I have a jar with 7 pennies

Over at odysseyworkshop , David H. Hendrickson has written a post that really resonated with me.  If you're so inclined, the post is Here

He talks about the constant rejection that writers face and how difficult it sometimes is to have confidence in yourself.  He goes on to say John D. MacDonald used to say that the first million words one writes as a writer are crap.  (Hey, I just wrote 500 of those the other day!!)

So in the goal of writing those million words of crap and how to track one's progress, Mr. Hendrickson keeps a jar on his desk.  For every 10,000 words he writes, he puts a penny in the jar.  A hundred pennies means a million words. 

I thought it was appropriate to use a penny for every 10k, as that's probably about what most of us average as "pay" for our work, by the time you figure in muse time, rewriting and revision and plotting and character study.  Personally, I doubt I make even that much.  

I thought it a pretty neat idea though.  I've been tracking my daily progress of writing at least 100 words a day for almost a year now.  On July 28, I will have made a year.  And in that almost year, I've tracked 76k of words.  I'm not counting what I've written prior to last July, although I may go back at some point and try to guesstimate how many words I have prior. 

But for now, there are 7 pennies in my jar.