By Jenn Windrow

When it comes to writing, what counts as being productive?

The act of writing involves a lot of numbers. Word count. Page count. Chapter count. Hours logged. We track the above because they are definitive proof that we wrote. Five hundred words feels productive. Two thousand words feels impressive. Zero words feels like failure.

Lately, as I am finishing up a novel, I find myself spending more time on research or staring out the window searching for the right word. I know I sat at my desk all day. I know that my MS has been open in front of me, but on those days that I don’t add as many words as I would like, I do feel like a failure.

But I have to remind myself that some of the most important work I do on a story happens when I’m not typing at all.

It happens when I’m driving, walking through the house, folding laundry, staring at the ceiling, or doing something completely unrelated while one stubborn part of my brain refuses to stop picking at a problem.

The words may not be appearing on the page, but I’m still thinking about my plot, characters, structure, and plot holes. That kind of progress is harder to measure, so, we usually don’t count it.

The Problem With Word Counts

There is nothing wrong with tracking word counts. It can be motivating, create consistency, and help a writer see momentum over time. And honestly, it is how most books are measured, so it is important.

But for me, it can also be paralyzing.

When I know my end goal word count, and I am getting close to typing every writer’s favorite words “the end,” and I am shy 10k words, I start to panic. I worry about how I am going to make up the deficit. And then I spiral and lose focus and freeze up. Then I am not adding any words, and I spiral even more.

That is the world I have been living in the past couple of weeks.

I could just add words to my MS to make myself feel productive, but throwing words at the page doesn’t fix structure or cadence or character motivation. Sometimes we write around the issue because producing words feels better than admitting the story is not working.

I have had days when I wrote pages that later had to be removed because I was forcing the story forward instead of stopping to understand what had gone wrong.

I have also had days when I wrote almost nothing but finally understood why a scene felt flat.

Guess which day helped the book more.

Not All Writing Leaves Words Behind

A character’s motivation finally clicks. A plot problem solves itself while you are making dinner. You realize the argument in Chapter Twelve is not about what the characters are saying. It is about what neither of them is willing to admit. You decide two scenes should become one. You recognize that the side character you created for one chapter is carrying the emotional heart of the book. You discover the ending you planned no longer belongs to the story you wrote.

Instead of adding more words that day, you sit and work through the questions, find the answers, and strengthen your story. None of that adds to your word count. But all of it is writing.

We often treat these moments like happy accidents, but they are part of the process. Our brains continue working on story problems long after we step away from the keyboard. All of this is productive, even if you are not adding words to the page.

Sometimes distance is not avoidance. Sometimes distance is where the answer lives.

Deleting Can Be Productive

One of the strangest things about writing is that progress can look like subtraction. You can spend three days writing a chapter and one hour realizing the book is better without it.

The tracker says you lost words. I'll admit it. I hate deleting words. Even after years as an author and developmental editor, watching my word count drop makes my stomach knot. It's irrational. I know the story is better. But it still feels like I've lost something. It causes a kind of anxiety that is hard for me to explain, because if I am being honest, it is not rational to mourn the loss of words in a novel.

But deleting is not always a setback. Rewriting is not always wasted time. Starting over is not proof that you failed. Sometimes the work did exactly what it needed to do. It showed you the wrong road.

Writers often talk about killing their darlings, but we rarely talk about the guilt that follows. We see the lower word count. We see the empty space. We see the hours that no longer exist on the page.

And we feel defeated.

But all my time as a developmental editor, countless hours spent reading through MS’s that are not mine, have taught me that not all words belong in the story. There are times I suggest pulling out pages of words, and I feel guilty when I do because I know how hard it is to hit delete.

Thinking Is Part of the Job

Writers are not very good at giving ourselves credit for thinking. Thinking looks suspiciously like doing nothing. There is no document to save. No box to check. No daily total to post. You can spend an hour staring at one scene and feel less productive than someone who wrote two thousand words.

But creative work is not linear.

Sometimes a fast-drafting day is possible because of three slow days that came before it. Sometimes the chapter pours out because your brain has already been writing it quietly in the background.

The visible work gets the credit. The invisible work made it possible.

But I have learned that hours of research, to make sure that the story is accurate is a much better use of my time than writing without the research and having to change it all later.

The Days That Look Unproductive

I have had writing days where I barely touched the manuscript. Instead, I asked questions. Why would this character make that choice? What is she afraid will happen if she tells the truth? Why does this scene exist? What changes because of it? What am I avoiding?

Those questions do not always produce immediate answers. They do, however, expose weak foundations. That matters.

A writer can generate a lot of words on top of a bad decision. The pages may look productive while the story becomes harder to fix. In the end the words need to be changed or deleted, and there goes your word count again.

Stopping can be the smarter choice.

Productive Does Not Always Mean Comfortable

Sometimes the least satisfying writing day is the one that moves the story forward the most. There is no thrill in realizing your opening chapter is wrong. There is no dopamine rush in cutting a scene you love. There is no impressive number attached to discovering that your protagonist has been making choices for the convenience of the plot.

But those realizations are valuable. They require honesty. They also require a different definition of progress. That kind of progress makes it easier to have a fantastic, word-adding writing day after because you have spent the time to figure out the foundation before you build it.

A Better Question

At the end of a writing day, I am trying to stop asking only one question: How many words did I write?

Instead, I want to ask:

• Did I understand the story better?
• Did I solve something?
• Did I recognize what was not working?
• Did I make a decision that will strengthen the next chapter?
• Did I move closer to the book I am actually trying to write?

Some days the answer will come with two thousand new words. Some days it will come with fifty. Some days it will come with a deleted chapter, a page of notes, or one sentence scribbled in the middle of the night.

That still counts.

Because words are evidence of writing. They are not the only form of it. So, before you call it a bad writing day, look beyond the number. You may have done more work than you think. And I am sure most of it was productive.

And while I finish this novel, I am going to try and practice what I preach.

About Jenn Windrow

Jenn Windrow once attempted to write a “normal” book—and promptly bored herself into a coma. So now she sticks to what she does best: writing snarky, kick-butt heroines, broody supernatural men, and more sexual tension than a vampire in a blood bank.

She’s the award-winning author of the Alexis Black novels and the Redeeming Cupid series, where the undead never sparkle and the drama is always delicious. Jenn moonlights as a developmental editor, helping other writers wrangle their wild plots and tangle-free prose.

When not arguing with her characters or muttering about Oxford commas, she can be found binge-watching trash TV, wrangling the slew of animals that live in her house (husband and teenagers included), or telling herself she’ll only have one more cookie.

You can find her at jennwindrow.com or lurking on social media where she pretends to be an extrovert.

Photo by Linus Belanger on Unsplash