Measuring productivity via word count really is a waste of time. The other day, I triumphantly wrote 1000 words in a single sitting. The day after that, I cut 900 of those words because they were taking the story in the wrong direction and bogging down. Cutting was the more productive activity.

It's not about how much you write, it's about what you write. The test is if you feel it as you're writing. If not, leave it.

smirks in Editress

I try to write for a daily word count because if I don't then I never actually finish anything.

Hard agree. I'm unfortunately not the most focused person, and so I've slowly come to realise that the quality of my writing goes up a ton if I'm working on multiple projects at one and switch between them every few hours. The number of words per day goes down, but quality goes up a lot.

Reminds me of one of my all time favourite quotes: “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.” – Blaise Pascal.

Totally agree! I actually write mostly in wordpad of all things. No wordcount or pages so I have no distractions.

Robert H. Sherard once described his friend Oscar Wilde's writing process: Wilde once told him he "spent the day in hard literary work...I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning and took out a comma.” “And in the afternoon?” “In the afternoon–well, I put it back again.”"

What you say is true, but sometimes it helps psychologically to hit a mark. So, while I don’t think it matters if a writer quantifies their progress in word count, time elapsed, or some other metric it matters that they see something tangible.

I agree. When did the obsession over word count begin? I grew up using manual typewriters. I do page counts. Amazing what five pages a day for three months can accomplish.

I think you were still productive. Films might do 30 takes of a single scene and cut it from the final edit. And that's normal.