How much do you write for 1) your career and 2) spare time?

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by NewChief

I just turned in about 250 pages (maybe half of those were my own work, and the rest were forms, photocopies of student work, and such) that I'd been working on this year for my National Boards. That was a lot of writing.

I have to write quite a bit (including emails), and it's fine. The main thing I dislike is that writing at work tends to waste my writing "energy," so I don't do as much writing for fun.

As for being a "good" writer, here's what I know as a writing instructor: as you write for your profession, you'll get better and better because you now have skin in the game. Trying to get young writers to have "skin in the game" is one of the real dilemmas facing writing instructors. Until its relevant and meaningful, trying to become a good writer (for someone who isn't a natural) is tough.

Between emails and commenting on mountains of drafts in Word, I feel the balls of my writing energy largely drained.