Many authors prescribe to completing a certain daily word count, and I wonder what particular discipline, you, yourself adopt as a matter of habit?

B.K. Duncan Thanks for your question; it’s one very popular with my creative writing students and, whichever answer I give, leaves someone feeling they are taking the wrong approach. Although the bottom-line is that each of us knows the way we work best and the only thing that really matters is if it works or not. So this is a personal response and not to be taken as cast-iron advice . . . I’m not a huge fan of word count as either a motivator or benchmark of achievement. It can act as a spur when you don’t have a lot of spare time in which to sit down and write (I am a full time author and see it as my job to be at my desk every day) but an over-emphasis on word count can lure writers into believing that quantity is more important than quality. It isn’t: both are crucial.

I measure progress by ‘chunking’ my work into scenes or chapters, writing at each session until I have moved the story on to a natural stopping point. Often that comes when the action changes or a new character enters into the fray and I need to revisit my planning or notes in order to change focus. My hope is always to achieve my goal of reaching a new section before I run out of energy or ideas. Except sometimes that is impossible and it’s then I put on my research hat and do a different form of work on the book; the change of pace acting as good as a rest and re-firing my cylinders again.

But, in the end, it doesn’t matter how you progress with your writing. Only that you do!

flag