Dichotomies are popular partly because they’re catchy and partly because they’re so easy on the brain. Black vs. white, capitalism vs. socialism, introversion vs. extroversion, right vs. wrong. Sometimes I wish things were actually this simple, but most of the time I don’t because these comparisons don’t allow any wiggle room or tolerance for difference or adjustment.
So when we talk about quantity vs. quality, both of these attributes contribute to overall well being and success (I’ll save defining “success” for another time). Is one more important than the other? I would argue that for many people, one is weaker than the other, and therefore we need to expend more effort and awareness on whichever side is more personally difficult. Let’s look at some definitions.
Quantity:
- Music: number of hours spent practicing and learning new music. Also preparing music for a performance or audition deadline.
- Writing: butt in chair principle; number of hours spent writing and revising, or a daily word count goal. Also would include having a submission goal of how many markets you submit to per period of time.
- Interpersonal: amount of time spent both thinking about what your relationship (and loved one) needs and implementing that, whether by spending more time talking, doing activities, writing emails, cleaning the house, or what-have-you.
- Running a business: amount of time spent both on finding and implementing strategies in advertising, marketing, getting your name out there, as well as time spent providing your core service or product and planning special events. Focused on goals either financial or quantity-based.
These are all great goals, concrete goals, measurable goals. They require self discipline and commitment to achieve on a regular basis. Unfortunately, sometimes quantity is not enough. Standing in the practice room day after day for sixty minute practice sessions that go exactly the same way every time is not usually going to lead to improvement or make a great singer. Being so obsessed with word count that you can’t afford the time to stop and think how you can use your words more effectively does not make a better writer. Trying really hard to be a better spouse without being willing to take some personal risks isn’t always effective.
But what happens if we don’t focus on quantity? Our brilliance is often derailed by lack of organization or dedication. Projects don’t get finished or maybe don’t even get started. Businesses fail due to lack of exposure or avoidance of hard financial numbers. The people we love may feel neglected or friends might characterize you as a flake. We might sound great when singing but our inability to learn music on time and behave professionally holds us back.
Quality:
- Music: choosing one or more technical suggestions to work through during that day’s practice session. Being willing to try new things even if they feel weird and don’t work right away. Working on what your teacher brought up during your last lesson and then giving her feedback as to how it’s going in practice.
- Writing: choosing subjects/stories that are close to your heart and therefore dangerous. Taking the time to revise as much as a story needs. Doing the necessary preparation work (whether that be research, outlining, note taking, character profiles, etc.) that you personally need to write your best story. Focusing on a particular aspect of craft while writing, even if it slows the work down.
- Interpersonal: prioritizing by finding out what makes the most difference to the other person in the relationship. Getting to the root of any issues between you. Attempting to see that person without your usual bias and love them unconditionally. Being honest and open about hard things as well as good ones.
- Running a business: Providing individualized service to your clients. Prioritizing the goal of improving your product or your abilities. Remembering the people factor in business. Not cutting every single corner for cost reasons if the quality detriment is high enough. Focusing on goals of service and satisfied customers.
What happens if we don’t focus on quality? We work hard for many years and get “stuck” in the same spot, like we’re running in place. We crank out large volumes of work lacking the spark that will lead to publishing that novel or winning that part during auditions. Our relationships coast along but don’t necessarily deepen. The business tends to get a higher than average turnover of clients or customers. We rush to complete a task without thinking of the meaning behind the task and making sure we do it to their best of our abilities.
Now for me, quality is a lot harder than quantity. Quantity is easy for somebody like me who has determination, self discipline, and organizational skills in spades. Quality, on the other hand, is a bit more mystical because it depends on stuff you can’t measure in numbers. It depends on taking risks. It doesn’t always conform to plan. It could end in spectacular failure instead of middling mediocrity. So for me, I need to put a lot more focus on quality to get myself in balance.
What about you? What do you need to focus on, quantity or quality?
The Practical Free Spirit 
Quality is something I’ve focused on for a long time, and now I’m focusing mostly on quantity for awhile. I figure I’ll get faster, then I’ll spend some of my time experimenting with different stuff. And since I’ll be writing more, I won’t regret the time I spend experimenting since it will be just a portion of the larger completed group of works.
Oh, also:
I find quality fairly simple (but not easy) to manage. It goes sort of like this:
Try something. Play around. Make a mistake. Make a lot more of them. See if you can use the things you messed up–if the mistakes can become part of the piece. If you can’t use them, fix the mistakes. Find out when you can’t fix a mistake. Find out when you can route around them, or hide them. Keep doing things wrong in different ways until you find ways to do them right–ways that work for you, maybe not for everyone else. Show the stuff to people so they can keep you from deciding it all sucks.
It’s like when kids learn how to walk, they keep falling over until they figure it out. Then if you want to learn to run, you have to do it again. Dance, do it again. More complex moves, be ready to fall a lot more times.
Eventually this sort of experimentation lets you find things you never would have found otherwise. Eventually, in the long run, your range of options grows, your ways to fix things gets wider. You gain skill.
The trouble is, it can take a very long time.
The nice thing, though: the better you get, the easier it gets to produce more stuff. You probably can’t produce at high speed at the top of your game, but maybe you can produce at 3/4 of your game. And the more you practice working faster while still trying to work better, the better you can get at working better while also working faster. That’s when, I suspect, it becomes obvious that there is no real dichotomy between quantity and quality after all.
I’m glad you find it simple! I tend to distrust anything that doesn’t naturally involve lists.
Of course, I could make lists about how I want to improve in quality … but as of now, I satisfy myself with a mental checklist. 🙂
Quality in quantity? Heh.
For hobbyist writing, I find it very hard to make myself creative for many hours a week. If I’m in a creative mood my output is far higher than if I’m just sitting down at any old time trying to do something, so I want to produce creative moods.
It’s actually been a complicated process of trial and error. I recently I learned that I have the most creative energy in the mornings, especially weekday mornings (this took a while to really figure out because I have a day job weekday mornings). Recently I’ve experimented with carving out an hour before work every day. That turns out to be pretty consistent quality time, and puts me on the right track for the rest of the day.
In the evening, it’s all about having the right energy in my environment. I can’t be at home (too mellow). Cafes work well unless there’s too much conversation. I actually quite like diner style places, but they frown on people sitting there for three hours…
Do you have a time when you’ve got the most creative energy? Always work at home, or other places too?
I generally work at home, although I can edit and crit easily elsewhere. I like having a quiet environment so as to minimize distractions.
Usually I have a routine for my day that includes writing at a specific time (often around noon or 1pm). Lately that’s broken down a bit as I adjust to a different life schedule, and lo and behold, I’m less productive as a result. Of course, I’m not working on a novel right now either, and I always find that a large project will really hone my focus in a way that lots of smaller disparate projects won’t.
It’s important to remember that the drive for quality doesn’t end once you get published. If anything it becomes more important, because you’re under contract, you have a dayjob, you go to conventions that take weeks to recover from, etc…
It gets easy to just put down word count and forget about the quality of those words. The book I’m on now, I’ve started it three times, written a third of it, and then tossed the whole thing because I’m not satisfied. But now I have two months to make deadline, and around 60k words to write. I’m not thrilled about it, but I have to hit quantities. I don’t yet have the balance to do both things at once, at least not as well as I want.
Anyway. These are things I think about.
I think I’ll always be concerned with quality. For me, the challenge of improving is one of the major attractions of writing; it keeps me interested and engaged.
But yes, the balance is the hard part, and I think the balancing act becomes much more difficult once you are published and have those mythical “deadlines” that I’ve heard about. 🙂