Is this timeframre for writing normal

Hello,

Is writing a 500 word article in 2 hours normal when you begin.Or am i just a really weak writer.I did some courses but getting the words on paper is very hard for me it should get better with time.But i would like to know has anyone else here started that badly not even knowing where to start and so on and having blocks that nothing could budge. And is the 30-45 minute timeframe more of a professional timeframe or anyone should write in this timeframe and I`m just not cut out for this.

 

Some people take 10 minutes, some take an hour, some take a week. It takes the time it takes to produce the quality you want.

 

Are you writing an article about a sports team winning the game that you watched yesterday or are you writing a detailed technical instructions for a scientist to study. The type of article matters quite a bit, of course. The real question that you are asking is can you make a decent wage off of your writing skills, I believe. That will depend on what you are being paid and how long it will take you to write the article, based upon the topic. The only way to answer is this is to get a number of projects going, complete them, get paid, and then compare the number of hours they took you versus the income earned.

 

In my time I have not only worked with writers but have trained them. Quality as opposed to quantity is what we who hire writers look for.
Of course you are expected to produce in a timely manner, but if you bang the thing out and we have to get it edited and corrected then where is the profit in that?

The fact that you are questioning yourself is normal for any writer. Produce good content and let the time chips fall where they may.

 

@Spoiltdiva and I agree on the quality versus quantity concept. When I hire a copywriter, I am first and foremost interested in the quality of work the person will produce. I will not risk my company's image with a less than perfectly written piece. Buyers like us tend to be willing to pay more to get quality. However, it is clear that there is also a whole different group of buyers who just want content, no matter the quality. I tend to think that those folks are not long term customers for a writer because their model will fail over the medium term, but they do make a lot of noise and do spend money on writers. Of course, they will also be the buyers who pay as little as possible and expect the writer to churn out words at a prodigious rate. All writers have a choice to go with the high volume/low quality/low fee option or the high quality/low volume/high fee option. Of course, your writing skills will be a big determining factor here. If your writing is not high quality, that option will not exist for you. You have to be a realistic judge of your writing skills, in this regard.

 

Speaking strictly personally, I don't think 2 hours is that bad for 500 words, especially if you're not super familiar with the topic. In my copywriting experience I feel like taking about an hour or two for any 350-500 word article is completely acceptable, factoring in time for research and really firming yourself up on the topic. Any longer than that and your stuff would, IMHO, have to be really high quality to justify the time taken, but maybe I'm just being too critical from my years of experience.

 

As others have said, it depends on the quality of the writing and how much you know about the topic. I can write 500 words in 20 minutes if it's a subject I know inside out, but if I'm asked to write 500 words on a topic I need to research, it takes longer.

Don't worry about your writing speed. The longer you do this gig, the faster you'll get. In time, you will build a useful store of knowledge on a wide variety of subjects, which makes it easier to write more general stuff like blogs. Write because you enjoy it. If writing is a huge chore, it will show in your work.

 

That's a very good point to keep in mind. Even if it's a subject you don't particularly enjoy or showed an interest in previously, you need to still feel passion and excitement about the act of writing in general. People can tell when you're just phoning it in, and that's going to have a bad effect on your writing - and maybe your career.