Write Away

I don't judge the quality of first drafts, mostly because doing so would curl me into a tiny miserable ball. Anything I've written, whether I've done it slowly or quickly, is going to need substantial editing and in some cases overhaul to be usable. It's almost more of a guidepost to where I'm going, and often I need to have gotten some words down before I realize I was going in the wrong direction. I do tend to get more words out when I'm focused and sure of where I'm going (which is by no means the same thing as going where I need to), so in that sense a higher word-per-hour rate can be useful--but even then it's just usefulness, not quality.

A bigger issue for me than speed is time, if that makes sense. I once banged out 20,000 words in a few days, only to dump them all because they were the wrong words in the wrong direction. I still think I needed to write them to get that realization, but of course I needed time to get those words out, get the feedback that helped me realize they were no good, then replace them with better stuff (which took only half as many words, thankfully). So a reasonable speed helps, and I can usually achieve that with a degree of concentration and planning, but above all I need time to mull a story over, figure out what it needs to be, get feedback from people I trust, and fiddle with it until it's right. And to run headlong into dead ends, make embarrassing mistakes, feel convinced I'll never create anything of worth, then get over it and start all over again. It takes time.