1 million word essay

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Million Word Essay (Beginning of Year Parent Communication)

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1,000,000 Words

The other day I was talking to my partner, Todd, as we commuted on the MBTA (red line represent!) He asked how many books I’d written. I began the sophisticated process of counting on my hands. Nine. I’ve written (not had published, mind you) nine books. Each book takes at least 100,000 words because I tend to overwrite, and then edit with a machete in later drafts. I did the math. 9 books x 100,000 = 900,000 words. Add in all my short stories, the teenage poems, the essays, the screenplay, and the started-but-never-finished novels. Damn. I have written a million words. Well over a million words.

What does this mean? Monetarily speaking, not much. In fact, if I calculated what I’ve been paid divided by the number of all the words that I’ve written I’d quit because it makes no financial sense whatsoever. But let’s put money aside. Having written over a million words means that I am, by nature, a lot less attached to any small percentage of those words, and that’s a good thing. It means I am willing to put aside projects that aren’t working. It means that I choose to write and rewrite until the words in each book are the best words for that book. It means that if a book is rejected, I don’t wail and gnash my teeth forever. Because I’ve got another book in me. I have so many books in me; I am the Sybil of books. [1]

One million words means I write on days I’d rather read or bake or clean the hair trap in the bathtub because I’m stuck on a plot point or I am tired of thinking of physical gestures that aren’t smiles or nods or shrugs. But I power through because one million words means I’ve developed a discipline not unlike that of a professional athlete. That’s right. I’m the Michael Jordan of words.

One million words also means I sometimes feel as though the well has run dry and it is all I can do but grunt when asked about my day. The words, they have been exhausted. I have none. But then I sleep and I find, when I wake, the well has been replenished. The words are back. It feels like magic some days.

One million words means I can see to two million words and three million words. Things I wouldn’t have dreamed attainable seem achievable. One million words means that the little curly-haired moppet who once stood in the East Bridgewater Public School library, clutching a Narnia book to her chest, and thinking to herself, some day I’ll write books , that little girl wasn’t wrong. She did it. She wrote books that are in libraries. She’ll write more books. Who knows? Maybe someday I’ll inspire a little girl to write books. Anything seems possible, on this side of one million words.

[1] Sybil was the pseudonym of a woman undergoing treatment for multiple personality disorder. The story was told in a non-fiction book and then made into two films.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_(book)

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Writing One Million Words

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All i want is to be able to sign my name on my work

The title says the message. Like this is literally all I want to be able to do in my life. Is to be able to do work that I feel extremely proud to sign my name on. I imagine my definition of proud has broadly changed over time. And I can probably trace the history…

Prepare for the word ramble. Goal with this piece — like many of the pieces I write — is strictly volume (not coherence, not objective quality, just need to get ideas out). I am sitting here in Cambridge (Boston) on my iPad while my computer charges. I am having a bit of antsy day —…

They say that the person most likely to win the fight is the person who has the least to lose. I have never been in a physical altercation that was anything beyond sparring or joking – so I cannot tell you the effectiveness of this “mad dog” approach from experience being actually in the arena…

Can you work with people you disagree with?

The question is rather straightforward, though I imagine it can be interpreted in many ways. In writing the prompt, a few things came to mind (and were likely up or downstream from the question in some capacity — meaning they are connected but also likely operating at a different level). One thing that came to…

If you ask the average college student what their “goals” look like, you may hear an answer that looks roughly like: “to get a great job that sets me up for success.” If you ask the above average college student at the above average school a similar question, my intuition is that you will hear…

What is your default?

We all have default settings. We are aware of the default settings when we go in and unbox our computers. But we are less aware of the default preferences when we start working with someone (unless of course they write one of those personal user guides — but even those are not particularly comprehensive most…

Small reminders

I am interested in finding ways to avoid spiraling. When I say spiraling, I really mean “avoid situations where my mind goes into a dark pattern of sorts that sucks the alive-ness out of me.” In those situations, I find myself less productive, less happy, and more prone to sadness. I am not saying that…

A lot of people I meet say they are motivated to create a legacy or create an impact on the world. I am not sure I believe it. If you ask them a few questions, I am not sure they believe it either. Here is how the conversation may go. I ask them what they…

I am trying to capture a feeling. It is a feeling where I am stuck in a Whorfian situation of sorts — I cannot think of the particular words that will help me do justice to the feeling. So I turn to writing, in an effort to better put words to the feeling. Why? Because…

Two Mountains

I heard this metaphor from a friend the other day and it really has stuck with me. It is a bit abstract so please try and lean in if you are taking the time to read this and explore this rabbit hole with me. The metaphor, and I am sure I am butchering many of…

SYSTEMS SYSTEMS

I have previously written about the concept of “unconditional response-ability.” This is to say that in any circumstance, you are capable of taking responsibility for your actions. This sort of assertion rests on the underlying belief that the world is not stimulus — meaning you have the power (if you want to and/or care to)…

rhizomes (Deleuze)

Lately I have been diving down the Deleuze rabbit hole (trying say that five times fast) and recently came across some of his more famous thinking on the topic of thinking — the notion that rhizomatic systems are a more accurate representation of many things (like how we think, how physics works, etc.). Traditional thinking…

is friction a good or a bad thing?

In startup land — things tend to be all about “reducing friction.” We used to write on pen and paper. Then typewriters. And now I am typing on some fancy touchscreen iPad. At every milestone, you could say we reduced friction. We made it easier to write. But now the question I am asking myself…

letting loose

I find myself having a hard time appreciating the little things. I am perhaps not really alone in this pursuit. Saying it is hard to appreciate the little things is a bit an overly used type of commentary — but that does not make it true. I think you can find an amount of wisdom…

For the first time in a very long time — I am free. Free in the capacity that I have very little ongoing responsibility on my plate. Well, I still have the underlying responsibility to myself. To be me. But I have not signed up for any obligations to other people. That — the obligations…

other people want you to have a purpose

I am existing in a period of my life right now that does not have a lot of stated direction. I mean, perhaps that is not entirely true — perhaps the stated direction is not commit to any long-term stated direction, at least for now. Put another way, I have no intentions currently of doing…

This is the type of essay (still not sure if the right word for this style of writing is ESSAY but hopefully you get the point after you read this ~thing) where I set a timer and just go. The objective is volume. Pure volume. People sometimes roll my eyes when I say the objective…

in the right system

If we believe that people are just products of the systems that they occupy, then rather than judge the individual (although society should at least in some ways hold people accountable, which we can get to a minute), why not just look at the system? This is a question more or less posed to myself…

care, clarity, competence

As you have seen with several of these explorations — I am interested in a topic not so precisely labeled as “human coordination.” This subject effectively covers the human experience in engaging with the world (and other subjects in the world) around them. Much of this interest comes from personal frustration in dealing with the…

climbing ladders to nowhere

This essay may read as a criticism of other people. It is at least roughly a criticism of other people — but it is certainly not a pedestal-framing effort. In other words, much of the essay below is written at first and foremost MYSELF. So I want to make clear (to myself) that as I…

Sandy at the beach

I have written about “surrendering” before — this touches on an adjacent topic. It is less about interpersonal situations and more about navigating life more broadly. I could perhaps summarize the agenda/topic I had in mind by using the term “rolling with the punches.” Lately, I have had to do quite a bit of rolling…

