Fun Facts About Writing

Posted byVanya Wryter ConsultingPosted inEducation, Writing and EditingTags:, , , , ,

How much do you love writing?  Whether you want to answer this question with a groan or heart emojis, writing is a necessary part of modern life.

For some, writing is a lucrative career. For others, writing is necessary, everyday communication through work emails, or texts with family and friends. Writing is a skill we can’t do without.

Over time, and with practice, you can improve on the skill to overcome writer’s block, awkward sentences, jumbled thoughts, or grammar issues. 

Because writing is an important part of our lives, we are sharing some amazing and shocking insights on writing skills. It’s astonishing what you can achieve when you put together a series of words!

  • What is the fastest time for writing a book? According to Guinness World Records, the fastest time to produce a novel is 9 hours 5 minutes 8 seconds. A team of 53 professional authors and academics wrote Moş Crăciun & Co.
  • How quickly does the English language change? Every two hours, a new word is added to the dictionary! Leading style guides such as Chicago, APA, MLA, and AP regularly revise their rules for punctuation and words and phrases. Writers and editors must keep up with the latest changes to ensure their writing is up to standard. 
  • Is there a limit to original story ideas? J.R.R. Tolkien had the idea for the Cauldron of Story (Pot of Soup), the collective imagination. All writers dip into this hypothetical pot, meaning no new stories are ever created.
  • How old is the earliest writing? About 5,500 years ago, humans drew symbols and images during the Stone Age. Around 3500 BCE, the first writing appeared, called Sumerian cuneiform, from pictographs. This writing system was used for business transactions, recording complaints, and refunds. Much later, writing developed into literature.
  • What are the most in-demand writing jobs? The most in-demand writing jobs are in content writing. Content writers write blog posts or articles. 
  • What are the highest-paid writing jobs? Some of the highest-paid writing jobs are (in no particular order): technical writer, copywriter, medical writer, speechwriter, screenwriter, ghostwriter, grant writer, and proposal writer. 
  • How much do writers make? The average writer’s salary in the United States is $65,000 (according to ZipRecruiter). The average salary for a creative writer in the United States is $52,576 (salary.com). Copywriter jobs pay from $75,000 to $140,000 (ZipRecruiter).
  • How is creative writing similar to professional athletics? German researcher Martin Lotze discovered that brain activity during the writing process and during athletic competitions is similar. However, professional writers use the speech-processing center of the brain while amateur writers use the vision center to visualize their story.
  • Do all writers write their own stories? If you have dysgraphia (difficulty with handwriting, typing, and spelling), it can be challenging to write a story. Author Agatha Christie published investigative books with the help of a typist like Barbara Blackburn, who could type 150 words per minute.

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27 thoughts on “Fun Facts About Writing”

  3. Pingback: 230 – Writing – Beach Walk Reflections: Thoughts from thinking while walking

  5. I found the idea of Cauldron of Story interesting. I was reading a book on myths and it talked about the partial mythemes that form myths and which recur in different cultures. Maybe I am biased because most of my short stories are like folktales, with clear archetypal characters like the trickster and the anima. And I find interesting that a lot of symbolism considers water as the symbolic substance of the unconscious. So the notion of a Cauldron of Story kinda taps into that; yet, the paradox I found in writing all these folktales is that in using repeated themes and a very emaciated story setting, I arrived at the conclusion that the imagination is in fact quite limitless. It’s like by exploring the very process implied in this Cauldron of Story, I arrived at an absolutely opposite conclusion.

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  13. Fun info. However, “no new stories are ever created.” I’ll push back on that. The “Story” of the election of 2016 was a unique event in history. I told it a novel (not done before) way. Just saying 🙂
    ~ I read somewhere there are now some 500 million blogs worldwide! If true, that’s a lot of writers! Whatever did people do before?

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