In my writing practice, I aim for 250 words each day. That doesn’t sound like a lot, and it isn’t. I can hit 250 words every day, but something else happens that feels like magic—most days, I shoot right past that word count. I might write 350, 500, 750, or even 1000 words in a day! Other days, I might only be able to wrestle 250 words onto the page before I’m ready to put the work away and try again tomorrow. But the words you write gather into sentences that make paragraphs that create whole scenes that eventually get you to “THE END” of your project. In this way, setting the bar low can get you to where you want to be. -from How to Form a Daily Writing Habit
Every writer is going to have their own approach (or set of approaches) to the question of what constitutes a draft. These approaches might change with every phase of every project; the way that you wander through your first draft could be quite different from the way that you wander through your final. The hope, of course, is that your conception of drafting, whatever it is, can serve as a perch—a perception-changing post, slightly above the page, from which you’re better able to see your work and your process in a useful way. My personal approach is to avoid the question of drafthood for as long as I can. -Joseph Scapatello, What if all writing is just drafts forever? https://lithub.com/what-if-all-writing-is-just-drafts-forever/
More than likely I painted myself into a corner and, instead of being wise and retracing my steps in order to find the correct route, I worked myself into a lather trying to figure out how not to get footprints on the wet paint. Well, not really “worked.” I’m getting tired of people who say that writing is such hard work. It’s great fun. Work involves callouses, pained arches, cuts, abrasions, and so on. If writing was (or were–which of these verbs is correct?) so much work, only masochists would be handwriting... -from George Singleton's Kenyon Review Conversation
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