Open any book on ‘how to write’ and somewhere you will find a discussion of how many words you should write every day. Forget scrambling to get to paper or the computer every day, do we now have to produce a certain number of words?

Me? I don’t write every day (Quick! Call the writers police!), I don’t write 2000 words, and neither do you. So what is the pace you should aim for and how do you calculate it? I’ll show you.

Instead of ordering yourself to write a certain number of words a day, join the Design Your Own Word Count program. Here’s how to find your daily word count in 3 easy steps:

1) Give yourself an easy word count limit, say 10 words. Clever? Go.And…..stop. Live! Congratulations, you have met your goal. You are free to go do the laundry or have an ice cream. Your choice.

Seriously, consider how pretty ridiculous you’d feel if you stopped there. Remember that feeling and keep writing. Check in whenever you find yourself pausing and see if you still feel that way (ie lame, lazy, if you’re laughing, imagine telling a writer friend, “I wrote 27 words today, isn’t that amazing?” Picture the look on his face). Now he keeps writing.

2) As long as you feel interested and excited about what you’re doing every time you sign up, keep going. Even if you’re nervous and a little scared, keep going. Those feelings will propel you beyond superficial writing about how much you crave that bowl of Ben & Jerry’s.

3) When do you stop? When you first realize that you are controlling the choice of words and images. When you notice that your thoughts become negative. When you feel yourself slipping downhill into the tar pit of despair. Dig in your heels and turn your eyes to the sun (your page or computer screen). Look what you have achieved!

It is important that you leave the session feeling positive and excited about what you are writing. Hemingway always stopped at a place where he could leave something to start the next day, something to look forward to. Do the same. He writes down where you want him to pick you up next and stop.

Work your way up to the count that feels right to you, practicing the exercise above. The amount of time you spend lost in your excitement (sometimes even nervousness) about what you’re writing will get longer and longer the more you get attached to it.

We all really LOVE to write. It is not the act itself, it is the fear that everything we produce sucks and everyone finds out. Pssst, let me let you in on a secret: everyone writes crap. I’m including the big ones too. Except maybe Shakespeare. Some publisher should dig up some of this bad writing from the best writers of our time and publish it. It would make us all feel better.

Here’s another tip: STOP TRYING TO IMPRESS PEOPLE IN YOUR HEAD. Whoever they are. Who cares what they think? It’s about finding out what interesting things you have to say, what visions are in your mind. They may not come out as polished as you’d like, but they’re still important. You’re not going to write a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel from scratch. Take a break. Just put it on paper. You can correct it later in the editing process. If you have a blank page, you have nothing. You can’t give a completely bald person a haircut or a new hairstyle, can you?

I’m giving you a free pass to write trash. In fact, that’s his first assignment. See what really amazing things you can write. I dare you.

As for writing every day: promise yourself that you will write 3 or 4 days a week and stick to it. If you end up not writing for a week or even two months, and the next time you do it you really enjoy it, and you end up writing for two weeks straight before taking a break, I would consider that SUCCESSFUL writing practice.

I think what keeps you writing is that electric loss of yourself, when you’re inside the experience, flowing with your thoughts and vision, even if that feeling only lasts 10 minutes.

IT IS THE PROCESS NOT THE PRODUCT. Stop when you still feel good. Leave you wanting more.

By the way, the word count for this article is 796. Not 2000, but who cares? What matters is: I wrote today. you? More importantly: did you have fun? Good for you. Write it on a Post-it note and put it on your computer screen. Make sure to use lots of exclamation points. You deserve it.