I saw a post talking about how Terry Pratchett only wrote 400 words a day, how that goal helped him write literally dozens of books before he died. So I reduced my own daily word goal. I went down from 1,000 to 200. With that 800-word wall taken down, Iâve been writing more. âI wonât get on tumblr/watch TV/draw/read until I hit my word goalâ used to be something I said as self-restraint. And when I inevitably couldnât cough up four pages in one sitting, I felt like garbage, and the pleasurable hobbies I had planned on felt like I was cheating myself when I just gave up. Now itâs something I say because I just have to finish this scene, just have to round out this conversation, canât stop now, because Iâm enjoying myself, Iâm having an amazing time writing. Something that hasnât been true of my original works since middle school.Â
And sometimes I think, âWell, two hundred is technically less than four hundred.â And I have to stop myself, because - I am writing half as much as Terry Pratchett. Terry fucking Pratchett, who not only published regularly up until his death, but published books that were consistently good.Â
And this has also been an immense help as a writer with ADHD, because I donât feel bad when I take a break from writing - two hundred words works up quick, after all. If I take a break at 150, I have a whole day to write 50 more words, and Iâve rarely written less than 200 words and not felt the need to keep writing because I need to tie up a loose end anyways.Â
Yes, sometimes, I do not produce a single thing worth keeping in those two hundred words. But itâs much easier to edit two hundred words of bad writing than it is to edit no writing at all.
