hammer out

Life It's exam time at the university which means that the library is teeming with people today waiting for things -- waiting for computers, waiting for the booking desk. I even think I saw some people just waiting who weren't completely certain what for, just to give themselves a purpose. I know the feeling.

For all the busyness, I managed to hammer out another thirteen-hundred words which leaves another eight hundred of this essay to go. By now I have a slightly greater idea of what the answer might. It seems that yet again, I'm going to be using my usual approach to accademic essays. Writing something which fits the word length so that I have something I can hand in if I'm really desperate then go back and give it a structure, toss out the unnessary and make sure that it sounds like English and not my version of the language.

Can the word 'often' be used in the following context? 'Robert Riskin, often collaborator with Frank Capra' It doesn't look right to me...