Assuming positive intent

I think when I first meet someone or read some thing that I even ~roughly disagree with is to assume the other person is deficient in some way. Perhaps I judge their intelligence or more often judge their care. Like I see a version of sloppiness, more specifically unintentional sloppiness (defined as the characteristic of…

whole point of life

What is the point of life? What do you think about when you read this question? Like what immediately comes to mind? What is the image in your head? Surely there is one. For me, it is more than a picture. It is a movie. That often happens with particular phrases. I would not go…

those new CITIES, and legitimacy

How is it that we (as a society) have MORE *things* (technology, services, access) than ever before, yet it is not any easier to live a fulfilling/happy/meaningful life (in fact, some would argue harder!)? For the purposes of this essay, we call this latter bucket—of fulfillment/happiness/meaning—LIVING-NESS. We believe society’s living-ness score has stagnated (and is…

older things are better things – wearing something in

I always cringe when I pick up a brand new book. Cringe because I know that I prefer to read from an older book. Something feels off about it. Like the laminate of the fancy new book touching my skin just feels weird? I mean I have read from many brand new books, just as…

My intention for this essay is high volume. I care about getting shots up more than I do about legibility (at least right now, in this moment, as I write this essay). So do not judge success here as coherence. Success is merely volume. Literal word count. Idea count. Ideally I get to some original…

today’s default tools

I have written many flavors of this message many times. You can tell from reading this blog—even just scanning it—that the below analysis is of a topic that I am interested in better understanding. I care to understand not purely for understanding sake (though that would start to put my neurotic mind at some level…

What is FAST? Actually

When I say the word FAST, what do you think about? For me, several applications come to mind. I think of Usain Bolt, running the 100m dash. I think of at work, when people say you need to get things done quickly. I think of some weird chip on my shoulder phenomenon that just seems…

Vacuums and factories

We humans may be simpler than we would like to think. People do not love self-identifying as simple. We like to think we are complicated. Our brain basks in the glory of complexifying things and that also applies to our own identities. But I believe that it turns out a lot of our operations come…

Breakfast is NOT the most important meal of the day, and your personal border wall

Filter less and produce more. That is what I am repeating to myself as I embark on this “journey.” By journey, I simply mean another essay. I have written ~many of these over the past few months (and literally thousands over the past few years). Some times it feels a bit like writing into a…

Getting shots up

The difference between Kobe Bryant level performance and your d-league wanna be level performance is that Kobe got 100000 times more shots up than you. That is it. Okay, there is more nuance and he was born taller and more athletic than you. But the difference between Kobe and the person who is the starting…

What is the point of the American Public school System ?

There are many ways to assess performance. One approach is to see if a *thing* is living up to the objective of said thing. Another method is to criticize the objective of said thing. In the context of the American public school system (dated around 2023, though it has been a few years since I…

When you are stuck on something, just invert the problem. This is a fairly simple framework—unclear if you can even really call it a framework—but has served me well in the past. Consider inversion a tool you can use to continue momentum in a particular direction by unblocking the current obstacle. And the approach is…

Notes on Yom Kippur

I by no means consider myself to be an expert “apologizer” but it is a topic I have some amount of experience with—as most likely do you—given I have been on both the giving and receiving end of plenty of apologies in plenty of different contexts. For a few reasons, I thought it would be…

Humans may not be complicated

A rather ridiculous percentage of this blog has been consumed by a topic that is (and has been) consuming me (for many many years). Perhaps it is not ridiculous but it is substantial (in volume and depth). The topic I am referring to is broadly the notion of “interpersonal dynamics.” Interpersonal is just a fancy…

on Negotiation

Have you ever been in a position where you needed to negotiate? This could be a proper negotiation event or could be a casual discussion where you are arguing with a friend. Every interaction with another human could be called a negotiation of sorts, as you are making tradeoffs according to your communication. How to…

time portfolio

Right now, my brain feels a bit jumbled. I have been without a dedicated bed for the past few weeks (cannot believe it has been a few weeks) and I have been going through a above average period of stress with my primary work (at the same time, this “primary work” is changing as I…

collaborating like a DJ

I have always been extremely interested in organizational design. Trying to answer the question of what is the most optimal way to organize people such that we maximize things like coordination effectiveness is a puzzling problem. Puzzling both because it is hard but also because I sometimes ask myself: “how have we not solved this…

emotional WALLS

My observation is that most of us have a lot of emotional ~stuff that we have not quite figured out. Stuff that is messy and complicated but likely worth figuring out because it is in some way hindering our ability to find meaning in life. This—need to figure shit out—is very true of the younger…

the LOSER at the FANCY PARTY

This is a lesson told through a series of life experiences. Have you ever been the LOSER at the fancy party? Do you immediately understand what I am talking about? Do you have a clear image in your head? Do you hear the music? If not, then perhaps you have never had this life experience…

As a species, we have yet to master coordination. Teams of any significant size devolve into inefficiency, stagnation, and eventual death. This is…weird? Right? Like we have literal supercomputers in our pocket. We have AI magic coming or perhaps already here. And yet…and yet we have not figured out how to coordinate materially better than…

LIVING-ness

The question of what trait in people you admire most is a very revealing question. It may be hard to answer in the abstract so start (as you go through this in your own head, as I am doing now) by thinking of real people you admire (or at least think you admire). I have…

that LATE TWENTIES vibe

This essay covers a recent ~thing~ I have been seeing across my friends who now occupy their LATE TWENTIES. This essay is not about me. Well, not in any particular way. I guess you could say that every essay I write is in some way ~about me as it is a projection of the brain…

I am surprised that no one told me this earlier. There is an extremely easy way to win at basically anything in life. It is not a magic formula. It is not voodoo stuff. But I promise it works. You will be shocked. It is an extremely boring formula, but I think I can _basically_…

LOVING listening

How _good_ are you at listening? Kind of a hard question to answer because well, who decides what makes a good listener? Maybe I will try another slice of a similar question…has anyone ever told you that you are a good listener? Forget good. Has anyone ever called you a GREAT listener? Still not sure?…

How to make tedious work FUN!!

Several times in my (~relatively short) professional career, people have warned me about “burning out.” They would tell me to avoid working too hard because it could lead to me “blowing up and not wanting to work any more.” These were normally people older than me telling me this. They told me that life was…

Modern language—at least the American ENGLISH that I am used to—lacks the richness required to appropriately evoke VIBES. I do and will try nonetheless but this realization is frustrating to a degree I only recently appreciated. How can you describe Kobe in 08 using ENGLISH ADJECTIVES? How can you describe the FEELING YOU GET when…

What do you write about?

I find the question of how do I figure out what to write about is asked by someone who does not write (or at least does not write this style of blog). It is similar to if someone were to ask you how do you find books to read? If you read books, you would…

stop the fake work

Rambled thoughts below. Do not read into them. That much. This is the first pass at shaping this type of clay. — We have entered a zone of ~late (tbd how late we really are in the textbook, but we have certainly entered a weird chapter) where PEOPLE do fake work. This whole essay will…

Where CAN you get REAL feedback?

