I’ve just written 6,000 words, and it’s not yet 1pm. Boy, does that feel good. Stephen King writes 2,000 a day at minimum. That’s half a million per year. Is it really just volume that makes writers good? I think it has a big part to play.

Imagine if you hit half a million tennis balls a year? You’d likely improve your game. Or how about if you played half a million hours of video games? That’s impossible, but you get my drift. The 10,000 hour rule is an interesting one, but I like to break down different achievable metrics, like the word a day thing.

Are you better with a blank slate or editing what’s already there? For me it’s a blank slate. And that’s been my problem. The novel I started over 20 years ago feels like a relic. The characters, action and prose all feel dated. It needs a major face lift. But the plot? It’s got something. It requires a total rewrite. Instead of seeing it as an edit, I’m seeing it as a blank slate. Maybe I can salvage some, maybe I can just hit the sweet delete.

But only count the new words you’ve written.