Page Count, Revisited

For all my struggles with that bastard, the Page Count, and his cruel mockery of my attempts at productivity, I have come to a few realizations about my writing habits.

In order to motivate myself to write, I am willing to write just about anything, in any order. I don't control or attempt to meaningfully participate in the outlet. My focus in merely to get words on the page. Words on the page just feel good, no matter what the words are, what order they come in or what they say.

However, I reached a point this week were I was beyond words on the page. I had many words on quite a few pages. And it was time to look at what was out there and have them actually say something rather than just appear in a random yet picturesque fashion.

I wound up doing a LOT of re-writing, cutting and pasting, and thinking, thinking, THINKING: What do I mean by this? How does this paragraph connect to the previous one?

Ultimately, I came across the crux of the problem: The section I was working on did not have a cohesive argument or direction. Without that, writing becomes a little like walking place. There were endless steps and no destination.

I am happy to write that, after my week of seemingly non-productivity, I have finally hashed together an argument for this latter portion of the chapter. This process has been difficult, humbling, frustrating and a little feverish (due to a problematic heating system, I shift between extreme feelings of hot and cold).

I will probably end the week where I started up, somewhere around pesky 34 (coincidentally, perhaps, also my age). But I have no regrets and I don't expect to change my process. In the future, I will try to be more patient with myself, however, and try to anticipate that writing is more about RE-writing (I think I might have read that somewhere actually).

I like writing. I like getting my ideas out - I learn a lot from it. I think this week I also learned that rewriting can even be more pleasurable.

Here's a metaphor: I like to cook. But I LOVE to eat what I made.

I hope any struggling writers out there use this to embrace their own process.

HERE'S AN IDEA FOR SOME BLOGGERSPHERE INTERACATION: Any writers, non-writers or simply anyone whose put a word to a page, what is your process? What have you learned about it that might help others? Post a comment and maybe we can start our own little writing community!

In the end, Page Count IS Dick Cheney, heartless, cruel and self-serving. But he is wheel-chair bound (locked in my computer, of course), forced to sit and stew in his ultimate failures and ineffectiveness. I am too humble to consider myself Obama in this scenario, so let's just say I represent the hoards of people, more powerful in their numbers than in what a bald man with a bad heart can yield.