Stop Worrying About Word Count and Just Play

When I first graduated from Mason’s MFA program, I set a goal to write at least 750 words every day, six days a week. Fresh out of school, the goal seemed completely feasible. How could I not want to write every day? How could I not consistently hit that word count? I was on a roll and cocky enough to believe I could continue rapidly cranking out material. But when I added a 9-5 job, a commute with traffic, working out, cooking, errands, making time for family and friends, remembering to read a few books every couple of weeks, and getting enough sleep, life got hectic very quickly.

Suddenly, sitting down to write wasn’t my priority. It wasn’t paying my bills. It required me to be in front of a computer screen after eight hours of working on one at my day job. It wasn’t something I really talked to people about and, likewise, no one was talking with me about their WIP (work in progress). 

I went from being in a storytelling surplus to a drought. 

With the few hours of downtime I had, my main focus was giving my brain the time it needed to recharge. Let’s be honest: Writing is hard work and requires a lot of brainpower. And the last thing I wanted was more work and having to stress about whether or not I’d hit my word count for the day. But being the perfectionist that I am, when I didn’t hit my daily goal or didn’t sit down to write six days a week like I wanted, I’d get down on myself. I didn’t like feeling like I was failing, so I started to avoid writing altogether. 

And this pattern I was seeing got me thinking: How bad do I really want to be published? If I couldn’t hold myself accountable and love the process, how could I expect to produce content in the long-term? And if this was something that was going to leave me feeling guilty or disappointed in myself, why should I keep doing it?

It’s not uncommon for writers to be apprehensive to write. Sometimes, the anxiety is because we don’t know where to start and we’re afraid of making a wrong decision, but other times it’s because we have unrealistic expectations and put an enormous amount of pressure on ourselves to produce work. And with all the other stress we have going on in our lives, the last thing we want is to put more of a load on ourselves. 

In another scenario, the easiest thing to do would be to avoid the source of stress entirely. But the irony is that if you’re a writer (or any type of creator), odds are that the need to create is equivalent to the need to breathe. So how do we take the pressure off ourselves and stop stressing?

We need to play.

I love working out and go to the gym almost every day. With COVID I’m doing a lot more outdoor workouts and activities, but it doesn’t necessarily matter what I do or where I do it, so long as I’m:

1. Listening to my body and adjusting my workout if needed

2. Stretching and mobilizing

3. Moving well and moving with purpose

I go, get changed, pop in my headphones, and go play. Yes, I have goals. But they’re not overly specific. For example, I don’t have an exact weight I want to be able to squat by the end of this year. Instead, my goal is to just get stronger and perform better. What does stronger look like? It could mean moving more weight, moving a certain amount of weight for more reps, or even moving less weight at a slower tempo to improve my form. 

When I don’t get to do a workout, I’m genuinely bummed because I’ve missed out on playtime. And this got me thinking: What if I start treating my time to write the same way? What happens if I throw out the quantifiable goals? What if when I sit down, my goal is to merely explore my world and its characters? 

For most adults, play is often underrated and overlooked. We reserve it for children and at some point, we either consciously or subconsciously stop carving out time for it. We put our hobbies on the backburner, saying we don’t have time, telling ourselves we’ll start when things calm down, or that we’re mediocre at it and can’t monetize it—so there’s really no point to pursue it. 

But that’s just it: The moment when life gets tough is exactly when we need to play the most. Just look at the past year. Look at all the balcony concerts and tennis matches, bread baking, extravagant backyard golf obstacle courses, and dozens of other examples of people trying to cope with a constant state of uncertainty throughout the pandemic. Were there more practical or productive things we could’ve been doing other than googling how to make our first sourdough starter? Probably. But rather than staying glued to the news and refreshing Twitter every five minutes, we gave ourselves permission to have fun and many of us actually wound up feeling better—even if the world outside wasn’t.

We can do the same thing when it comes to writing. 

To eliminate the stress that cropped up whenever I used to think about having to squeeze in a writing session, I threw out my 750-word goal. I stopped worrying about how often I was submitting. I didn’t pay attention to how quickly or slowly I was making progress on a project.

Now, my writing goals are:

1. Make a cup of coffee (or tea) and enjoy it

2. Turn on some kickass music

3. Write or edit for at least twenty minutes

4. Save my work

That’s it. For those 20, 40, or 60 minutes (if I chose to write that long) the only thing I’m focused on is submerging myself into my world and hang out with my characters. During that time, my only job is to tell their stories. 

By not setting a strict time limit, word count, or page count, I now ask myself, What do I want to write? Rather than what do I need to write? It’s a simple shift, but it’s been making all the difference. With my current work in progress (an epic fantasy), I’m not writing linearly. For the first time, I’m jumping around, writing whatever scene or following whichever character I want to explore more. Does this mean that I may wind up scrapping more pages? Maybe. Does it mean that my rate of completion has slowed? Probably. But even if it makes things a little messy or slow-going, I’m no longer stressing about writing. Now, when I close my laptop for the day, I’m already thinking about where I’d like to play tomorrow.