Word Count Goals–The Pros

I write every day or try to. I keep a journal. In my opinion, keeping a journal is something every writer should do. That and setting a word count goal for a daily practice of writing. I use the journal to write my stories, my thoughts, these blogs. I think I have mentioned that before. I just write every day. I have a word count goal that I aim for. It was nine hundred words a day in this journal. Then it went up to a thousand words. I’m up to eleven hundred words each day. Some days I make it some days I don’t.
Having a goal to write towards is a good idea in that it gives you something to aim for. You can spill the words onto the screen or paper, depending on how you write. A journal is a good way to practice. It’s a good way to warm up for writing a story, blog or whatever you want to write. You can use it as I do, and write the rough draft there. Having a daily word count goal is part of that practice.

Set a time to write. Set a goal to aim for. It doesn’t matter if you hit that goal, it’s just a target. Over time you will find yourself hitting the target more often than not. That’s the way it works. It’s like archery or shooting a gun. You aren’t going to hit your target the first time you pick up a bow or gun. However, if you pick up that bow or gun every day, and try to hit the target, you will eventually do so. That’s the point of setting a word count goal.

It’s there as something to aim at much like the targets for archery or shooting. How well you do is measure by the number of words you write. This is a quantity building exercise. Often you will find that what you write towards your word count goal is not the best you can do, but it will get your ideas out there. That’s the point of NaNoWriMo. It gives you daily goals to meat while writing your novel. It gives you a deadline as well, but that’s another blog.

In NaNoWriMo, it doesn’t matter how well you write. It’s a rough draft. That’s all you are producing so quality at this point doesn’t matter. A word count goal gives you quantity. Once you have the quantity, you can move on to improving the quality. So set the word count goal at something you can achieve and when you find yourself achieving it consistently, you can evaluate it and move the target higher, should you choose to.

About pebblepup

I am not one who is comfortable talking about myself but here goes. I enjoy writing, family history, and reading. I decided to do this blog because I wanted to try something new. I decided to make it a weekly blog because I wasn't sure that I could keep up with a daily one, and monthly seemed like I was writing a magazine. I think I did ok with my choices. You'll notice that there are not a lot of graphics on my site. That's because there are graphics plastered everywhere on the Internet and those sites sometimes take forever to load. This blog is a place where you can kick back, relax and be ready to be amused. At least I hope I willbamuse you. This blog is on a variety of subjects from my ficitional cat agency, the FFL, which is monthly, to instructional blogs to editorials, which are my opinions only. I admit that I don't know everything and could be wrong -- I frequently am. Now, stop reading about me and read what I have to say!