Being able to find the words you want to say -- you know, the ones that are screaming to escape you, the ones that make you grin until your mouth hurts as you mull them over after the fact -- can be the hardest thing. This is especially true as a writer. Often we find ourselves compromising our words and thoughts, often simplifying, or leaving spaces blank or with an indicator that we should return to a phrase to fix or replace it. Even worse is the inability to say anything at all.

I think, as a writer myself, I generally walk the line of not being able to say anything at all and being too afraid (or lazy) to try. I think many do. I admire (and seethe in a mixture of jealously and self-directed anger towards) my friends who find themselves able to write on a schedule. The ones who actually complete NaNoWriMo and especially those who actually meet their writing quotas week by week — they’re inspiring.

Let me make it clear when I say that you can never rely on anyone else to ensure your own productivity, especially as a writer. Writing is your own art; you can be inspired and moved by others, you can have peer editors, reviewers and co-writers. You can be in a writing group or do write ins where you lock yourself in dorm rooms for ages without a breath of fresh air until you’ve hit ten thousand words, but you can’t expect yourself to write just because someone else is there. Where there is WiFi, there is probably a distraction.

I have a really big creative writing project due in April. I’m applying to an abroad program for screenwriting and need to have a screenplay done for it. Feature-length screenplays are generally anywhere from 90 to 120 pages and I have all of no pages done. What a fantastic number. I planned to write the first half of my draft during winter break and have beaten myself up every day that I've come up with nothing. But what does that accomplish?

I've been struggling to complete the preliminary work for my piece. Through the immense work I've done developing this idea (including pages upon pages of backstory, analysis, and a 20-page short film script), I have grown to feel intimidated by these characters and their growth from their initial one-dimensional shells to where they are now. Such changes have made my understanding of their wants, needs and essential growth more pragmatic and I’m uncertain of how it will work. I feel lost amongst the stories and people in my head.

I have a ways to go before I’m ready to write, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a writer. As frustrated I am with my lack of consistency last year in my writing, it doesn’t mean I didn’t generate good work. I spent months developing a screenplay and produced a fifth draft that was miles ahead of its initial seed-idea. I generated personal essays, academic essays, memoiric triptychs, poems, consistent articles for the Odyssey, papers, research papers, analyses and short stories. I’ve written hundreds of pages this year and combined with all the research done, perhaps close to a thousand, if not more.

In popular writing culture, some of the best writers have been miserable, depressed, drunks and addicts and some a mixture of all of the above. There are enough Bukowskis and Hemingways. I, and probably many other fellow writers, need to learn to stop basing our writing self-esteem on our output. That doesn’t mean we can shirk our responsibility to ourselves to actually generate works that we are pleased with, but we do need more conducive ways to ensure our own productivity.

Rather than set a goal of words per week this year, a goal I absolutely never reach, I plan to set a number of hours. Ten hours minimum. One for each day of the week and then some. I already am bogged down with essay writing and assignments week-to-week for class and those, along with my Odyssey deadline, ensure that I’m consistently writing. But I also need to get in the habit of writing for myself without the added pressure and threat of another person’s deadline for me. Working in time rather than word count validates the hard work in research and development (R&D) that results in writing.

R&D is crucial to the development of good writing. I work best having background in the scenarios I include in my work and often having plotted some semblance of an outline. With screenplays, even more so, I need not only an outline but a scene breakdown where I fully depict my plans for each scene. My ten hours this week will be devoted to completing the planning for this screenplay, so I can ensure output with no need for extensive research and planning going forward. I’ve been known to complete 20 pages in 10 hours, but I don’t want to resort to rushing through this and this planning is the optimal way to avoid that.

So, for those who feel they don’t stick to their word count goals, try a time goal instead. These are hours where minutes on Facebook don’t count, but perhaps a baby naming generator might. Learn your balance and what you can accept as productive conception, rather than procrastination. Pre-develop that playlist and pick out a little time of your 10 hours to find your inspiration and then get to writing. Sip some tea and pick up a pen. Let’s make this year count in words and time, not just in numbers.