Monday, April 20, 2015

That Evil Comparison Game



I suspect many writers do this: compare ourselves, our style, our pace to other writers', and of course, we always compare ourselves to someone who writes 'better and faster'. Yes, yes, yes, I'm guilty of this. I have a friend who writes 4 to 5 books a year, and every time I see one of her updates that reads along the lines of, "Whew, just wrote 9k words today," I feel frustrated with myself, mad that I'm not at that level of production, or cranking out similar results.

But why?

Wasn't it Dr. Seuss who advised: "Be yourself, everyone else is already taken" ? And such wise words, since none of us are called to be 'like' anyone else. Doesn't this also ring true for how we work our talents? Just because some writers can and do finish multiple novels in a year doesn't mean that I'm any less talented. Heck, it has nothing to do with me!

We can only do what we can do. For some of us, that means accomplishing a NaNo draft, then taking 6-ish months to clean and polish it. For others, it means writing a page a day, a book a year. I have another friend who just finished his second novel...that took him 5 years.

So this week's quote is especially satisfying. I didn't managed 7k or 9k new words this week, but I did get ideas to paper. Yay me! and whatever you've accomplished this week, 100 words to 10k words, I'm cheering you on!

Word Count on the WIP: 23,014

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