Below is an idea I have long wanted to exist. I am surprised that, in today’s modern society, there still seems to be no good options for the problem (and related problems) I soon describe. I think solving said problems would be a net good thing for the world and lead to people with more…

Go faster via clarity

Whenever I feel sluggish, I read this list to remind me that it is possible to achieve magnificent feats in relatively short periods of time. I then read this list to remind me that all of this is possible with relatively limited amounts of resources.  Greatness doesn’t happen by accident—it requires intentionality and a belief in the conditional probability (the knowledge…

Catching the spiral before you spiral

This is an essay to my former and future self. This is an essay that I wish I had read 100 times before and an essay I will probably read 100 times in the future. This is an essay that—if I can get the damn, hard thoughts out PROPERLY, I can save myself SO MUCH…

Emotional sunglasses

This is another rabbit hole into emotions and navigating a planet with HUMANS (at least the version of humans that currently exist, that I am familiar with/exposed to in 2023). Humans are emotional creatures. Have you heard this before? Has anyone every told you this? People used to tell me this and I would always…

Dear haters of MICRO management: here is the case for ACTIVE management

This essay is ~risky to publish in the capacity that it goes against some cultural norms of today. I want to emphasize that I hugely value kind leaders—people who show excessive kindness. I think being an asshole is a hugely selfish decision often made by people who blame the world for their emotional reactions. In…

Knowing how IT feels

I often get the words empathy and sympathy confused. Here are versions of the definition that make sense to me: “Empathy is shown in how much compassion and understanding we can give to another. Sympathy is more of a feeling of pity for another.” It is materially easier to develop empathy for someone—or some thing—if you,…

Chefs and athletes—where do you need them?

I sometimes use a version of the following analogy to describe two types of people I commonly meet. Imagine a spectrum of software engineers (yes, I, and many others likely, are on many different types of spectrums, but focus for a moment please as I talk about a particular type of spectrum). The following are…

Ideas can consume you

Do you ever get into _that mode_ where your brain—at least the part you are aware of—is FULLY consumed by a single idea? How often are you in that mode? What does it feel like to you? How would you describe it to a friend? Call it whatever you want, perhaps a neighbor or parallel…

Getting “triggered”

You hear the phrase “triggered” more often than ever before. What does it mean to you? When I hear the term, I tend to roll my eyes at least a little bit. Sometimes you hear the term as people use it as a defense for their emotions. They say something like: “you saying this thing…

paretOH THIS IS an IMPORTANT principle

Somehow…someway…I still underestimate the POWER of the Pareto Principle (and relatedly the “Power Law” dynamic). You have probably heard of the Pareto Principle. The Pareto Principle states that 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes, asserting an unequal relationship between inputs and outputs. I was taught the Pareto Principle probably 10+ years ago. It was…

Lost in the cognitive exercise

How do you know if someone cares about you? Oof, another big meaty prompt. There are thousands of ways I could slice this question. My head, as it often does, goes immediately cognitive. How do I assess whether or not someone cares about me: Is caring about showing support for other people? Is it about…

What would it take to surrender?

I would say I have a ~thing with “control.” I say thing, and put the ~ next to it, to denote that I am not quite sure what my stance on control is. There are many ways to define control. I am thinking about it in this context as the act of trying to “manage”…

Can you CHANGE people?

Oof, this is a Topic (capital T, to signify how important it is to me). Even thinking about this topic, even starting to peel back the curtain around it, gives me a bit of the chills. Chills..Why? Well, I am both excited to unravel this prompt more formally, but also NERVOUS to do so…Nervous, not…

Fast is not always straight

One day, I will turn this essay into a concise and digestible artifact—something that flows. That day is not today because, well, I need to get the thoughts out first (so that one day I can re-arrange them into something _easy_ to understand. But this essay is me EXTERNALLY PROCESSING). Most people reading this do…

Get the thoughts OUT, now

What is your relationship with writing? You probably read ~things (I would say most modern Americans do, though it is important, at least for me, to call out that literally 20% of Americans (in 2022) identify as illiterate—meaning they do not know how to read. The average reading level in the US is that of…

“THE” Community

Though I have been to New York City countless times, before this past weekend, I had never spent much time in New Jersey. Now, this essay is not an argument for New Jersey (it is honestly a rather ~boring/ugly/[insert negative adjective and imagine I am saying it in some sort of New Yorker accent]~ place…

What if everything went right?

Yesterday, I wrote about the merits (and freedom around) choosing positivity in your day-to-day life. The TL;DR of the ramble is that in any given circumstance, no matter how bad or ugly a situation may be, _you_ have the choice of how to respond (as either THE HERO, responsible for your outcomes, or THE VICTIM,…

What would happen if you CHOSE positivity?

“Man has almost infinite ability to take things for granted” Aldos Huxley How grateful are you? If you had to place your gratefulness level on a scale of 1-10—where do you rate yourself? It is an intentionally ~silly question: how the f*ck do you “score” your gratefulness? What is the difference between a 4 and…

Recurring themes and SECURITY

When you have nothing in the way, where does your mind wander? On a clear night, what stars do you see? When you have nothing to think about, what do you think about? When your head hits the pillow, what thoughts come to mind? When you hit mile seven in the run, what types of…

Control and Letting go

A decent percentage of my writing—honestly an extremely large chunk if I look at the early start of this blog—has been more a form therapy than anything else. I am going ~through (what I seem to feel is) a pretty intense period of life right now. I say what “I seem to feel is” because…

Where does your hatred come from?

What do you hate? How often? I find hate to be a rather strong word. I try not to use it lightly and certainly do not *feel* it lightly. I tend to reserve my personal hatred—the list of stuff, people, and thoughts that I absolutely despise with every bone in my body—to *really* bad things…

Pick up the pen

In July, I read and wrote obsessively. I read something like 23 books and I wrote something like 45,000 words (a lot of them on this blog). But, about 10 days ago, I took a break. It was not a particularly intentional stoppage. I just stopped. I am not sure why. I think part of…

In and out, and dependence

They flow like water into your life. Sometimes it feels like a pipe exploding. Otherwise, small, controlled drips. They is people. The others. The external. THEY are the people who wander into your life. They sometimes knock on the door, but often times you do not see it coming. When you greet them, you are…

People are people, too

This is not a particularly novel thought, but I find reminding myself of it every so often is helpful for re-centering and re-establishing the context of life. People are just people. Famous people. Poor people. Undiscovered people. Smart people. Useless people. People you love. People you hate. People you hate to love. And people you…

Talk in person

I think a ~decent amount about advice I would give my former self. I am not sure why I do this. The past is the past and, well, it is impossible to change the past. This sort of self-talk, perhaps, is less advice for my past and moreso reinforcement for my future. In some ways,…

intensity intensity INTENSITY

Do you ever walk away from a conversation with someone—perhaps someone you are meeting for the first time or even someone you know very well—and you say (at least to yourself): “wow, that person is intense.” My question to you is what do you mean by that? What makes that person intense? And how do…

The Read, Write, Run Protocol

As is true with every essay I write, the words below should not be considered prescriptive advice. I am not a doctor, nor an expert—and you should think for yourself (and/or talk to a professional). I believe I have discovered the HOLY TRINITY of physical and mental health—a group of activities that, when performed in…

Driving enterprise value

This essay is a broad articulation of how I think about business building, particularly in the context of building businesses that have the objective of maximizing enterprise value. I do not profess to be an expert business builder, nor do I think I am particularly great at giving advice, so this essay is not exactly…

The golden rule is a trap, and what does it mean to be authentic?

