Writing to a word limit is quite easy if you just have to fill up the space and it is even easier to blather on with no limit at all (exhibit A: the last decade of this blog!). Writing to a word limit when you have to make sure you express a number of points both cogently and concisely is a rather more challenging proposition.

I think I’ve finally finished my next Open University assignment (and the first on the Information Security course). It would be interesting to know how many words I wrote in total including all the ones I deleted and rewrote. I’ve ended up about 50 words under the overall limit of 2,000 words by dint of coming a little under in each section. I suspect I’ve probably pounded out twice that on my keyboard over the past week if not even more. Trim, trim, trim, rearrange, rewrite, measure and repeat. I’m still not quite content with some of the sections but I think I’ve probably done enough.

Time to get some sleep. Tomorrow I can give it a final review and then I think I’ll get it in safely ahead of Thursday lunchtime’s deadline. Phew!