ways of knowing you're making progress with your writing
Sometimes we feel stuck, but we're not actually stuck.
How do we know we're making progress? How can we choose a way of looking at this that's right for us?
Table: Ways of Knowing You're Making Progress With Your Writing
| Way of Knowing | Internal Example | External Example | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quantitative | Daily word count | Accepted submissions | Quick and easy to track; gives general insight about your habits and their impact | May not reflect your priorities; can end up chasing the metric instead of the underlying goal |
| Qualitative | Your writing reads more smoothly to you | A critique partner says that the flow of your writing has improved | Might more closely reflect your goals regarding writing craft | Can be subjective and hard to define |
| Feeling | You feel energized, inspired, and proud of your writing | Your friend says they notice a shift in the tone of how you speak about your writing projects with them | Can be an important early marker that something is going well | May not reflect changes in your output or craft |
A word about goal setting
There are different reasons people set goals, and people have different beliefs about what kind of goals to set.
- Process goals
- Duration goals
- Outcome goals
Some people feel that outcome goals should only be set in the middle of a project. When leaping into something new, it can be hard to have even a general sense of how much (and what types) of work might be involved in achieving a particular outcome.