--- Title: The Problem with Word Count Goals Subtitle: I’m glad I’m doing this project—but it doesn’t handle edits! Date: 2019-11-10 08:10 Category: Blog Tags: [writing, editing, productivity] Summary: > I started the day by cutting 40 words from an article. How does that work with a word count goal?!? --- I’m a little over a week into my [November writing project][nwp], and I’m *very* much enjoying it. However, I ran into a fairly obvious problem today: word counts goals don’t handle *editing* well. This morning I picked up a piece I started a few months ago, which I’d like to finish and publish by the end of the month. After ten minutes of working on it, I had written some new words… but there were 40 fewer words than when I started. [nwp]: https://v4.chriskrycho.com/2019/at-least-15000-words.html This is to be expected. Good writing requires editing. This shows the downside of word count goals quite clearly, though: progress on good writing *often* entails the word count going *down*. In the case of this little project, I’m fine with it. The point is to get all these muscles moving again. Most days this month, I *am* working on new materials. Hitting my goal won’t be hard even with editing involved. Still: a reminder that time spent writing each day might end up being a better metric in the long run for these kinds of goals than word count.