Author, Will Self measures his work in ‘Conrads,’ a unit equal to to Joseph Conrad’s daily word count. One Conrad is 800 words.
Self elaborated in the Telegraph:
“I write a first draft fairly rapidly,” he says. “I write in Conrads. Conrad wrote 800 words a day, on which he could support a butler, two maids, a chauffeur, a gardener and an under-gardener. On a good day, I write three Conrads, on a fighting day, four.”
- NANOWRIMO writers challenge themselves to produce a novel of 62 Conrads in one month.
- The rough draft of my latest project is 40 Conrads long. I’m looking for entire Conrads to cut.
- Stephen King writes 2.5 Conrads every day, (up from 1.2 Conrads since he unplugged his TV.)
- Graham Greene limited himself to exactly 0.625 Conrads a day and stopped short even if he was in the middle of a sentence.
- David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest weighs in at 605 Conrads.