Is my current approach to my work supporting or detracting from my goal of legitimately making a living directly (and indirectly) from my writing? Over the next several pieces, let’s break that question down into particulars.
We’ll start with drafting. I’ve spoken a zillion times about my 5000-words-per-week quota. Is it effective? Is it helpful?
Well, after all these weeks and months of practice, drafting 5,000 words per week is pretty easy. If I get out of my way even a little bit–which is substantially about trusting my intuition–I’ve grown pretty adept at allowing the words to flow. My ability to produce an initial draft, be it zero or first, has improved dramatically. So to the extent that my success depends on the ability to decide on a tack for a piece and then move smartly, then clearly this aspect of my approach is working. So I got that going for me. Which is nice.