Were you ever taught The Golden Rule (yes, the fancy capitalized one)? What comes to mind when you read the words? THE Golden Rule (I emphasize the THE in my head, not sure why). The first definition for the The Golden Rule on Google states that it is: the biblical rule of “do unto others as you would have…

Book Learning: The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries

This essay is part of a larger collection: Book Learning. These are not complete reviews but rather summaries of my favorite learnings or ideas. I read to exercise my brain. If you have any book suggestions, ideas, or feedback, please feel free to contact me directly. I recently read The Rise of Christianity by Rodney…

A better way to learn and running marathons

The internet was/is one of the most powerful inventions in the history of humanity. It has democratized access to information—the great leveler—such that anyone (or hopefully nearly anyone living in free countries) can find what they need. The secrets of the world, which used to be trapped in libraries, now made available accessible to the…

On saving the judgement for later

Should you judge others? Surely you have heard the expression: “you know what happens when you assume. You make an ass out of you and me.” This advice was normally followed by some authority figure making a wise comment such as: “never assume.” I have always struggled with this type of guidance. Like I get…

Thinking about identity

I feel tension when I think about the concept of identity. I leverage a bit of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) talk when I concede to the idea that multiple things can be true at the same time. As a related aside, how does that statement make you feel? How comfortable are you with the idea…

Rambling on validation

This is one of my LESS CLEAR LESS GOOD ESSAYS. — Do you judge other people when they post on social media? I do. Does that say more about me or them? Why are they posting if they do not want to be judged? You probably—and this is an assumption—interpreted my statement of judgement as…

Emotional surfing

I heard someone use the term “emotional surfing” the other day and it struck a unique chord with me. We were talking about the experience of “reliving” previous life experiences and leaning into the emotions and feelings that come with particular memories. That adventure—dubbed my friend as “emotional surfing”—makes me feel “some type of way.”…

Less meetings, please

This essay is embarrassing. In 2021, I averaged 14 meetings per weekday. This is not a benchmark to be proud of—looking at it now, I am disappointed and frustrated. What IN THE WORLD was I doing? If I could go back a few years and grab (and probably shake) myself, I would scream: “STOP. THIS…

Abstractions

Abstraction (from the Latin abs, meaning away from and trahere, meaning to draw) is the process of taking away or removing characteristics from something in order to reduce it to a set of essential characteristics. Being able to “abstract” concepts effectively (and transform/apply them to the situation at hand) can be very useful (and valuable in…

From the dictionary: patience is the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset. Over the years, countless people have advised me that I need to be “more patient.” I would often roll my eyes at others’ (often unsolicited) guidance. The story in my head would often cynically go something like…

Mr. Does What He Says He Is Going To Do Man

What do you think of my idea for a superhero? “Mr. Does What He Says He Is Going To Do Man” (In truth, I borrowed this idea from a friend) Mr. Doer (as we call him for short) has a pretty simple set of superpowers: HE DOES WHAT HE SAYS HE IS GOING TO DO.…

A healthy mind

When it comes to physical fitness, there are a number of tests you can do to see if you are “healthy.” Surely the fidelity/helpfulness of said tests can/has/will be improved over time but in general you can look at things like your blood and oxygen levels to get an idea of if you are a…

A personal user guide

Below is an artifact I created several years ago—I sent it as a note to my company that outlined some handy tips and tricks for working with me. The whole message comes across a bit ego-centric because, well, after all, it is describing how I work. In hindsight, the user guide was say ~ 10%…

Mind Reading

(I rate this essay a 2/10 on this topic—more to write about here but also wanted to get something out) The hard part about collaboration, at least for me, is that it often involves needing to figure out what is going on in your partner(s) head(s) so that you can divvy up work across multiple…

Is there a Loneliness Epidemic?

A lot of my mental gymnastics over the past few months has been self-centered around accepting reality and improving my personal health (note that accepting reality I am viewing as a tool to improving my personal health). A quote that has really stuck with me—one that I originally stumbled upon years ago but revisited just…

In the context of computers (and networking), latency is the amount of time it takes for a data packet to go from one place to another. Latency is the more technical term for lag, which is when you are experiencing response delays while gaming. High latency is what causes time lag and makes gaming far less…

I would never identify as a “runner,” though by now I would admit I have participated in serious enough running to qualify. Growing up, I was never particularly good at running: I rarely ran on my own, I was not on the cross country team, and my soccer teammates (and coaches) at one point nicknamed…

Response-ability

An idea (for life and business) that has stuck with me as of late comes from Fred Kofman’s Conscious Business. “You choose to act as you do because you think it is the best way to pursue your interests in a given situation. External facts are information, not stimuli.” I read the quote as a…

What would a gym for your brain have in it?

If we believe our brain to be a muscle of sorts, why is it that we do not “work it out” as intentionally as other body parts? How much time do you spend per year sitting down with the explicit objective of “increasing your mental strength”? And if you were to, how would you go…

What percentage of your day is spent in a state of presence? This is a question I have been thinking a lot about lately as I reconsider how and where I invest my time. It is a question I think I have ~neglected over the past few years as I have been consumed by notifications…

Treadmill for the mind

This quote from Steve Jobs has always struck me as extremely inspiring and angelic: “When we invented the personal computer, we created a new kind of bicycle…a new man-machine partnership…a new generation of entrepreneurs.” Steve Jobs, c. 1980 A bicycle for the mind is a truly beautiful concept. The current state of technology is more…

1 Million Words

I am going to write 1 million words. 1 million words is a rather ~weird thing to picture in your head. It is always very hard to conceive very large numbers. Big amounts of time or space are subjective concepts. We don’t use rationality to get around their quantities, instead, we use feeling. We can feel…

Long-distance writing

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Let's Stop Talking About The '30 Million Word Gap'

Anya Kamenetz

The findings discussed in Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children have been cited more than 8,000 times, according to Google Scholar. Chelsea Beck/NPR hide caption

The findings discussed in Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children have been cited more than 8,000 times, according to Google Scholar.

Did you know that kids growing up in poverty hear 30 million fewer words by age 3? Chances are, if you're the type of person who reads a newspaper or listens to NPR, you've heard that statistic before .

Since 1992, this finding has, with unusual power, shaped the way educators, parents and policymakers think about educating poor children.

But did you know that the number comes from just one study, begun almost 40 years ago, with just 42 families? That some people argue it contained a built-in racial bias? Or that others, including the authors of a new study that calls itself a "failed replication," say it's just wrong?

NPR talked to eight researchers to explore this controversy. All of them say they share the goal of helping poor kids achieve their highest potential in school.

But on the issue of how to define either the problem, or the solution, there are, well, very big gaps.

With all that in mind, here are six things to know about the 30 million word gap.

1. The original study had just 42 families.

During the War on Poverty in the 1960s, Betty Hart, a former preschool teacher, entered graduate school in child psychology at the University of Kansas, working with Todd Risley as her adviser.

The two began their research with preschool students in the low-income Juniper Gardens section of Kansas City, Kan., explains Dale Walker of the University of Kansas, who counts Hart as a colleague and mentor. "They definitely worked out of their personal concern and experience with young children."

Seeing differences between poor and middle-class children by the age of 3, Hart and Risley decided to look for roots even earlier in children's lives.

Beginning in 1982, they followed up on birth announcements in the newspaper to recruit families with infants as research subjects.

