A word count exercise

I stumbled upon a novelist’s blog, Chris Orcutt, and found an interesting proposition:

Book-writing is as much an endeavor of numbers as it is one of words. The consistent, daily production of a minimum number of words is the key to getting books written. For novices this minimum word count should be higher, not lower, because writing is one of those few enterprises that, paradoxically, gets tougher as you go on.

How hard is to write, say, 250 words? I’m finding it out. And I guess I cheated when I pasted that quote. Feel free to substract 59 words from my total if you feel so inclined.

I’ve just recalled WordPress’ editor has a word count a click away. The classic editor had it on the bottom. I was baffled when a reviewer complained the Alphasmart 3000’s lack of a word count feature. I’m now discovering why. It’s an adequate measure of progress. Not that your goal is to spew out as many words as possible with fillers and padding, but that you know your writing quota for the day is done.

How can I apply this to drawing? Maybe draw a number of pages per day, or fill all the blank space in a page, or a number of anatomy studies?

I’m reminded again of the defining feature of the OKRs, the measurement. You can’t improve what you don’t measure. It’s about making a goal quantifiable and binary (“Did I reach 250 words? Yes or no?”).

Woo, 250 words. This is hard.