Back in my school days, I hated writing essays or anything that had a required word or page count. The topic could have been “if you had a unicorn, where would you go?” I still would’ve silently cried at the heavens and shook my fists at the english teacher.

“Mike, stop that.”

“Sorry, Mrs. French.”

I never really understood the reason for writing a two-page essay on something I could describe in one. I had my shortcuts, ways to lengthen the work. Like starting each paragraph with a sentence that described what I will be discussing. Like using an entire quote when I only needed a third to get a point across. Or simply being redundant (“the character of Timmy in the book Annabella Average: A Mean Lady, always loved to stare and ogle at Annabella Average, the mean lady.”) Since all of my brainpower went into clock-watching, I was ill-prepared for analogies and metaphors and whatnot. Actually I used whatnot a lot, and didn’t learn to mix metaphors until college, where I got tired of these shortcuts and handed in writing the color of Barney.



To set the scene, this was all taking place when we took typing classes – with typewriters. The only other writing I did outside of school was…hmm, I didn’t.

Think about it. Nowadays our generation is fingers constantly slicing at the keys, cutting into our daily grind and mutilating productivity. If we aren’t adding a comment we are blogging. If we aren’t tweeting we are updating our Facebook profile. If we aren’t instant messaging then we are sending an email. And all these slivers don’t necessarily occur at a desk. Go outside. You’re bound to walk into someone multitasking all of the above.

Would all this short-burst writing have an effect on our mentality on required word/page counts? I wouldn’t say it’s outrageous to imagine building a tolerance for count requirements. The more you do something the easier it becomes – not a revolutionary idea. You may not be writing an email about the significance of the book Henry Wotton gives Dorian Gray but no matter the triviality, you are writing, and the more you write the more comfortable you are with the structure and word choices you make.

And to answer the question: space. I would go to space.

Something To Think About: I’m sure writing an essay and typing one out is an important distinction to make. Yet for me, my ideations don’t change whether I have a pen in hand or fingers on home. A couple questions for the people who blog: do you set yourself up with a word count, and do you usually go over or under it?