(Picture of my own shadow because I thought it looked cool on a campus photo spree. 😀 No stealin’ please.)
Generally, when asked which is more important–quality or quantity–the expected answer is quality. But when is quantity more important?
Quantity is what’s important for practice. If you don’t produce a lot of work, you’re not getting into the habit of writing or getting any practice done. Practice is how you learn what you’re good at and how to get better at it.
Quality is what you need for your polished final product. If you’re turning in a story for a class or a contest, then it needs to be your very best.
Today, I want to talk a bit about quantity. Sometimes you just have to crap it out just to get something done. Even when the whole thing is sucking royally, you have to write something in order to get past that part of your story or whatever it is you’re writing.
Why am I talking about this today? Because my word count is 0 for the day. Again. I’m still recovering from the physical and emotional wear-and-tear that an early showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 inflicted upon me. I went to the 12:40 AM show and didn’t get to sleep until around 5:30 AM. Not to mention that the movie itself emotionally drained me. This is something that’s been a part of my life for a long time, and these are characters I care about. So seeing their final movie was hard on me. Don’t judge.
I’ll do some writing after finishing this blog up. I don’t know how good it’ll be. But sometimes you just gotta work, whether you think it’ll be terrible or not. Crap happens. But if you enjoy writing, then that’s what you need to do.
Quality will happen when you’re ready to get to that point. That’s what editing is for. Yes, sometimes, you’ll come out with something brilliant right away. But even then, it can always be improved upon. Everything can use improvement. Few things are perfect right away. So don’t let it get to you. If only I could take my own advice!
No assignment for the day. Who likes homework over the weekend? Extra credit opportunity: Find something you’ve written and fix it up. 🙂