the trouble with quotas

[marycatelli]

Word quotas can be a wonderful thing to keep you going.  Particularly if you are wise enough to set your daily quota higher than the usual number of words you need to get warm to your work.


And don't allow yourself to do them in advance, because once you've built up a margin of error, you can quickly find that you don't get back into the habit once you've used it up.  Making up works better -- it puts in an inherent punishment.

Revision can be fun. I've never found a really good measure -- words changed (plus or minus) is not much help if some passages don't need much change, and pages done, if some need a lot.

The worst effect for me is when it results in my only writing once a day, even though I could do more.  I look at the desk and think that I've already done it, and the initial reluctance that inspires quotas is back full force, and not to be budged.

Comments

[jennygordon.livejournal.com]

Interesting you should say that - writerjenn has just posted this on her blog: http://writerjenn.livejournal.com/311617.html

Something in the air, maybe?!

[marycatelli]

Happens all the time! A flurry of posts that happen to be on the same topic. . . which may or may not include mine. 0:)

sometimes there's inspiration radiating outwards -- sometimes, no doubt, it's just you're primed to draw connections, or it's that it's easier to remember two things in conjunction than one alone -- it could be really hard to figure out whether there really are statistically abnormal clumps.

[jennygordon.livejournal.com]

I put it down to writerly magic!

[marycatelli]

It could be a conspiracy too. 0:)