Last year — 2019 — I wrote over a half-million words for the year on novelised fiction. It was the first time I’d recorded doing that. If I’d been counting all the words written while roleplaying casually and discussing story and plots with my co-author, it would’ve been a lot more than my eventual count (I think it was over 700k as it is).
At the start of this year, 2020, I thought ‘I’ve figured out my pacing using sprints, I can double that’. I signed up for Get Your Words Out (GYWO) with the intention of doubling their highest commitment (half-mill was the commitment, doubled to a full million words in the year).
Then the plague hit. And so did the realisation that I’d put myself on a treadmill.
I’m capable of outputting 4,000 words in an hour … but at a ludicrous speed which divorces me from what I’m actually writing. Sprints might get words on a page, but they give me no time to breathe while I’m writing them. Sprints rely on editing after, not during. Sprints assume that editing is an enemy.
It isn’t for me. I’ve already written about that. And when I crashed, I decided instead that tracking word counts was the enemy. I didn’t want to have word count goals. I’d write for as long as a scene or a chapter and free myself from those chains.
… Yeah, you can imagine how that went. I wrote, I still wrote; but I was suffering from burnout for having written the way I had, and naturally the plague brought the world to a halt. Add to that, even though I often know where my story’s headed, I don’t know where scenes or chapters might end: giving myself a goal whose posts are liable to keep moving is a terrible form of motivation.
And I started hating my writing chair. A lot. I just did not want to be in it, because I was writing for reasons other than joy.
So, what’s the best way to focus up? Do I set goals based on word counts, or do I focus on the story alone? I’ve seen options for both. I just don’t know which one will help me the most, and burnout isn’t helping. Probably there’s something in here about potential, and having to meet it every single time, and learning to be at peace when I don’t.
What I would like to do is become the writer capable of jotting down sentences here and there, wherever I have the chance … but I’m not sure my brain works like that. When I settle, I like to invest in the moment, to linger on it and spend some time on it. For me, the activation energy is the hardest part — and writing piecemeal means many instances of activation energy, throughout the day. But if I only write in lump-sum sessions, well … that has its own commitment. And the act of having to hold myself hostage to sit down and write doesn’t exactly feel good — which is how ‘setting myself up for success with a writing spot’ has started to feel like. I chained myself to productivity, and now my brain is wired that way, at least for now.
So, I don’t have answers there. Not yet.
What I do know is that I am, right now, sitting at just under 496,000 words for the year. Nowhere near my original goal. Just short of GYWO’s highest commitment.
Three fanfics. Five books. Piecemeal here and there. Not counting the amount of roleplay I’ve done. I could probably knock out the last of those 4,000 words in the last two weeks of the year —
But I would be writing just for the sake of meeting a number.
And something else I do know is that that isn’t what I want to be writing for.
So, I’m going to end this year just short of half my goal. Just short of the goal I topped and then some in 2019. There’s a part of me that wants to say that’s some kind of failure, but — it’s a small voice. A very small voice.
If I want to write in the next two weeks, more power to me. But if I don’t, it’s okay. I don’t know if I’m actively at peace with that choice — but I want to be. So I’m going to go ahead and act as if I am.
In the meantime, don’t forget to rest. And don’t forget that the word count is a tool in your arsenal, not a reason for writing.
Aurichalcum Publishing 