The Productive Writer

“My methods may be slow and old-fashioned, but I bet I can produce more relevant work than any newcomer armed with an AI slop-thrower,” he often thought—and one day, he set out to prove it.

He began counting his daily word output during early writing sessions. The simple metric became an obsession. His careful script deteriorated into frantic scribbles as he chased higher numbers. When a friend called asking why he hadn’t published lately, the question jolted him awake. What have I done? He looked around at stacks of legal pads covered in illegible writing.

He then switched to track published words, to encompass the entire workflow. For many months, the change seemed to work well—until subtle side effects began to surface. In his haste to publish more, he lost sharpness; the prose grew bloated, less crisp. “Did you read my last story?” he asked his friend. “Ah, no—sorry, I couldn’t get through that one,” the friend replied. He was losing his readership.

He focused on measuring and maximizing reader engagement—views, likes, and sales—which felt like a way to encompass both his workflow and its results. For months, this approach worked well, sharpening his focus and boosting his popularity. Over time, however, problems emerged: his topics narrowed to a few well-received themes, his style became predictable. He began censoring ideas out of fear of poor reception, and this restraint eroded the sense of exploration that had once driven his work. He was popular, yes—but unfulfilled.

“I thought I could prove my methods were more productive than anyone else’s, but I don’t even know what productive means anymore. There seems to be no way to measure what truly matters, and any attempt to do so—while useful in some sense—ends up being counterproductive,” he concluded.

Next morning, at 4:30, he sat down at his desk and pulled out a blank sheet of legal paper. As the nib of the pen met the page, the soft whisper of words beginning to form filled the room. He was back.