I’m nearing the end of Arachnomancer 3 and am faced with a choice. As a writer, we often focus on word count. It’s the single easiest method to measure productivity.

But here lies the problem. . . .

Somedays can’t be writing days. Somedays, writing new words might take you and the story further from your goal. Yet, I’m participating in a challenge to write 2,024 new words every day this year.

This works out to be about 738k words or about seven 400-page books. In 2023, I wrote somewhere around 500k words (quick aside: I want to build an app to track my word productivity and thoughts, energy level, mood, etc.).

The goal is to write consumable words. Simply writing “junk” words I don’t intend to publish is cheating.

Maybe there is no choice. At this point, I need to read the book from the start, which will kill my word count. But doing so will help me write a satisfying ending.

Writing challenges are good for motivation but can lead to being inflexible. And maybe there is no such thing as “junk” words. Every word you write is exercise for your creative muscle. Taking a week to read/edit leads to creative atrophy.

Hah. Alright. That’s my decision. I just needed to write my thoughts out. Time to get back to it. :)