WPM

http://www.typeonline.co.uk/typingspeed.php

It's a good test. I scored 64 wpm with one typo.

Yeah but, at least for me, there is a huge difference between typing something someone else wrote where I don't have to do any thinking and having to think and come up with origional stuff. I know what my typing test WPM speed is but I know that I can't write anything from my brain at that speed. Or am I the only one who slows down when I have to think about it?

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Does not read and follow label directions.

Hmm, I wonder if there is a good test for that. I suppose you could have someone time you for a minute and just type then count the words after... it's probably not entirely accurate, but it's better than nothing, right?

If I see something where you write your own stuff to calculate it, I'll come back and post it. ^_^

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"NaNoWriMo spares us from three evils; boredom, laziness and free time."
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I think you'd want more than a one minute sample. I intend on picking a prompt or a challenge or something then sitting down writing the start time writing for a decent chunk (more than 15 minutes I think would be a good sample) and then write the stop time. Figure out an average wpm count from that.

There have to be other be who have done this right? Am I really that strange?

If I really wrote my stuff at 75 wpm (about what I touch type) I'd have the whole 50K done in under 12 hours. People are talking like it'll take 3+ hours a day for a month. There is certainly a discrepancy here.

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Does not read and follow label directions.

Same here. There's quite a difference between typing what you're thinking, and copying something else.

But still, I liked that test, and for what it is, it's pretty helpful. I scored 79 wpm with 3 typos, and then my second time I scored 96 wpm with 2 typos. :D

EDIT: Oh yeah, word prompts. I forgot about those, somehow. Those are excellent for figuring out how much you can type when you have to think about it.

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SF '07: Sand & Stone - WON!
SF '08: Sand & Stone (continued)

Change of plans - now finishing Sand & Stone this April.

Angelfish, my sci-fi/fantasy webcomic.<

Nice speed. I'm kind of hoping that after typing 50K words in a month in concentrated blocks my typing skills will improve a little. Not sure why cause while I type a lot for work a lot of it is slow, type 5 things spend 10 minutes talking about them rinse repeat work.

But hey we can use all the bonus extra special things we can get right?

I should take the test on Nov 1 and Nov 30, compare :)

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Does not read and follow label directions.

I find that typing tests are insignificant next to the spped at which you write in word wars...

That is, unless you are a manuscriptist...

==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ====
I am the protagonist in a magnificent page turner...While it is still in it's 18th year of introduction, I believe the Author is ready to get to the action.

Typing things off your head is hard to test.

After all, sometimes the muse flows and is wonderful to you and you manage nearly a thousand words in fifteen minutes... other times it hates you and you get maybe five hundred in the same amount of time.

I actually got 63wpm on that, which was better than I'd have thought. I get around 75-80wpm coming up with stuff on my own. My typing speed definitely got better over the course of last November (from about 50 to 70) so hopefully that happens again this year, haha.

I got 72 WPM, with three typos -- actually, there were more, but I fixed them while I typed and that brought the WPM down a bit.

Year 3: Calling Down the Heavens (Finally titled!)

I got 88wpm on that test, without any typos. With word wars I'm usually fast too....Unless it actually has to make sense. Then I'm very, very slow. But then it's more the thinking process that is slow, rather than my typing speed :D

I don't break it down into per minute. I just try to hit around 2k per day ~ especially early on so I've got a cushion for days when 2k just won't come.

At last check (recruitment agencies always check before they sign up new admins *roll*) it was 95wpm :/ but that was a couple of months ago. Probably around 90 now.

Ellie
Municipal Liaison for Brisbane, Australia

NaNo Title: Her Private Dancer
Genre: Sci-Fi Erotica (minus the tentacles...)

I got 89 wpm on the test. But of course it's different when you're composing at the same time.

Dark Fire - completed Nov. 9th - 94,375 words
Answer Me - completed Nov. 25th - 113,516 words

Here's what I've done, as part of my pre-nano preparation, this my first time doing it. I've felt like I was training for a marathon since I decided to do it. :-)

I went to the Scriptorium web site creative section http://www.thescriptorium.net/
they have ten minute writing exercises where they give you a topic and or first line and you write for ten minutes on it.
I wrote for 10 minutes, ignoring typos I will make quite a few. This is 10 minutes of creative writing not following what someone else wrote. I'm going to force myself to edit all my spelling and grammar after I finish each writing session. I took my word count after the 10 minutes. then did the math. In all the 10min writing I did I wrote just over 200 words so I'm looking at 20 wpm.
which should mean about 2-21/2 hours of writing a night if I write every night to reach my goal.

I got 52 WPM with no typos and 74 WPM with 4 (albeit minor) typos

Unfortunately, I've got to stick to watching out to typos...my OCD is naray a hindrance, however, as it saves much time in editting.

My Blog (Or Writing and Other Creative Goodness)

The word count's not supposed to go down, is it? :(

That sounds like an amazing way to prep for NaNo. Thanks for sharing!

