| How do you measure your writing progress? Do you count words or pages? If you do, then what happen when you’re revising? Do you count pages or hours? Then again, what if you write children’s books? A children’s picture book is generally less than 750 words. Each title in my Kids Throughout History series is 800 words. But neither type of book is written in one sitting, one afternoon, nor even in one week.
This is probably the hardest detail for new writers to understand. You make progress on your writing when you are inching toward your goal. You cannot compare yourselves to other writers and how they measure “progress.” As creative writers, we also need to consider the hours that go into thinking about and planning the scope of the story—or the research and organization necessary for writing nonfiction.
It’s not clear-cut and each project is different. So, how do you know whether you are making progress on your project? It’s subjective. Only you can decide. Are you satisfied that the story or book idea is developing? Has a pattern emerged—or a regular routine—for the steps necessary to reach your goal of writing a book, story, or article?
Remember that many tasks are part of the writing process. Not all of them involve putting words to paper or screen During prewriting, for example, you work with ideas, plan scenes, sketch out characters, create plot points, think about the best sequence for the story conflict and resolution. You might also need to do research and—for nonfiction—plan the best approach for sharing facts and details about a topic. During drafting you’re getting words onto paper, but the number of chapters or words you are aiming for is an estimated range which will change while you’re revising. During revisions you’re working with the words already there, and this involves rearranging, rewording, deleting, and adding words. You might also move back to the prewriting (planning/researching) and drafting stages as needed. At any stage in the process it’s a good idea to begin looking for potential publishers or agents. So, aiming for a goal is far better than trying to track progress by counting words.
When you think about the tasks involved in writing—and the many tasks that have little to do with actually putting words to paper—it’s easy to become frustrated about “missing” a daily or weekly goal to generate a specific number of words. You need to align the idea of “writing progress” with the many stages in the writing process.
Making progress on your writing is very subjective. For me, it is also dependent on the project scope. How I approach a project (my process) and how I track progress changes with the project. In the long run, it’s truly up to you; only you can decide if you are making progress in your writing. So, continue plugging along toward your writing goals. |
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