Because I enjoy a good joke, I’m going to say that the answer is to set the bar low.

And now I’ll give you the real answer.

Let’s start by looking at what a successful writing session means.

For many of us, we look for progress on the book. Did I write a chapter tonight? Did I meet my word count? Am I keeping everything that I wrote? But the funny thing is that these really aren’t the best measures of success.

Progress is crucial. Don’t get me wrong. But remember that sometimes, we have a writing session that ends with all the verbiage in the garbage. Or deleted. Or one that only yielded a couple sentences.

Honestly, you might spend your entire writing session researching or planning or developing a character with loads of info that won’t actually go into the book.

And that’s all ok.

The point of having a writing session is to work on your book, and though we don’t like to admit that chipping away at that total word count is the goal, we usually feel like we are trying to beat the clock.

But instead of turning it into a contest for how far you got toward pages in a completed novel, consider that every writing session you have leads you in that direction, but sometimes it’s only a few steps.

Before you even start writing, understand that sometimes you have to pause to research. Sometimes you have to pause to flesh out a character or a relationship or make notes about the world they live in. And sometimes, you are going to write complete and utter crap.

If you’ve been a teenager anytime since 1997, then you probably remember the end of every South Park episode: “I learned something today.” (Why do I remember that year specifically? Because South Park came out the same fall that I started my undergrad. But I’m still cool, right?)

After a writing session, think about whether you learned something. Did you discover your villain’s reason for hating cheese enough to lead him to murder? Did you finally develop a believable best friend for that protagonist? Did you learn something about yourself that helped you understand why you reacted that way to that trigger back in high school?

I call that progress.

And think about the benefits to you personally. Time spent writing is relaxing. It gives your brain time to work on a problem, which studies show helps keep you young (And cool. Don’t forget cool.). Creativity is good for you.

Success on your terms may mean that you added fewer words to your word count and more depth to your world. How does that make you feel?

So the next time you get frustrated that you only worked on one character for that hour and you didn’t get any “actual” writing done, think about how much fuller you feel because you spent time writing.

That’s progress. And that’s success.