ScriptFrenzy 2008:
Project Title: We'll Do This Later
Pages: 0/100

I got 82 WPM with 1 typo, and I know I went back and fixed some typos, and slowed down to make sure I got a word right. Not bad if I do say so myself.

ScriptFrenzy 2008:
Project Title: We'll Do This Later
Pages: 0/100

I write at about 30wpm, but type faster than that. The writing I just timed myself for a minute and wrote a quick story based on a prompt word. I did it three times and the actual average was 33.7 or something, but I like to round down (or up, which ever way gives me the highest margin of error).

Don't
Give
Up
The
Ship

I got 103 @ 3 errors

D:

@Ikasu: Come Join me at Twitter!

I can do about 50 WPM. (I can do more, but then I make a lot of mistakes). I'm not really concerned with speed. As long as I can get in 2,000 words or more per day that's fine with me.

___________________
That's Tee kee' rahm

Thekherham: The Autobiography of an Alien
http://www.lulu.com/content/3016721

I got 56 wpm with two typos, though I'm pretty sure I can write faster when I'm not copying someone else's text. And when I'm not trying to type quickly. Generally speaking I can get around 600 words in a twn minute word war, so I guess my creative wpm is around 60 as well.

I don't really think there's a good way to test for it, apart from just writing for ten or fifteen minutes and calculate your wpm from that.

NaNo '05: Growing Up Lonely
NaNo 'o6: Three
NaNo '07: Yellow flowers and a bag of bones

I was tested at a job agency over a year ago and I was at 83 wpm with 3 errors. I think now I could be faster, or even slower... it depends on my day. LOL.

Claire

Title: Zombies Ate My Neighbors (based on song by Single File)

It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write. ~Sinclair Lewis

I scored at 86 with 2 errors.
Not bad. Sometimes I'm much faster, sometimes I'm much slower.

NaNo '06 | Serenity | 50,020 words
NaNo '07 | Useless Junk You Can Learn in Spanish | 55,800 words
NaNo '08 | Let's just say my brain has imploded

Depending on how I'm feeling, I can slide from 105-115, with about 98% accuracy. If I go higher the accuracy plummets down, and obviously if I'm writing creatively rather than in translate/copy zen mode, it goes a lot more slowly. I find I can't seriously write in longhand anymore because everything takes so incredibly long.

Ultimately, WPM doesn't really matter as long as your typing/writing can keep up comfortably with your thoughts. Unless you're doing a lot of word wars, or racing for time on lunch breaks or between other jobs, you're rarely going to be typing near maximum capacity anyway. In my experience, the ability to manage time and keep on top of things is a lot more important than the ability to type quickly. Unless you've left about half of your novel to finish in one day. Which I have. And I did finish, but, you know, I don't recommend that.

Let's see .. 121wpm. With one mistake, that being a missed capitalization. Not bad, I'd say. ^_^

Of course, I always take much longer to type when I have to think of words as I'm going along. Copying by rote is more of an automatic process where everything I look at goes straight to my fingers.

"Und eef dey don't vant to dance ... ve beats dem vith a steeck!"

I did a typing test when I applied to a temp agency this summer, and got 100 WPM with 100% accuracy. But I'm certainly slower when writing for NaNo.

See Girl Write: the life of a college writer, trying not to flunk out.

I write 160 wpm with three typos, and 153 with none....and it was hell getting there! I'm naturally around 120 wpm, but I'm trying to break the world record of 170. :)

When I'm writing a novel, though, I probably trudge along at 30-50. God. Miserable!!

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THE SCIENCE OF MAKE-BELIEVE

9002/50000 words
0 characters killed (not including minor casualties)
0 sex scenes
1 hospital scene

64 oz coffee/tea
144 oz diet soda
0 caffeine pills
2 screaming angry tantrums
8 Klonopin tablets
6 Zofran

Hi loudlyquiet - I am new and had the same question - I posted and got a lot of helpful advice here:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/1006959

In summary people seem to be able to WRITE (that is think, compose and actually type):
* at least 1,000 words per hour minimum
* more like 1,200 to 1,500 words per hour on average
* up to 2,000 words per hour or more when life is good!

Breaking your time up into 30 - 40 minutes chunks seems recommended - people generally don't maintain their top rate over longer periods of more than an hour.

A lot of people say word wars (there's a forum for these) really help push up the word rate to 500 words in 15 minutes for short sprints.

I just took a typing test on-line and got about 30 WPM my first try. Then I started taking some more tests and practising and now I'm around 60 WPM already. I'm going to be practising as much as I can in the following couple of weeks to get my brainless WPM up to near 100 if I can. Last time I did word wars, I was doing about 70-90 WPM with thinking. I haven't been writing since May though so I'm pretty rusty. I'm using the rest of the month to get my brain and body back into shape. Lots of word prompts, typing exercises, practice word wars, character and plot generation (many of which will get thrown out before NaNo), getting used to the life of a lonely hermit crab, making new writing play lists, etc. There's loads to do in the next . . . 18 days. Wow. Two and a half weeks left. It's crazy.

Ring ring ring...Bananaphone!