Digging out the ruler.

After spending a few months on a writing forum that will remain unnamed, I have noticed a lot of measuring going on. Many people seem to be caught up in how many words others are producing in a set amount of time and trying to figure out how they measure up.

While aspirations are undoubtedly a good thing I can't help but feel drawn back to school where I would listen to the guys I hung out with talk about who had the biggest dick.

Now much like the measuring contest of yesteryear writing measurements don't tell us a whole lot. There are extreme cases like where a writer does only ten words a week that we could compare to a 1 inch penis but for the most part writers will write however much works for them.

I'm not going to say I never have the urge to whip out the ole yard stick and see how I do compared to others, but people like Lori or Scarlett would just give me an inferiority complex and the writers version of erectile dysfunction (also known as writers block). This hardly seems constructive.

Instead I concentrate on my own writing and set my own goals. For me I will be content to write, edit, polish, and submit one novel a year. Other people would cry if they couldn't finish one in a month. There is nothing wrong with either of those goals as long as the writer picks one for themselves rather than force it upon themselves because they feel inferior otherwise.

I could probably bang out many thousand words in a day but I prefer to put out words that make sense when strung together and that takes time for me.

I also have to wonder how much time writers loose to wangsting about poor output when they could be using that time to actually .... you know.... write words.

Of course I coudl be writing words instead of wangsting about wangsting but, I'm a special case.