Mastery, Chemistry Productivity Community - today Productivity

Productivity is the ratio of Output to Input. In commercial enterprises, the usual productivity measure used is the amount of revenue earned divided by the number of paid hours worked. To use this traditional productivity measure for writers is not meaningful.

So, I have used Productivity to mean anything that has a number attached to it. How much? How many? How often? How soon?

My personal experience, including my experience listening to others who write, is that Productivity can be, simultaneously mind you, the most boring, infuriating, frustrating, soul-killing, elating, prideful, discouraging, ignored, fixated-upon, dismissed-as-irrelevant,or disappointment-inducing factor of the four measures of success. And the Productivity factor, depending on the writer, is either the least discussed, or most talked about aspect of writing, accompanied by either the greatest fanfare or the most modesty.

Please keep in mine, Emily Dickinson would have scored pretty close to zero on many of the Productivity factors listed below.

The Productivity notion, as with Community and the other factors, is for you to select the metrics you want to measure yourself by. And, so you may retain your sanity, ignore the rest at least for the time being.

So, for example, and in no order whatsoever:

• Self-imposed deadlines
• Group, publisher or other external deadlines
• Word count specifications
• Line length specifications
• Number of stories, novels, poems written
• Number of stories, novels, poems submitted
• Number of stories, novels, poems rejected
• Number of stories, novels, poems published - no revenue
• Number of stories, novels, poems published - some revenue; or revenue over / under $X; or $ Advance
• Number of speaking / workshop engagements, offered
• Number of residencies, teaching positions, offered
• Number of requests for coaching, mentoring
• Number of requests for more stories, etc.
• Number of pages produced each day / week
• Number of pages edited / revised each day / week
• Number of hours spent writing / revising each day / week
• Number of words generated each day / week
• Number of submissions per acceptance or dollar earned
• Amount of time ignoring / sacrificing the rest of my life
• Percentage of writing time that is mostly joyful
• Number of forms (poems, light verse, short stories, flash fiction, biography, etc.) tackled
• Year-to-year increase / progress in productivity

So, the writer who produces the final version of a short story in one hour, submits it to one publisher who pays her a million dollars for it, and who receives a tenured professorship from a prestigious university would have an extremely high Productivity score.

Personally, right now for me, I'm pretty happy when colleagues say they like what I have written, offer constructive suggestions for improvement and, sometimes, a magazine or newspaper says "Yes".

That's a higher Productivity standard than I had for myself a year ago. 

Thanks to everyone, you know who you are, who have helped. 

  

Fearful Wise Words

From Elizabeth Gilbert's book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
"Let me list for you some of the many ways in which you might be afraid to live a more creative life: 

You’re afraid you have no talent. 

You’re afraid you’ll be rejected or criticized or ridiculed or misunderstood or—worst of all—ignored. 

You’re afraid there’s no market for your creativity, and therefore no point in pursuing it. 

You’re afraid somebody else already did it better. 

You’re afraid everybody else already did it better. 

You’re afraid somebody will steal your ideas, so it’s safer to keep them hidden forever in the dark.

You’re afraid you won’t be taken seriously.

You’re afraid your work isn’t politically, emotionally, or artistically important enough to change anyone’s life.

You’re afraid your dreams are embarrassing.

You’re afraid that someday you’ll look back on your creative endeavors as having been a giant waste of time, effort, and money.

You’re afraid you don’t have the right kind of discipline.

You’re afraid you don’t have the right kind of work space, or financial freedom, or empty hours in which to focus on invention or exploration.

You’re afraid you don’t have the right kind of training or degree.

You’re afraid you’re too fat. (I don’t know what this has to do with creativity, exactly, but experience has taught me that most of us are afraid we’re too fat, so let’s just put that on the anxiety list, for good measure.)

You’re afraid of being exposed as a hack, or a fool, or a dilettante, or a narcissist.

You’re afraid of upsetting your family with what you may reveal.

You’re afraid of what your peers and coworkers will say if you express your personal truth aloud.

You’re afraid of unleashing your innermost demons, and you really don’t want to encounter your innermost demons.

You’re afraid your best work is behind you.

You’re afraid you never had any best work to begin with. You’re afraid you neglected your creativity for so long that now you can never get it back.

You’re afraid you’re too old to start.

You’re afraid you’re too young to start.

You’re afraid because something went well in your life once, so obviously nothing can ever go well again.

You’re afraid because nothing has ever gone well in your life, so why bother trying?

You’re afraid of being a one-hit wonder.

You’re afraid of being a no-hit wonder”