writing circles, or digesting suggestions from beta readers, or even arguing with people on Reddit who do nothing but watch action movies and now believe they are the next Michael Crichton.

You’ve got a leg up if you are currently pursuing a liberal arts degree (or already have one). Yes, all the time you spend taking notes, reading books, and writing essays does contribute to your 10,000 hours. You’ll also benefit from professional feedback, stimulating conversations with your peers, and guided book recommendations that keep you from wasting your time on nonsense.

However, any college degree is not necessary to become a good writer, just commitment and great writing resources.

I don’t care if you’re a cross-eyed dandelion farmer with a first-grade education, who hand cranks a generator to access the internet on your 1998 Mac PC. You can write a book if you want to. Time, dedication, commitment, resilience, persistence. These are what matters.

Never let anyone tell you that you have to be this, this, and that to write a good book. I don’t do elitism. Wonderful writers come from all walks of life.

All you need to do is write stuff. A lot of stuff. Intentionally, thoughtfully, consistently.

The idea of writing a million words is extremely intimidating.

Now this concern is one I can deeply sympathize with. Yes, such a huge number can be terrifying.

That’s because you’re looking at the big picture, not the minute-by-minute. You need to break it down into something more manageable and continue to do that over time.

I am a writer as my day job too (go figure). I am typically assigned around 20,000 words a week, and I work 50 weeks a year. I’ve been working for this company for three years.

That means I’ve written about 3 million words for my employer. Did my boss sit me down during my interview and go, “Hey, by the way, we’re going to need you to write 3,000,000 words, give or take, during the next three years. Does that seem feasible?”

Of course they didn’t! Every interviewee would run screaming. Instead, they reviewed my writing samples, had me do a few practice articles, and then asked me how many words I could write a week.

I did a good job on those articles, so they gave me more, and so on. Before you know it, I’ve written thousands of articles for dozens of their clients.

So break your million words down to the smallest chunks you need to succeed. I would not recommend trying to do 20,000 words a week when you are just starting out; you’ll have a mental breakdown. We want to ease you into this, not scare the daylights out of you.

Personally, I love spreadsheets to keep track of my writing progress, as I discussed in my article about how to write faster. Another good thing about spreadsheets is that you “lose” by editing during the writing process, so it will discourage you from pecking at every word. Quantity, not quality, is the name of the game when you are creating your first draft.

You could commit to 100 words a day. Make a Google Sheet, or Excel document, or whatever, and put down your word count every single day.

This is not going to be your pace forever, by the way; as you grow in strength and confidence, you’ll start getting much more done. So don’t feel bad about starting with a low number like 100 words. It does not mean that it will take you over 27 years to finish your million words.

As you start to notice your average creeping up, boost your minimum. You go from 100 words a day, to 200, to 500, and so on. Before you know it, you’ll be able to do about 1,000 words an hour.

If you spend two hours a day writing, then you can complete the first draft of a 100,000-word book in about a month and a half.

Bam! You’re 10% done with your first million words in about 50 days. If you keep that pace up, you will complete your goal in 500 days, so about 17 months.

Again, I found that fanfic was an excellent way to get my first million words done because I already had so many presets to play with. I’ve seen people use TTRPGs for a similar readymade world.

But if you chose to go the original fiction route, now you have maybe 10 or 11 books that you can go back and revise with everything you picked up along the way: the fruits of the other 9,000 hours of training. That’s amazing. You have years’ worth of material.

Good things take time, but they last longer.

My house was built in the 1930s, with all the charm of that era. There are wrought-iron stair rails, built-ins, even a hand-painted inset above the fireplace. The ceilings are plaster over drywall, a process that construction companies don’t use anymore because it is more labor-intensive.

It has good bones. We’ve had to do some minor repairs, of course, but I am sure this house could stand for another 100 years with proper maintenance.

Meanwhile, McMansions built in the 2000s and 2010s have already started to rot from the inside. They have terrible architecture and atrocious construction because the buyers wanted bigger, not better. These behemoths are thrown up in a few weeks with the cheapest materials possible, and they almost immediately begin to have serious structural issues.

It’s not like 1930s builders had secret methods that have been tragically lost to time. In fact, things theoretically should be better now, not worse, because we have stronger materials, more efficient machines, and a greater understanding of safety. But things are worse. Why?

The difference is that the house I live in was built for someone. This was the home she died in.

But McMansions are not made as forever homes. They’re made for a quick turnaround. Developers cut corners, cheap out on materials, and push their workers to get things done as fast as possible so they can get their payday.

I was not there when my home was built, but I am certain that the original owner was very precise about every detail. She wanted it to last, so she demanded the best and she took the time to ensure it.

And last it has, because effort and time was put into ensuring it would. There were no quick bucks involved. There were no corners cut. There was no thought of its resale value, only how it would shelter its owners for the rest of their lives.

So, listen. Do you want something fast, or do you want something that lasts?

If you want to publish the equivalent of a McMansion – shoddy, plot-holed, cheap, rushed – then fine. Don’t do your million words. Publish your very first draft of your very first book and wait for the praise. I cannot stop you.

But I can warn you: just like the McMansion bubble, you’re not going to get a return on investment.

If you want the equivalent of a Painted Lady – measured, pristine, gorgeous, venerable – then do the million words. Do it tired, do it scared, do it bored, do it frustrated, do it lonely, do it sad, but do it.

I promise, you’ll be much happier looking back at your writing catalogue if you put in the work.