Counting Words

There's a lot of things in life one can obsess over . . .

  - Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey

  - Washing off all the creepy-crawly
     amoeba's that might be infesting
     your skin

  - The Coldplay Turtle vine

  - The threat of violence, famine, disease, yellow-throated booby extinction

But as an author, the one thing I notice lots of people obsess about is word count. I'm asked -- a lot -- how many words I write at a sitting, to which I most often reply, "It doesn't matter." Which, I admit, can sound a little flippant, but here's the deal . . .

It really doesn't matter.

There is no magical word count that makes you a rockstar writer. There's no number to validate you as a for-real author. And anyone who says otherwise is clearing wearing their baloney pants because that's what it is: baloney.

Write as many as you can, you little champion. If that means 200 at a sitting, then a palm-stinging high-five to you. If it's 2,000, then you get the same palm-stinging high-five. It's not how much you write that makes you a writer, it's that you write.

The comparison game is death. You don't need to write as many (or as little) words as me or anyone else on this planet. You are you. You do you. You be you.

You cute little writer.