The Surgeon Who Became An Activist For Baby Talk

They eventually chose 42 families at four levels of income and education, from "welfare" to "professional class." All of the "welfare" families and 7 out of 10 of the "working class" families were black, while 9 out of 10 of the "professional" families were white — this will be important later.

6 Potential Brain Benefits Of Bilingual Education

Code Switch

Boosting education for babies and their parents.

Starting when the babies were 7 to 9 months old, the researchers visited each house for one hour, once a month, for 2 1/2 years. They showed up generally in the late afternoon, with a cassette recorder, a clipboard and a stopwatch and tried to fade into the background. They were there to record the number of words spoken around the children, as well as the quality and types of interaction (for example, a question versus a command), and the growth in words produced by the children themselves.

2. The study has been cited over 8,000 times.

After 1,200 hours of recordings were collected, the real work began. Transcribing and checking each moment, with their elaborate system of coding, took 16 hours for every hour of tape, Dale Walker explains.

Hart and Risley's study wasn't published until 1992, while their book, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children, came out in 1995.

From there, it really caught fire. These findings have been cited more than 8,000 times, according to Google Scholar. The book remains one of its publisher's bestsellers more than 20 years later. There is a national research network of over 150 scholars aligned with Hart and Risley and focusing on young children's home environment.

And the impact of this work spread far beyond the ivory tower. "It's had enormous policy implications," says Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a developmental psychologist at Temple University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Something about that figure, 30 million words, held people's attention. Not only was it big, it seemed actionable.

Speech — unlike books or housing or health care — is free. If we could somehow get poor parents to speak to their children more, could it make a huge difference in fixing stubborn inequities in society?

The "word gap" drove expanded federal investments in Head Start and Early Head Start. Hart and Risley's work inspired early intervention programs, including the citywide effort Providence Talks in Rhode Island, the Boston-based Reach Out and Read, and the Clinton Foundation's Too Small To Fail.

Both researchers are now deceased. But in Kansas City, where it all began, Dale Walker and others work on research and interventions at the Juniper Gardens Children's Project.

3. Thirty million words is probably an exaggeration. Maybe the gap is 4 million. Maybe it's even smaller.

That eye-popping figure is one of the reasons the study has been so sticky over time. But newer studies have found very different numbers.

Since Hart and Risley's study was published, critics have taken issue with how the data was collected and interpreted.

Author Interviews

Simple number, complex impact: how many words has a child heard.

"Their study is commendable in many ways, but they just got it wrong," says Paul Nation, an expert in vocabulary acquisition at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

Nation primarily takes issue with the idea that you can estimate vocabulary growth from small samples of speech, particularly when the samples don't contain the same number of words.

He is one of many to have pointed out that the low-income families in their sample may have been intimidated into silence by the presence of a researcher, especially someone of another race. Educated parents, though, might be more likely to show off by talking more when an observer is present.

Modern technology can get around this observer effect. A nonprofit called LENA manufactures a tiny digital recording device that can be worn by children as young as 2 months old. Software then estimates speech and turn-taking.

While not invisible, it's a lot less intrusive than having a person sitting in the room. Directly inspired by Hart and Risley, LENA is used in school-based and home-based interventions dedicated to closing the word gap in more than 20 states.

Using LENA, scientists published a near-replication of the Hart and Risley study in 2017, only this study had 329 families, nearly 8 times more, and 49,765 hours of recording, from children 2 months to 4 years.

Their conclusion? The "word gap" between high-income and low-income groups was about 4 million by the time the children turned 4, not 30 million by age 3. Only if you compared the most talkative 2 percent with quietest 2 percent of families did you get a gap nearly as wide as Hart and Risley's, says LENA's senior director of research, Jill Gilkerson.

Another just-published study calls itself a "failed replication" of Hart and Risley.

The researchers analyzed field recordings from five different poor and working-class communities. They found that the amount of speech children heard varied from one place to another.

The lowest-income children recorded in South Baltimore heard 1.7 times as many words per hour as did Hart and Risley's "welfare" group. And in the "Black Belt," an area in rural Alabama, poor children heard three times as many words as Hart and Risley's "welfare" group.

The wide variation "unsettles the notion that income alone determines how many words children hear," lead author Douglas Sperry tells NPR.

4. Some people take issue with the whole idea of a "gap"

Sperry and his co-authors fall into a camp that criticizes the "word gap" concept as racially and culturally loaded in a way that ultimately hurts the children whom early intervention programs ostensibly trying to help.

"To look at income alone obscures real questions about the cultural mismatch between children of color and mainstream European children and their teachers as they enter schools," says Sperry. In other words, it's not necessarily that poor children aren't ready for school; it's that schools and teachers are not ready for these children.

Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, a professor of education at the University of California, Los Angeles, has called attention to the "word wealth" experienced by children who grow up learning a different language or even a different dialect than the dominant standard English spoken in school. This would describe not only recent immigrants, but also anyone whose background isn't white, educated and middle or upper class. When they get to school, they must learn to "code switch" between two ways of speaking.

She doesn't disagree that "there's variation in how much adults speak to children," but, she tells NPR, there shouldn't necessarily be a value judgment placed on that.

"Should adults direct lots of questions to children in ways that prepare them to answer questions in school?" she asks, calling that a "middle-class, mostly white practice."

"There are other values, like using language to entertain or connect, rather than just have children perform their knowledge. How do we honor different families rather than have families change their values to align with school?"

Similarly, Sofia Bahena, an education professor at the University of Texas, San Antonio, says talking about "word gaps," like "achievement gaps," is an example of what she calls deficit thinking.

"We can talk about differences without resorting to deficit language by being mindful and respectful of those we are speaking or researching about," she explains. "We can shift the question from 'how can we fix these students?' to 'how can we best serve them?' It doesn't mean we don't speak hard truths. But it does mean we try to ask more critical questions to have a deeper understanding of the issues."

Jennifer Keys Adair at the University of Texas, Austin published a study last year of how the "word gap" rubber is meeting the road of schools.

She and her co-authors spoke with nearly 200 superintendents, administrators, teachers, parents and young children in mostly Spanish-speaking immigrant communities. The educators expressed the belief that the children in grades pre-K through third in this community could not handle learner-centered, project-based, hands-on learning because their vocabulary was too limited. And, the children in the study themselves echoed the belief that they needed to sit quietly and listen in order to learn.

Adair says the "word gap" has become a kind of code word. "We can say 'vocabulary.' We're not going to say 'poor' and we're not going to use 'race,' but it's still a marker."

5. The underlying desire to help kids is still pretty compelling, though

Walker says that Hart and Risley were happy to engage with their critics. "They valued that input and the give and take." But, she says, they were sometimes "dismayed" at misinterpretations of their research, such as if people took ideas about the importance of an early start as justification for not trying to improve student outcomes later on in school.

Some boosters agree with critics that the "word gap" may need a reframing.

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, with her longtime collaborator Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and other researchers, wrote a scholarly critique of the Sperry study for the Brookings Institution .

"I am worried," Hirsh-Pasek tells NPR, that downplaying the word gap will have "dangerous" consequences. "Whenever you send out a message that 'Hey, this doesn't matter,' the policymakers are listening and say, 'Hey, that's great, we can divert the money.' "

Sperry's measures included "bystander talk" by multiple people in the room, including older siblings and other relatives. So did the LENA study. Hirsh-Pasek says the psychological research is clear that it's the "dance" of interaction between caregiver and child that is crucial to learning speech.

