Blog Your Passion

By: Lorelle VanFossen

Mar 02 2013

Tags: blog planning, blog writing, content planning, content strategies, goals, inspiration, motivation, planning, schedule, score cards, scores, word counts, words, writing, writing tips

Category: Blogging Tips, Writing

1 Comment

WordPress now features a Word Count at the bottom of the post editing form. It tells me how many words I’ve put into this post. Right now it reports there are 31. That’s not many words but I feel like I have to make some choices.

Should I write more or edit this down to less?

Some writers thrive on word counts. They set themselves a goal of X words an hour or day.

Once they have reached their goal, what then? Do they stop? Are they done for the day? What if the idea isn’t complete? What if they still have more to write? Should they stop?

If I focus on a word count, I tend to count the words not the quality of the content. Would it be better if I cut it by, say, 10 words to make it an even 400?

Sometimes, but that’s not the point.

If you set yourself a goal to write every day, and the goal states it must be a minimum of X words, then use those goals to motivate you towards completion of that goal.

But don’t use it on your blog.

Write complete ideas. Write complete thoughts.

Sometimes that idea or thought might need only one word. Sometimes it might need thousands until you come to rest on the finished product with joy.

Words count. Just take care how you measure them.