Serious question, I think the 'finish the first draft no matter what' advice is wrong

I used to force myself to write 2000 words a day on my novel, even if it was junk, just to hit that goal. After leaving my manuscript untouched for 6 months, I realized that approach killed my love for the story. Now I only write when I have a clear scene in my head, even if it's just 200 words, and my project in Portland feels alive again. Has anyone else found that strict word counts made them abandon a project?

2 comments

2 Comments

david_craig6d agoTop Commenter

Totally get that. Forcing a word count can turn writing into a chore instead of a creative outlet. Glad you found a rhythm that brings the story back to life for you.

sethb456d ago

Oh man, my buddy did that with his sci-fi book. He was so proud of hitting his daily word goal for months, but then he just stopped cold. When he finally looked back, he said the whole middle part read like boring robot instructions and he had no desire to fix it. He had to scrap like 30,000 words and start that section over from scratch.