While this point is fairly settled among developmental psychologists, anthropologists may dissent, says Douglas Sperry. In some cultures, such as the Mayans in Central America, addressing young children directly is uncommon, yet people still learn to talk, he notes.

Hirsh-Pasek does agree with the critics that framing the issue as a deficit is wrong. "I'm so sorry that the 30 million word gap was framed as a gap," she says. "I like to talk about it as building a foundation rather than reducing a gap."

But, she adds, the sheer volume of conversation directed at children, not just spoken in their presence, is fundamental to language learning and later success in school. All the cultural variation in the world "doesn't negate the fact that when you look at the averages, there is a problem here."

And what's most important, says Hirsh-Pasek, is that interventions inspired by Hart and Risley are nudging parents in the right direction . "We have made changes and movement in kids, in whole communities."

Essay Writing Guide

1000 Word Essay

1000 Word Essay - A Simple Guide With Examples

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A 1000-word essay is a common assignment for all students, regardless of their subjects and academic level. 

Although it sounds simple, it can become daunting when you don’t know where to start and how to write it. 

So, how do you write a 1000-word essay? 

Continue reading this blog and get to learn everything you need to know about the 1000-word essay.  

• 1. What is a 1000 Word Essay?
• 2. 1000 Word Essay Structure
• 3. How to Write a 1000 Word Essay?
• 4. How to Format a 1000 Word Essay
• 5. 1000 Word Essay Examples
• 6. 1000 Word Essay Topic Examples
• 7. How Long is a 1000 Word Essay? 
• 8. How Many Paragraphs Will a 1000-Word Essay Be? 
• 9. How Many References for a 1000 Word Essay? 
• 10. How Long Does It Take to Write 1000 Words?
• 11. How to Write Different Types of 1000 Word Essays?
• 12. Tips for Writing a 1000-Word Essay 

What is a 1000 Word Essay?

A 1000 word essay is an essay that covers any topic or theme within a 1000-word limit. It typically covers about 3-4 pages. 

The main purpose of this essay is to:

• Present a concise and coherent argument in response to a stimulus or question.
• Express the opinion of the writer.
• Improve the writer’s writing, thinking, and critical skills

Moreover, a 1000 word essay is not an essay type. It is a format that can be used for writing any type of essay, including:

• Descriptive essay
• Narrative essay  
• Persuasive Essay
• Argumentative Essay
• Problem and Solution Essay

1000 Word Essay Structure

A 1000 word essay consists of an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion, just like all other essays. However, the only difference is the word count distribution across the essay. 

When writing a 1000-word essay, the introduction should be about 100-150 words, the main body should be about 700 words, and the conclusion should be about 100-150 words.

Here is the essay structure to help you divide your word count appropriately across the 1000 words.

How to Write a 1000 Word Essay?

Now that you know how this essay is structured, let’s move on to how to write it. Here are some steps that you can follow to compose an excellent essay.

• Choose an Engaging Topic

Choosing an interesting essay topic is necessary to keep the readers engaged. For t essay, make sure you choose a topic that you can cover within your word count. 

• Start the Research

Doing research is one of the most important parts of writing an essay. It ensures that you have all the information to create a strong composition. You should always make sure your sources are credible so no misleading info gets into your work. 

• Develop the Outline

An outline is the main element of essay writing that can save time, make things easier, and earn a better grade. It will also help your essays be logically structured and easy for others to read. Without a proper essay outline , you might forget the main points you should add to your essay. 

• Create a Compelling Introduction

An essay introduction is one of the most important components of a paper or essay. This part should be 100-150 words. 

Start an essay with a catchy hook and then provide background information about your topic. Finally, end the introduction with a strong thesis statement , indicating its main argument. 

• Write Effective Body Paragraphs

The body section should be 600-800 words long, and each section must be 200-300. 

Begin each paragraph with a topic sentence that indicates the main point. Afterward, present your arguments and support them with evidence. Also, conclude each paragraph with a transition to maintain a logical flow. 

• Write a Strong Conclusion 

The conclusion is the final part of your essay, where you offer some final thoughts and tie together the key points. An essay conclusion recaps all the main points and restates the thesis statement in an authoritative way. 

• Proofread and Revise the Draft

Once you finish writing your first draft, proofread it for any mistakes and potential improvements. Edit, revise, and polish your essay until it becomes the best version of itself.

How to Format a 1000 Word Essay

Formatting an essay involves setting the layout of the essay to make it easy to read and understand. Different formatting styles, such as the APA, MLA, Chicago, and others, prescribe different rules. 

However, some aspects of formatting are common across different styles. Here is how you can format your 1000-word essay properly:

• Font Style: Times New Roman, Arial or Calibri
• Font Size: 12-points
• Margins: 1 inch (2.54 cm) on all sides
• Line-Spacing: Double-spaced
• Headings: Headings and subheadings should be distinguished from the normal font

Other specifics, such as the page number, title page, references, etc., depend on the instructions of your professor. So always make sure to ask your instructor for complete formatting guidelines.

Learn more about writing formats with our comprehensive essay format guide.

1000 Word Essay Examples

Reading some 1000 word essay samples is an effective way to understand how these essays work. Here are some 1000 word essay example PDFs to give you a taste of what a 1000 words essay looks like.

1000 Word Essay on Human Rights

1000 Word Essay on Discipline

1000 Word Essay on Time Management

1000 Word Essay on Punctuality

1000 Word Essay on Leadership

1000 Word Essay On Why I Want To Be A Nurse

1000 Word Essay on Respect

1000 Word Essay on Global Warming

1000 Word Essay on Accountability

1000 Word Essay Topic Examples

Finding an interesting topic for your reader can be difficult, but it's worth the time. Here are some essay topic ideas that you can use for your essay. 

• Americans should have more holidays and longer vacations.
• Should Students get limited access to the Internet?
• Why is learning history important?
• Cell phones should not be allowed in schools.
• What is the best role for news reporters in the digital era?
• What are the causes and effects of terrorism?
• Does climate change occur due to human activity?
• What is the effect of family vacations on family relationships?
• How is social media changing parent and child relationships?
• Is summer school designed to help children?

What Topics Are Suitable For 1000-Word Essays? 

If you haven't been assigned a topic, you will have to choose one yourself. To come up with a good topic, follow these tips: 

• Ask yourself: what is the type of your essay? Is it informative, argumentative, persuasive, or exploratory? It will help you think of relevant topics. 
• Brainstorm. Come up with a list of potential essay topics that you can cover in 1000 words. 
• Narrow down this list down to a topic that you can easily discuss. Make sure you have enough information to write about that topic.

How Long is a 1000 Word Essay? 

The number of pages in a 1000 word essay differs based on formatting, such as line spacing and font size. 

A 1000-word essay can take up to anywhere between 3-4 pages when using standard academic formatting (12-pt font size & Double-spaced).

How Many Paragraphs Will a 1000-Word Essay Be? 

A 1000 word essay usually contains 5 paragraphs. It includes one paragraph introduction, three body paragraphs, and one conclusion paragraph. 

However, there could be 4 to 6 paragraphs based on your essay’s topic and structure. 

How Many References for a 1000 Word Essay? 

The number of references for a 1000 word essay depends on how many sources you use in your essay. However, 12 references are enough for a 1000 word essay.

