One reason I rarely write to a word count is that I tend to edit, especially an earlier day’s material. It’s still productivity, but it doesn’t lend itself to a challenge like this.

Take today, for example. I wrote for over an hour, adding and revising, but I also deleted a lot of what I’d dictated a few weeks ago because what I was writing today was clearer and worked better. By the time I excised all the crap that needed to go, I ended up with a net loss of 70 words.

For a moment, I contemplated trying to bring up the document as it existed yesterday. I’m certain Word has a way that I could compare the two to see how many new words I wrote today, but that moment was short-lived. It’s simply not worth the time and energy to figure this out. For today, what matters is that in spite of all the stress and hassles surrounding everything from planning Dad’s memorial, revising my eulogy notes, and my mother’s fall during the night, I spent an hour working on my novel. I expect that much of what I wrote today will need to be pared down, but I do believe there’s a kernel there of something I’ll eventually be able to use.

For today, that’s good enough.