So my wife and I are embarking on a second novel. We’ve outlined everything and have a nice entertaining story plotted out. We know what our characters look like, what their history is, and most importantly, what happens to them. We know what the major settings are like and a chapter-by-chapter breakdown all done up. We have pages of data created for this book. In fact, all that is left is to write the silly thing.

In order for me to make progress on a large project like this, I set a daily word limit, typically 1000 words, that need to be written. I allow one or two days off every seven days or so and if we stick to this plan, we should complete the novel in about three months. So last week, we started down the path of writing together. Overall it is working very well. We help to feed ideas to each other and share the workload equally. Since the story is already outlined out we have few disagreements on how it should go so we are basically filling in the gaps.

I write everything in Word, no big surprise there, and we recently upgraded to the 2007 version. One of the features of this version is that down on the bottom of the screen, there is a handy word counter that is constantly updated. In previous versions you would need to make a few clicks of the mouse before the word count was displayed so this is definitely a time saver. It is also a source of continue frustration for me.

See when I was writing my other novel, I’d write for what I would think was a decent amount of time and then check to see how many words I’d written. Sometimes I’d be disappointed that what I thought was 500 words at least, turned out to be 200. Other times I’d be elated that I’m much farther along than I thought I was. With the words automatically counted on the screen, all it takes is a quick glance to know where I’m at.

So you know the old adage “a watched pot never boils?” Let me tell you, a watched word counter never increases. We’ll be writing some dialog and I’ll see that we are at 103 words. Write some more and a glance says 198. Write for a half-hour and it is only up to 302. Inside I’m screaming to myself “we’ll never finish this!” I feel like I’m fighting for each and every word to come out, like Marines taking a Japanese-held island in the Pacific.

But then, something strange happens. We get sucked into what is going on with our characters. The words flow more smoothly and we are writing compelling dialog. I finally reach the end of a scene and glance down at the word counter: 1200. So the first 300 were almost painful, but the remaining 900 flew out my fingers and on to the page. It is easy to guess which group of words was better written also.

So what happens (and I should point out that this happens almost every time I sit down to write)? Basically, I stop measuring and start creating. Measuring is a great thing and certainly helps me to keep on track, but if I’m constantly measuring my progress, it constantly interrupts the progress. Even though it only takes me a fraction of a second to glance down at the word counter, the mental process gets interrupted and then I have to mentally deal with the fallout if the counter is not as high as I want it to be.

So like everything in life, there is nothing wrong with measuring your progress, but if you do it too much, it can actually impede the very thing that you are trying to accomplish. So when you find yourself in the same situation as me, try to avoid measuring. Your inner voice will be yelling at you to just take a quick peek at the word count, it won’t hurt. Do your best to tune him out and only take measurements at regular intervals. I feel that you will accomplish more that way. Oh, and by the way, this article is 712 words.