From the beginning of my literary work, I made it my rule to write an allotted number of pages every day. I arranged a system of work for myself, which I would strongly recommend to those who feel, as I have, that labor, when not made absolutely obligatory by the circumstance, should never be allowed to become spasmodic.
When I have commenced a new book, I have always prepared a diary, divided into weeks, and carried it on for the period which I have allowed myself for’ the completion of the work . In this I have entered, day by day, the number of pages I have written, so that if at any time I have slipped into idleness for a day or two, the record of that idleness has been there, staring me in the face, and demanding of me increased labor, so that the deficiency might he supplied.
According to the circumstances of the time, I have allotted myself so many pages a week. The average number has been about forty. It has been placed as low as twenty, and has risen to 112. And as a page is an ambiguous term, my page has been made to contain :250 words; and as words, if not watched, will have a tendency to st r a g g l e , I have had every word counted as I went.
I have prided myself on completing my work exactly within the proposed dimensions and within the proposed time, and I have always done so. There has ever been the record before me, and a week passed with .an insufficient number of pages has been a blister to my eye, and a month so disgraced would have been a sorrow to my heart.
from the Writer Magazine, published Boston, 1906. The Writer still publishes monthly. The old issues, like this one, can be found on Google Books.
You can read all of Trollope here. He does makes a good point…and that is the goal setting of how many posts, photographs, paintings, pages to produce a week. He is not the first to state that without a goal, a timetable of sorts, nothing will get done.
The painter Vincent Van Gogh thought the same, and his goal was a painting a day. I first thought that amazing until my dh V pointed out that if you devote 8-10 hours a day to something like we do at work, shouldn’t something worthwhile get produced? Upon reconsideration, I realised that V was right and that leaving things to chance creates all sorts of problems, “blocks” and excuses.
40 posts a week though, is a quite a goal, I think I will start with a lower one and work my way up. How about you? What goal do you have?
In my anguish... 