You can also consult your professor and add references to your essay because all professors have different requirements. 

How Long Does It Take to Write 1000 Words?

On average, a 1000 word essay can take up to 3 hours to write. However, the time it takes to write this essay depends on your knowledge of the topic and your writing speed. 

Watch this video to see a step-by-step live example of how to write a 1000 word essay in minutes. 

How Long Will It Take Me to Write 150 Words?

To write 150 words, it will take you approximately 30 minutes.

How Long Will It Take Me to Write 300 Words?

Writing 300 words will take approximately 1 hour. 

How Long Will It Take Me to Write 400 Words? 

To write 400 words, it will take you approximately 1 hour 20 minutes.

How Long Will It Take Me to Write 500 Words?

To write 500 words, it will take you approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes.

How Long Will It Take Me to Write 600 Words? 

To write 600 words, it will take you approximately 2 hours.

How Long Will It Take Me to Write 800 Words?

To write 800 words, it will take you approximately 2 hours and 40 minutes.

How Long Will It Take Me to Write 1000 Words?

To write 1000 words, it will take you approximately 3 hours and 20 minutes.

Go through this teacher’s rubric to gather relevant essay content for a 1000 word essay.

How to Write Different Types of 1000 Word Essays?

There are many different types of essays that you can write in 1000 words. Some of them are briefly discussed below;

Descriptive Essay: This essay is about giving a clear and vivid description. You might use an essay to describe a place, person, object, or memory that is special to you.

Narrative Essay: In a narrative essay, you write about a personal experience in the form of a narrative. That is, you need to tell a story in 100 words. 

Persuasive Essay: This paper presents facts and arguments to convince the reader to agree with the writer. Use logic and evidence to support your argument.

Expository Essay: These essays offer an informative and balanced analysis of a topic. This means that you need to define or explain the topic in detail.

Tips for Writing a 1000-Word Essay 

Below given are some tips that our professional writers recommend. 

• Select the right essay topic.
• Follow the correct essay format.
• Use Times New Roman font, Calibri font, and Arial font.
• Use 250 words in each body paragraph.
• Write a brief conclusion and never extend it to 500 words.
• Keep the page count and number of words in mind.
• Follow the specific pattern so you don’t spend hours writing. 

To sum up, that was everything you needed to know to get started on your 1000-word essay. Read some examples, choose an interesting topic, and follow the writing steps provided above, and you’ll be able to craft an excellent essay in no time.

Still require more help? No worries! If you need writing assistance from professional experts, you’re in luck! MyPerfectWords.com offers top-notch writing services online with quick turnaround and affordable prices! 

So contact us today to get expert essay help. 

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Nova Allison is a Digital Content Strategist with over eight years of experience. Nova has also worked as a technical and scientific writer. She is majorly involved in developing and reviewing online content plans that engage and resonate with audiences. Nova has a passion for writing that engages and informs her readers.

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Daniel Honey

Writing one million words, february 4, 2018 daniel.

Main Points • 1,000,000 words is a great milestone to achieve, but it’s not the most important thing to focus on. Instead get in the habit of the following: • Write a lot; • Immerse yourself in learning from great teachers; • Get a lot of feedback, especially averages from multiple people; • Learn what you need to fix/strengths you can leverage; • Create feedback loops to practice and grow; • Find ways to teach what you’ve learned.

Introduction One million words. One million (read in Dr. Evil’s voice). I was at a NaNoWriMo event last year when one of our members announced he’d just hit his first one million words. We all looked at him impressed. I was stunned. One million isn’t a small number, especially when most books are around 80-130K words long. So 1,000,000 words is about the equivalent of writing ten books.

David Eddings is most likely the person who popularized this milestone concept of writing a 1,000,000 words. His specific advice was “Write a million words–the absolute best you can write, then throw it all away and bravely turn your back on what you have written. At that point, you’re ready to begin,” (for a fascinating read of where the term originated, check out this link: http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2014/03/one-million-words-to-competency-who-said-it-first.html ).

For most people, hitting 1,000,000 words will take about 10 years, or about a book a year. Mileage varies. While researching for this post, I came across an author who writes about 1,000,000 words every year . That blew me away! However, he seems disillusioned with his own word count success ( http://www.bigskywords.com/writing-blog/1000000-words-written-this-yearso-far ).

So what’s the deal? Is 1,000,000 words worth writing? Is it a goal worth having? Or is it just a happy milestone we pass on our way to true expertise?

Origins 10,000 hours and 1,000,000 words You’ve probably heard about the 10,000 hour rule, popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers . The short version is that to become an expert in anything, all it takes is a dedicated amount of practice–10,000 hours to be precise, which (as you guessed) will take most people around 10 years to complete. I’ve heard the 1,000,000 word rule as a sort of equivalent to the 10,000 hour rule. They fit in nicely after all. The problem is, the rule is an oversimplification, one which Gladwell has attempted to clarify and the originators of the study he cites have spoken against.

It feels good that we could master just about anything in only 10,000 hours of dedicated practice. It feels good that we could become expert writers by just pumping out 1,000,000 words, but both of these are dead wrong. It takes a lot more than that and often much less than that to become an expert. An arbitrary goal is not a guarantee of expertise. Instead, it’s much more helpful to utilize a system that builds success.

I’ve taken a lot of the following from an article from Make Use Of that I’ll refer to throughout ( https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10000-hour-rule-wrong-really-master-skill/ ). I’ll also use Brandon Sanderson as an example of doing things right as his writing, world-building, personal history, and success are all phenomenal for our purposes.

Building a System of Success Steps toward actual mastery Write a lot Brandon Sanderson wrote a ton before getting published. You can read his own account online ( https://brandonsanderson.com/euology-my-history-as-a-writer/ ) but I’ll summarize it here. He wrote something like 8 books before the 9th eventually got published, and 13 before he found out he was getting published. Since Sanderson’s books tend to be long, (each was probably over 200K words) that might be 2.6 million words for those 13 books, not counting outlines. I’m not saying that the actual rule for expertise is having to write 2 million words instead of 1. What I am saying is that you have to write a lot . But how much varies from person to person.

Sanderson himself writes about 300K words a year as of 2016 ( link ). His advice (from the link above) is “I suggest to new writers that 2k a week be a minimum. That gives you a book in about a year.” This turns out to be 2,000×52=104,000 or about 1,000,000 words in 10 years, which is a somewhat funny coincidence with the 10,000 hour/10 year/1,000,000 word rule.

Immerse yourself There are plenty of resources to learn to improve your writing. From actual books on how to do specific or general things, to reading good writing, to analyzing what great authors are doing, to hiring coaches, going to workshops, learning from podcasts, reading blogs, the possibilities for learning are endless. While this might seem overwhelming from the sheer potential of what’s out there, the point here is that to master a skill you have to learn about it. When I learned to speak Spanish, the best thing was living in Spain for two years. I had to learn the language because I was so immersed in it. It surrounded me everywhere. I would spend time learning grammar and lessons at home, then go out and practice in the world. And it worked. While that kind of immersion might not be possible for writing (especially if it’s more of a hobby), there are still ways we can immerse ourselves more.

