Mindful Content: A Writer’s Wheel of (un)Productivity

By Marcus Coates, @homeinriyadh, 13th May 2021

Unsplash: Vardan Harutyunyan

Blog No. 17

How much is too little?

That’s a question that used to keep me up at night. How much writing should I be doing? Is it enough? Because what I have looks pretty tiny. After many nights grappling with this modern angst, I remembered I also have modern technology at my disposal to assist me in finding a solution. Bleary-eyed after one more sleepless night, I assuaged my worries by consulting Professor Google and his online community, and this is what I found:

It’s a rare writer who can flop, sit or stand at their writing desk and consistently knock out 2,000 to 3,000 words of prose that needs little editing and reads as intended. Anne Rice - with a daily word count of 3,000 words and Stephen King with a daily word count of 2,000 words, consistently do this. However, with heads filled with vampires and ghouls, they probably need to get all that horror out of their neocortex and thalamus and down on paper before they can get a decent night’s sleep.

Does length matter?

As with other activities, though, it’s not necessarily how much you’ve got; It’s what you do with it! This statement can be attested by looking at writers at the other end of the word count spectrum whilst noting their pedigree:

Graham Greene said in interviews that he wrote 500 words a day and would even stop halfway through a scene if he hit his daily target. Tom Wolfe averaged about 135 words a day and took 11 years to write A Man in Full. Then there’s James Joyce, who averaged 90 words a day and took 17 years to write Finnegan’s Wake!

A popular joke doing the rounds about Joyce goes like this:

A friend came to visit James Joyce one day and found the great man sprawled across his writing desk in a posture of utter despair.

“James, what’s wrong?” The friend asked. “Is it the work?”

Joyce indicated assent without even raising his head to look at his friend. “Of course, it was the work; isn’t it always?”

“How many words did you get today?” The friend pursued.

Joyce (still in despair, still sprawled facedown on his desk): “Seven.”

“Seven?” But James … that’s good, at least for you.”

“Yes,” Joyce said, finally looking up. “I suppose it is … but I don’t know what order they go in!”

(excerpt: Alvin Ang, 08/17/2020)

An analysis of productivity

For me, although I’d love to be able to sit down and let words pour forth like a fountain of prose, I know they won’t. I’ve learned to console myself by believing ‘consistency is King’. Turning up regularly at the writing table and putting in a daily session is what counts.

Below are two pie charts — one with my intended output and the other with my usual output. The key below each one explains my writing process, as conducted in 2-hour sessions.

Key: 120-minute session

1. 120 minutes - Non-stop writing

Daily Word Count: 3,000

Key: 120-minute session

1. Two minutes - Organising and aligning all items on my writing desk to invoke the spirit of good karma

2. Three minutes - Rereading a couple of paragraphs to get back into the flow of the story

3. Ten minutes - Rewriting and tinkering with the previous paragraphs, having discovered I hate what I’ve written

4. Twenty minutes - Getting into a writing flurry

5. Five minutes - Looking up synonyms for words

6. Five minutes - Researching the etymology of the words until I remind myself that this has nothing to do with the story

7. Five minutes - Coffee break number one

8. Ten minutes - See items 2 & possibly 1

9. Five minutes - A flurry of writing

10. Five minutes - Coffee break number two (one coffee is never enough)

11. Five minutes - Staring at my new paragraphs and wondering why my characters have better lives than I do

12. Five minutes - Meditation strategies – playing with my stress ball or making origami

13. Five minutes - Looking at property sales sites on the web to see which house/condo/ranch or yacht I’m going to buy when I hand in my manuscript

14. Five minutes - Conducting a word count and realizing I’ll be 120 by the time I finish my manuscript

15. Twenty minutes - A flurry of writing

16. Ten minutes - Plot development strategizing – aka powernap

Daily word count: between 50 and 1,000

(Self-discovery note = I have a usual attention span of five minutes)

Turn up, tune in and tinker

So, when writing, if you start getting paranoid about length, remember you’ll be in the company of such literary giants as Greene, Wolfe, and Joyce if your page is more white space than black ink by the time you head off for your third, fourth or fifth coffee break.

And if this doesn’t convince you that your fingers don’t have to bleed to get your fiction in print, remember the advice of Ernest Hemingway (a 500 words a day man): “The only kind of writing is rewriting.”

There you have it from the big man, himself; even if you have lots of words down on the page, you’ll still need to tinker around with them anyway. So, Relax! And never forget that writing should be enjoyable.

"While you're here, why not subscribe here on the website and get the latest blogs, recipes, and productivity templates? Go on, do it!"