If you write a thousand words a day, you can write a book in about two months. This seems like a rigid, no-debate-about-it kind of fact. It’s math, after all. Words are easy to count, so it seems like a very logical way to keep yourself accountable. But for so, so many writers it can also be a nefarious mindset trap that can take the wind right out of your sails. When you only measure your writing productivity by word count, you may not be making the best choices for your book. Worse, you may be making it unnecessarily harder on yourself.
That is not to say we recommend ignoring your word count altogether—we wouldn’t dream of taking the satisfaction of seeing that little counter tick up away from you. As we discussed last week, celebrating wins is crucial to keeping your writing momentum up. When you expand your definition of progress, you can not only help yourself find real wins to celebrate, but also ensure you have clear eyes on your project and write the best version of your book. The whole process will feel better, and the final product will be stronger.
You’ve got the story, you’ve got the idea, you just don’t know the steps in the process. If this is what’s holding your memoir back, I have got the solution for you. The Memoir Method Checklist is going to take you through every single step you need from idea to published marketable book. Don’t put off sharing your story another day. You can download the checklist and get started, right now.
Drafting is only one part of writing
When beginning writers select a word count goal, they often overreach and ask too much of themselves. A thousand words a day seems like a reasonable ask, but it’s actually very difficult to maintain.
But it’s not actually the specific number that’s the problem. It’s the idea that only adding words to the manuscript “counts” as progress and writing. There is a lot more to writing than stacking words one after the other. There’s planning, research, decisions, revisions, and so much thinking. When you only measure your writing productivity by word count, you could end up spending a dozen hours a week working on the book only to look back and feel like you didn’t do anything.
That feeling can be so demoralizing and can add to that persistent inner voice that’s telling you that thinking doesn’t count as doing. It tells you that you’re not really a writer. That little voice is vicious. When writers give in to that voice, that’s when projects disappear into bottom drawers, permanently shelved, unfinished.
That little voice is also simply wrong. Writing is a craft of ideas, so thinking counts.
So-called “Writer’s Block”
Centering word count over all else can feel like writer’s block. Writer’s block is really a mindset trap. When you sit down at your writing spot at your dedicated writing time, but the words don’t want to come, we call that “writer’s block.” But more often than not, it’s really just being not quite ready yet. You need more development time to work through your big ideas before you can get down to the details of drafting.
The Sunk-Cost Fallacy
Perhaps you have the opposite problem. You are making those word count goals. You’ve been managing to put out those words because you made yourself a promise, damnit, and you’re going to keep it. The weeks go by, and now you have 20,000-30,000 words. Amazing, right?
Except when you read through that work, you realize that you’re not really proud of the work you’re doing. It’s not cohesive, it lacks a clear focus, or it has some obvious holes in the continuity or logic. Naturally, you don’t want to just delete all those thousands of words—all that work! So, you just keep writing and rewriting and trying to find ways to put those words to use.
The sunk cost fallacy occurs when people continue investing in a decision based on cumulative prior investment (time, money, effort, words) rather than considering the current and future potential outcomes. Essentially, it’s the irrational idea that since you’ve already invested so much, you should continue, even if it doesn’t make sense to do so. It’s a trap.
Focusing on word count alone can shortchange the other steps. If word count is the only thing that “counts,” you’re likely to skip outlining, planning, and fully processing your ideas. That means that even though you’re adding words to the draft, those words may not be really moving your book project forward in a helpful way.
If this feels like you, we encourage you to step back. Let yourself take some time to go back to the drawing board. Outline, develop your ideas and really focus on having a cohesive structure, separate and independent from what you’ve already written. Then, you’ll have a clear and honest idea of what from that writing you can plug into your scaffold, and what needs to end up on the cutting room floor.
Other practical ways to measure writing productivity
Count time, not words
This is especially helpful in the development stage of your project, when you’re not really ready yet to diving into drafting. Whether this is a set writing calendar like Amanda describes in her video, or something more flexible and varied as you fit into the rest of your life, promise yourself a certain number of hours a week rather than a certain number of words. Honor that time by making sure you’re pouring your mental energy into your book idea: working on your outline, finding research, making notes, or even just thinking about it.
When you’ve got an outline that feels really solid, then you may add in a word count goal into your time go as motivation. But don’t forget—thinking still counts as progress. If you don’t allow time to think in addition to adding words to your draft, you’re bound to get frustrated and stalled.
Handwrite notes
One way to truly measure your real writing productivity is to have a separate place to keep your wandering thoughts than your actual draft. Amanda and I both prefer to do this by hand. Studies show that writing by hand has real benefits to learning and creativity. If you incorporate journaling time into your writing, you are accomplishing two important things. First, you’re giving yourself permission to count thinking and exploring your options as part of making progress in your book. You can celebrate that time spent as a little win. (Especially when you make little breakthroughs in developing your ideas!) Secondly, you’re laying the foundation and prep work so that when you are adding words to your main draft, they are stronger and closer to a “final” draft, saving you headaches during revision later.
Make lists to put a clear limit on research and learning goals
While it’s very possible to shortchange your development stage, it’s also possible to use it to procrastinate moving into your drafting stage. When you know you need to gather some more research, make a clear list of what you need in order to move forward. Resist the temptation to just keep adding to the list, set a deadline for when all those items need to be checked off.
The same goes for learning writing skills. You might need to brush up on what makes for good dialogue or how to incorporate flashbacks. Take some time to make a list of those skills you need to take the time to review and give yourself a deadline to learn them. This way the more nebulous stages of the process will still have clear goals and finish lines.
Multitask just a little bit
Sitting and thinking is hard. It doesn’t seem like it should be, but it is! We all have so much pressure on us coming from all different directions, that taking time to just think feels like a cheat, as if we’re letting ourselves and others down. But we don’t have to just sit and think to make mental progress in developing your ideas for your book. As part of committing time to working on your book, plan low-mental effort tasks to do in tandem. Take an easy walk, go for a scenic drive, unload the dishwasher. The key to choosing a task is that it should not require much from you mentally so you can really pour that mental energy into thinking about your book.
This is useful in development stages, but also while you’re deep into drafting because it circumvents that “writer’s block” feeling. Try this for an example exercise to make writing time productive: Step 1) Read the section of your outline that you’re planning on tackling, Step 2) Go for a walk and think about that section. Play around with different openings, practice visualizing the setting of the scene, let your mind turn it over. Step 3) Go back to your writing space and start putting all that free-thinking progress into words.
Incorporate play and rest time
Play is how we figure things out. We take away the pressure of being correct in order to experiment. When we’re playing, we can try lots of things quickly without getting attached or invested. We’re just seeing what might work and following the excitement of creativity. Play may not add to word count directly, but it can generate ideas and approaches that will. Dedicate some time to play! This might look like getting up from your desk and acting out a scene a few different ways. It might look like getting out a sketch book and doodling about your concepts or memories. However you play with your ideas, you’re pouring that mental energy into your book. It counts as time spent well, even if that word count ticker doesn’t show it.
You can’t fill every corner of your available time with working on the book. You will need to rest. If you are going week after week spending energy on your project, but not meeting that word count goal, it’s not because you are failing. You just need to revisit your plan.
Change your goals according to the writing stage you’re in
The writing process is not all the same. Your development stage is going to look a lot different than your drafting, and revision is yet again a whole different beast. For each shift in your stage, come back and make a fresh set of goals. You might keep your schedule the same, but shift your output goals. Revisiting what means “progress” to you well help make sure you don’t lose your momentum.
