als asks - how many words do writers write?

writers write, right?

so...

you are not a writer if you go to bed at night having written nothing

you are not a writer if you carry on, day after day, not actually writing (even if you are thinking about writing)

you are not a writer if you constantly tinker with the same old stories, even if they're brilliant

you are not a writer if your daily, weekly, monthly yearly wordcounts go unrecorded (because then it's easy to pretend that when you're sat in front of the computer thinking about writing you ARE writing. you're not, and if you record your figures, you'll realise you're not)

you are not a writer if there is a deadline looming and you think, hmm, i'll write one for next week's deadline instead

you are not a writer if you are not prepared to sacrifice something you enjoy (drinking, football, sleep, work, whatever) in order to write

you are not a writer if you think, oh, i can't be arsed today, i'm uninspired, i'll wait 'til i'm inspired, then i'll write something REALLY good

you are not a writer if you do not think, every day, LOOK OVER THERE! - THERE'S something i want to write about!

you are not a writer if you sometimes write

writers write, everyday

the answer to the question at the top of the thread is - I don't know how many words a writer writes, but i do know they write more than i am writing at the minute

today, i am not a writer

i am pretending to be a writer

and until i get back to writing something new every day, inspired or not - but better full of inspiration taken from my day - with wordcounts steadily increasing, with a football match on the turned-off telly, with a deadline that i'm GOING TO MEET, then i will still be pretending

and what's the point of pretending?



it's time to write