For those that are in the process of writing. How much do you write a day? And how long did it take you to get that stamina and focus for writing that much?
I've written 8 screenplays and one 220-page novella (adapted from one of my earlier screenplays)...I also used to work as a book reader.
I never considered myself a writer though, and still don't really. I think there's different methods to create a story, one is the Stephen King method where you write the story without having much of a plan, which lets you know what the reader is thinking at basically all times, and lets you be much more productive, but also can result in you writing yourself into a corner at times, which is a scary thought.
The way I've always done things is the "pre-planned" method. A lot of screenwriters use this style too, where you work out every aspect of the story before you ever write anything out longhand. This can be very tiring and slow, making you turn out less work overall, but you never risk writing out hundreds of pages then realizing you need to throw it all out...and I also think that it lets you maximize the quality-level of your work. Since your writing will be around longer than you are, I decided that I'd want to make it as good as I possibly could.
The first method, which Stephen King uses, is what I considered a "writer" to be. What I do feels more like being an architect, to be honest. The longhand writing is always an afterthought, and I've never been able to really focus on it UNLESS I'm excited about what I'm doing. I have to have big plans for the work when it's done, or think it's going to be one of the best things I've ever written, for me to be able to focus on the longhand writing at all.
So I'm in the process of adapting my screenplays to e-book novellas, and after doing the first one and putting it online in July, I started on the second one and have stalled out working on other things for the past few months. If I get excited about it I'll probably go back to it, but I'm pretty familiar with my creative process by now so I don't sweat it too much. My work gets done sooner or later.
Also, without giving away the plot what are the kinds of things you're writing about? I am leaning heavily towards the Bible since it's technical and doesn't give me much room to go wrong.
My first practice screenplay (which I wrote just wrote just to go through the process then never rewrote) was an action story. Then I wrote a handful of comedies...then two hard science fiction stories (which are in a reworking stage)...and then two more action stories. I've tried to do horror stuff in the past and could never really get into it, mainly because I don't like sitting around frightening myself.
Eventually I hope to have all my stories on Amazon available as e-books and completed screenplay versions also. I plan to put out a $.99 version and a $2.99 version with the novella, original screenplay version and an author's commentary for people who like the technical side.