"Gonna Make a Move that Knocks You Over..."
Both Donna and New Kid have extolled the virtues of How to Write A Lot by Paul J. Silvia. I have to admit that I am a fan, too. One of the things he says to do is to keep track of your writing output, have a spreadsheet that documents the days you write, whether or not you met your writing goal, and how many words you produced. It's pure common sense. If you want to know where you money goes, keep track. If you want to know how what you eat relates to your weight, keep track.

So, Saturday, after doing that day's writing, I started such a spreadsheet. The previous Thursday, I wrote over three hundred words. Saturday? When I kept going until the laptop battery died, which was over an hour? I wrote forty words. Four. Zero.

Now, that's because I finished section one of this essay and turned to section two. I didn't have any information for new writing, but I knew what needed to be cut, so I cut it. Yes, writing is more than producing words, and word count is only one measure of productivity (which Silvia points out). And, as I say again and again, I am a heavy reviser who loves revising. But, dang, that's a blow to the ego, to be working that long and show so little.

At any rate, I'm just hanging around campus after class to clear up little things and let traffic in the parking lot die down (the working adults who take night classes are nuts about grabbing spots and make it tricky to get through). Tonight, I will write. I don't know how much I'll produce, and deep down I don't care.

But I'll get it in the spreadsheet, nonetheless.
- posted by Nels @ 4:40 PM | | | Link |