Get feedback to know what’s wrong and what’s right Importantly, it’s not enough to just write a bunch words, they need to be good ones. In his story, Sanderson points this out, that he was most productive when he surrounded himself by fellow writers who critiqued his work: magazine groups, writers’ groups, etc. Our work needs to be read. While that might seem scary, we can’t grow without others’ help. We might think our writing is the cat’s meow, but if we have a fatal flaw in our writing, we’re going to keep perpetuating that error until someone points it out. Granted, this doesn’t have to come from other people. We can read good writing and self-correct a lot of our own mistakes. But there’s something magical that comes when you bring in outside perspectives. I’ve written before about how my writers’ group helped me write better romance and teenagers. Given how much I’ve submitted to them, they know my weaknesses fairly well. And the more I submit, the more I sharpen my skills. Right now, I’m coming to realize I often fail to make main characters as interesting as side character. It’s something I’m practicing now and submitting for review.

Of similar importance is knowing what you’re doing right . Knowing that you write great action, romance, characters, or whatever will help you leverage what’s working and make your books shine by emphasizing the skills you already have. Feedback will point this out too. Once you know what you do well, you can incorporate those skills into your writing to better engage readers.

Get average feedback from large numbers One really important thing on feedback, it’s important to get averages. When my friend Paul Bishop submitted a story to two different editors, one told him his action was great but his characters’ needed work; the other said his characters’ were great but his action needed work. Who was right? It’s nearly impossible to tell with only two people saying completely different things. But if 5 editors had all agreed on one thing, they’d probably be right. The same thing happens with my writers’ group. If all 3 other people think something is off, they’re likely right. If one thinks I should fix something and the others disagree, I might be safe ignoring the one’s advice. This gets easier to tell the more eyes look at your work. That’s why beta and alpha readers are so important–if 15 people are telling you to change something, chances are you need to look into it. Of course, it’s impossible to get so many readers for all of your writing. That’s why writers’ groups who’re committed to helping you (and you’re committed to helping them) are so useful for workshopping smaller chunks until you submit full-length pieces to beta readers. Things like Wattpad can also help getting more feedback.

Averages also help with the subjective problems inherit in writing. Good writing (and great writing) varies in definition from person to person. Prose might be beautiful to one and purple to another. Other skills, such as sports or music, are much more objective . You can measure if a person is playing the violin well or making layups in basketball. Whether or not you’re writing good action or characters can be harder to determine as we’ve seen in Paul Bishop’s example. Having large amounts of feedback helps parse through this subjectivity and starts getting more at objectivity. Twilight may be poor writing, but the fact of its success proves that Stephanie Meyer is doing something right. The numbers prove it.

Build feedback loops You can’t know what to fix without knowing what’s broken, so after you know, what now? Practice, practice, practice. Learn how other authors do your weakness well; study how to write great action if that’s something people are telling you. Then practice and submit to people who can give you feedback. As the Make Use Of article relates, this creates feedback loops to hone your skills–you work on something, you submit it, you get feedback, you submit later to correct your mistakes to get even more feedback to practice on and it becomes a loop. In my writers’ group, we often require each other to include their weakness in their short story submissions so we improve more. The loops build on each other and we do get better. And I’m not just producing content and letting it go to the wind.

Teach it Something else the Make Use Of article shares is the power of teaching. After you’ve learned how to do something good (or at least better than you were doing before), share it with someone else–how to make a good scene, how to write good romance, how to do whatever, or what pitfalls to avoid. Teaching ingrains learning better than anything else and there are two really easy ways to try this: (1) teach it to your writers’ group, or some friends you’re helping out, maybe writers with less experience than yourself; (2) write out what you’ve learned in an essay, a playlist , or *gasp* a blog! I’ll admit that part of why I’m writing my blog is to help me learn. Even if no one read my posts, I’d still get a ton of value out of it, both in learning and practicing.

Conclusion Back to the 1,000,000 words So what does all this mean? Is 1,000,000 words worth it? Not really. The rule only ties into one aspect of mastering a skill–to practice a lot–but it leaves out more important things like getting feedback, and actually learning the skill.

While 1,000,000 words is a happy milestone, it’s not one that will guarantee anything. Instead, it’s a goal that should be pleasantly waved at as a joyous accomplishment along the way while we get back to focusing on the real work.

As an aside, I’m almost to my first million words. I’ll leave my progress at the end because it’s something I am proud of despite knowing it’s limitations. I’ll be waving at it happily once I go past it.

But what about you? What do you think about the 1,000,000 word goal? Worth your time? A fun badge of honor? Hopeless distraction? Let me know below!

My Current Word Count by Book (past 7 or 8 years)

4 thoughts on “ Writing One Million Words ”

Well… I don’t have an accurate count of my younger writing (pre-NaNo). But, at a guesstimate, I’m at 800k or so, with only a subset of that being brought to revision stage. 2/3 of that is from NaNo events (camp and otherwise). At this point, I’m OK at planning/plotting, at least enough to be able to blast through a first draft without really stumbling much. I’m absolutely terrible at revision, which is why this year is dedicated to learning to revise. I don’t know if it’s still his process, but Piers Anthony wrote about his process in his novels from the 80s. At his peak, then, he would do three full drafts (each starting from scratch, the later two using the earlier drafts as guidelines) of each book (three books per year), which weighed in right around 1 million words per year. But that was the habit he established with a dozen or more published novels under his belt, fully in his stride.

That’s amazing progress! I totally agree on the drafting part too. I’m more in that area as well where I need to start working on a revising more than first drafting.

That sounds intense with Piers Anthony but really interesting. So to clarify, he’d write one book 3 times each from scratch? (using each new ‘first draft’ as the outline). That’s really interesting. I might have to try that sometime.

Yes. I’m going from memory, and I can’t recall how much outlining he did. My impression is that it was more noodling around with the story a bit, poking at it until he has an idea, then sitting down and pushing out a draft. I *think* the most complete description might be in the Author’s Note from On A Pale Horse. From memory, he writes it out (with inline notes of other thoughts, etc.) for the first draft, working his way through the story. It sounded like he had an outline, but was discovery writing his way from point to point. Then, once it’s done, he pulls out all the notes into a separate file, to be handled however they would be handled, rereads, takes more notes, thinks about it, and writes a whole new draft from scratch, guided by the things he wrote before and the things he wanted to fix. Then he does it a third time. Now. I’ve tried this, because I’ve got the word emitting portion down pretty well. It hasn’t worked for me, and see several reasons why. First, I can’t write full-time. I can’t sit in the story and steep and just live inside the story. I have family time, I write code for my day job (and have to deep dive into problems there, sometimes.), etc. Second, I can’t seem to fix too many things at once, because I freeze on trying to get it right. That is, analysis paralysis strikes, and the gap between where I am and where I want to be is too big. Third, the rough draft is way too messy. It sounds to me like his first drafts are cleaner than mine — but we’re talking about a point in time where he’d had somewhere between a dozen and a score (or more?) traditionally published. He was selling on spec, not from completed drafts, and he knew what stories he was good at telling, and he knew his process very well. I’m probably going to take a stab at that approach again in the future, but for now I have to learn a lot more about my own process first.

Thanks for sharing all this! And for sharing you thoughts on why that kind of process might not work for everyone. It does entail a huge amount of time investment and sitting inside the story. Thanks again!

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What is lorem ipsum.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Wealth — Spending a Million Dollars

Spending a Million Dollars

• Categories: Wealth

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Words: 364 |

Published: Feb 12, 2024

Words: 364 | Page: 1 | 2 min read

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