Pace yourself
Slow down, relish the process, and you’ll write better, says Sophie Beal, arguing that targets are not necessarily in a writer’s best interests
Writers are often their own nightmare bosses.
If we laid as many unrealistic expectations on any other employee, we’d soon end up in a tribunal. Admittedly we’re often troublesome workers too. Some days, we sit around, producing very little.
Oscar Wilde was no better. ‘I have been correcting the proofs of my poems. In the morning, after hard work, I took a comma out of one sentence... In the afternoon I put it back again.’
There are many reasons we are unable to write at full capacity. We may be ill, exhausted, stressed or under pressure from our day-job. We may have competing commitments or our computer may be slow. And some pieces or sections of writing are difficult. They need more energy, thought and time than others. If we use standard measures of productivity, such as word count, we may be setting ourselves up for failure and discouragement.
Measuring progress
It’s good, sometimes necessary, to know you’re on track to produce work within a particular time-scale. Many people set daily wordcount goals. In the middle of a long project with self-determined hours, length may be your only objective measure of progress. But is it always a fair one?
I often fret about productivity. Surely, I should find at least 500 words a day, the amount I needed for a GCSE essay.
Leggete l'articolo completo e molti altri in questo numero di
Writing Magazine
Opzioni di acquisto di seguito
Se il problema è vostro,
Accesso
per leggere subito l'articolo completo.
Singolo numero digitale
March 2016
Questo numero e altri numeri arretrati non sono inclusi in un nuovo
abbonamento. Gli abbonamenti comprendono l'ultimo numero regolare e i nuovi numeri pubblicati durante l'abbonamento.
Writing Magazine
Abbonamento digitale annuale
€69,99
fatturati annualmente
Abbonamento digitale di 6 mesi
€35,99
fatturati due volte l'anno