Actual Word Counts

[coendou]

I realized that in the original post about goals, as well as the weekly goal post, I didn't really focus on word count, just general "things I'd like to get done." Looking through other people's goals, it looks like most people did the same

Comments

[kaygigi]

The problem with a word-count goal is that, for the most part, my projects involve a)updating lit reviews, b) adding a section suggested by a reviewer, and c) fleshing out proposal sections. All three things involve a lot of writing, but all three share the common theme of "lit review" type work. I don't have specific word counts for these, I just need to do them adequately for the job at hand, which varies. Like porn, a lit review is done when you see it to be done, not when it reaches a certain word length! Especially since all involve adding lit or angle of analysis to existing works.

Perhaps it is because of this ambiguous kind of paper-labor that I've been having difficulty getting it done.

[coendou]

See, this was my original thinking in not putting in word counts.

But today I realized, you know what? I know that my proposal is almost definitely going to need to be at least 10K words. And I know that right now I have around 3K. It might wind up longer than that, it might wind up shorter (not likely), but if I can convince myself to add, say, 2K a week on one thing or another for the next three weeks, there is almost no way that I will find myself running out of things to say, nor will I have made anything unnecessarily long. But if I don't set that goal, even a small one of like 100 words a day or something, I may not ever get around to the "sit down in front of Word and just freaking type" stage that I need to be at right now.

ETA: Really, it's no different from NaNo. There's no reason that someone's piece of fiction HAS to be a certain length. But putting a number to it gets them to actually sit down and put the words.

[kaygigi]

My new strategy is to list the literature I need to add to the various papers - instead of writing a set number of words, I have to add two books and four articles to which ever paper they need to be added, and clear them off my list and away from the pile next to my desk

[coendou]

See, time blocks have never worked for me. I can sit there and stare at a blank page for 15 minutes, no problem. :) Or an hour. Or however long it takes for me to get fidgety and find something else to do. I'm not saying the word count is going to work better, but at least if I sit there in front of the blank page there is no possible way it could count as making progress toward the goal...

I also find that my writer's block doesn't clear until the REALLY REALLY last minute, which is just never a good situation. Like, the anxiety level I need is higher than is possibly healthy (or good for getting good work done). So I'm trying this as one new way to at least jostle it, if not break it, before I get near the deadline.

[raven_moon]

Black Death - 25 pp.
Dante - 25 pp.
Machiavelli/Erasmus - 20 pp.

(all bare minimums...)

[coendou]

Ok, after analyzing a couple other people's proposals to figure out the range of normal, here are my goals:

I currently have my fellowship proposal, which was 3,700 words. I want to expand this to a full dissertation proposal of probably at least 10,000 words.

Approximates:
- Expand Methods section from 600 to 3000 words
- Expand Analysis section from 600 to 2000 words
- Reorganize research questions and expand from 800 to 1500 words
- Expand Lit review and theoretical framing from 1600 words to 3500 words

So that's adding 6400 words total.

I'll be happy if I get 5000 of those by the end of November. That seems like an achievable goal.

Starting with Methods section - I'd like to have the methods sections for two of my three studies up to about 1000 words each by next Friday (13th - oh hey!).

[tassie_gal]

I'll have an examination of my life this weekend while writing the stupid grad review - and see what I come up with....

[tangendentalism]

24-28,000 words/ 2 chapters

6600 so far