Ratika Deshpande
I previously wrote here about the benefits of maintaining a writing log and setting concrete goals, such as finishing first drafts or writing 500 words every day. Word counts have always been an integral part of my writing process; reaching the daily goal gave me something to work towards. However, for the past year—the most prolific period of my life–I have not been keeping track of my writing output.
Back when I wrote every day without fail for years, it was numbers that brought me to my desk to write. I got excited about entering my daily word count and watching my streak grow. After I broke that streak, I made several attempts to start another one.
For someone who loves working with words, I thought too much in numbers.
Last year, I found myself very overwhelmed; I was making myself do a lot of things that I didn’t really need, such as trying to have hobbies in various domains, saving articles I’d never have the time to read, and carefully tracking my word count. One day I decided to stop—and found it liberating.
I’d recognized that at this stage—as of September 2024, I’ve been writing regularly for over eight years—simply writing more words would not make me a better writer.
Out of the 1.5 million+ words I’d written—the number I’d reached when I stopped keeping track—I’ve published less than 5%. (A much larger share was published on my blog, which I’m not counting here.) This huge output helped me establish my basics—grammar, vocabulary, voice, rhythm—but despite writing and having folders upon folders filled with drafts of essays and short stories, I had very little that was worth publishing. This was based not just on my own judgment of my writing but also on the rejections I received from publications.
As Brian K Vaughan, a comic book and television writer, once said:
“Every writer has 10,000 pages of shit in them, and the only way your writing is going to be any good at all is to work hard and hit 10,001.”
My focus all these years had simply been on getting the words down no matter what. And so even on days when I could have spent more time on planning, plotting, thinking, I didn’t. Instead, I just started typing whatever came into my head until I hit my daily goal. It felt more like a chore I had to continue doing to call myself a(n aspiring) writer. My writing was often—though not always—all over the place; I didn’t produce drafts that could be transformed into something submittable.
Now, I’m focusing on learning how to write with style, form, and substance. I’ve been experimenting with different ways of writing essays and even playing with the possibilities of blogging. I’ve written some of my best pieces during this new period.
Another benefit of not tracking my writing numbers is that I can take breaks without guilt. It took me a long time to understand that I wasn’t less of a writer if I didn’t write every day. And since I didn’t force myself to do that, I ended up writing fewer drafts. But they were also good, useful drafts, because when I did sit down to write, it was because I had something to say—a tutorial, an interview, a personal essay about a book that deeply impacted me, and so on.
In the beginning, numbers and stats make one feel like one’s actually doing something, making progress. But equally important is to recognize that not everything can be quantified, including writing quality. That comes with thinking deeply about one’s writing goals, the story one wants to tell, the form in which the story will be told, and so on. These things won’t happen automatically; one needs to slow down. And I was able to do that when I stopped tracking my daily word count and instead focused on writing less but better.
Bio: Ratika Deshpande (she/her) just finished her free, online book on the art, craft and business of writing. You can support the project here.
