A good day of writing
How do you measure a good day of writing? I imagine it varies by project, but generally speaking, what leaves you feeling like you accomplished something for the day? Does it come down to more quality, quantity, or a a balance of the two? What about the same questions for a day of rewriting?
For me, I think I measure both types of days with a balance of the two (and I imagine it’s the same for most writers, but I felt like I should ask anyway), with the balance shifting more toward quantity when I’m working on a rough draft and more toward quality during the rewriting and editing stages. It’s still interesting to me, though, because many of the writers that I follow on Twitter keep count of their net words for the day, whether they’re writing or rewriting, and that is the main way they seem to measure success.
I think that to keep some form of MFA-found writerly sanity (and Shivani can make of that what he will), I’m going to have to work some rewriting days into this next month of NaNoWriMo craziness. After all, it is the fall, and that means I’m overdue for sending out work for potential publication. Hitting 50K will be fun (if I make it), but not at the expense of the other skills I’ve developed. We’ll see if I’m singing a different tune next Monday.
I try to do 300 words a day, but I don’t necessarily measure a good writing day by getting there. Keeping word counts I find a good way to keep myself disciplined so that when inspiration does arrive I’m ready to channel it.
I tend to measure a good writing day by emotion. When I get up and leave the computer or put down the notebook, do I feel good about what I’ve done? Am I so happy with what I produced that I fall asleep soundly?
Of course, there are also times when I’m having such a good time writing that I’ll have to keep getting up as I’m falling asleep to scribble another idea in my notebook, but those are rare…rare, but wonderful.
I’m sadly in the state that any day I write something is a good writing day.
[...] week my semi-NaNo-related question to you all dealt with how you measured a good day of writing. There I was, optimistically looking forward to another month of, as NaNoWriMo would have you [...]