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Apr. 1st, 2013
writing about writing
Apr. 1st, 2013 10:35 pmAt the beginning of the year, I joined a Dreamwidth community of writers who pledged to write 75,000 words or more in 2013; I pledged 76,666, because I'm perverse. So now that the first quarter of the year is over, here's a status update.
Including the novel chapter I posted today (cuz I wrote most of it before the calendar rolled over to April, so there), I've written 12,852 words of "real" writing — somewhat-thoughtful blog posts, a poem, pieces of the novel. According to my anal-retentive spreadsheet, this means I've written almost exactly 62 days' worth of stuff. Which puts me not quite a full month behind where I should be. Bleh. But on the plus side, 5,839 of those words were in March. 5,055 of those were in the last half of March. If each half-month left in the year is like the last half-month was, I'll clear 100,000 words! Yeah right.
But the most interesting thing to me about the last two weeks is how I've been writing. I have never been an "x number of words a day every day" writer. I can't just set aside 15 minutes here, or 20 minutes there. I write like I sleep: it takes me an hour or more to wind down and get into the trance-like place where I can fall into sleep, or fall into writing. What's the point of a mid-day nap if it's going to take longer to fall asleep than you'll spend asleep? I need to let my mind finish spinning like a hamster on a wheel, wear itself out like a kid at recess.
At least, that's what I've done up until the last couple of weeks. Two weeks ago, I started playing with a scene during an acupuncture session. I've done that a few times — it's not like there's a lot you can do with needles stuck in your hands and feet — and I'd think some more about whatever scene was in my head on the train ride home, and then maybe settle down and write when I got home. Of course, those other times, the session was in the afternoon, so I'd be home hours before bedtime. Now I have that pesky job, and the sessions are at 7:30 p.m., and the train doesn't get me home until 10 p.m., or in this case, because I just missed a train, 11:30. With over an hour to kill before the train leaves.
I knew I wouldn't have time to finish the scene before the train, or even on the train ride, and I'd need to go to bed pretty much when I got home, and then I'd be getting up to go to work again, with no long space of time to think until that next night. And yet, I opened the file. Stared at the page a couple of minutes, and I guess I wrote a sentence, and then another, and then the train was boarding, and I wrote more on the train, and then it was my stop, and I had a late snack and went to bed and got up, and I had 30 minutes before I had to leave for work, so I wrote, and then on the train to work, and then during lunch, and then home. I didn't need to settle in each time; I'd just reread the last couple of sentences, remember where I was going, and go. It was easier than finding my place in a book I'm reading by, you know, another author.
WTF, brain? I mean, it's nice, but why now? Why not, say, in grad school? Gift horse, I know, but it drives me crazy to not understand why I do things. Why was last month different from all other months? (Sorry; that wasn't planned, it just popped into my head right now, and I couldn't resist.) Is this my new normal, or was it a brief fluke and I'll go back to my usual binge/marathon method? If I do revert, will I be able to not beat myself up over reverting, or will I berate myself for being a lazy, self-indulgent dilettante?
I guess I'll find out next month.
Including the novel chapter I posted today (cuz I wrote most of it before the calendar rolled over to April, so there), I've written 12,852 words of "real" writing — somewhat-thoughtful blog posts, a poem, pieces of the novel. According to my anal-retentive spreadsheet, this means I've written almost exactly 62 days' worth of stuff. Which puts me not quite a full month behind where I should be. Bleh. But on the plus side, 5,839 of those words were in March. 5,055 of those were in the last half of March. If each half-month left in the year is like the last half-month was, I'll clear 100,000 words! Yeah right.
But the most interesting thing to me about the last two weeks is how I've been writing. I have never been an "x number of words a day every day" writer. I can't just set aside 15 minutes here, or 20 minutes there. I write like I sleep: it takes me an hour or more to wind down and get into the trance-like place where I can fall into sleep, or fall into writing. What's the point of a mid-day nap if it's going to take longer to fall asleep than you'll spend asleep? I need to let my mind finish spinning like a hamster on a wheel, wear itself out like a kid at recess.
At least, that's what I've done up until the last couple of weeks. Two weeks ago, I started playing with a scene during an acupuncture session. I've done that a few times — it's not like there's a lot you can do with needles stuck in your hands and feet — and I'd think some more about whatever scene was in my head on the train ride home, and then maybe settle down and write when I got home. Of course, those other times, the session was in the afternoon, so I'd be home hours before bedtime. Now I have that pesky job, and the sessions are at 7:30 p.m., and the train doesn't get me home until 10 p.m., or in this case, because I just missed a train, 11:30. With over an hour to kill before the train leaves.
I knew I wouldn't have time to finish the scene before the train, or even on the train ride, and I'd need to go to bed pretty much when I got home, and then I'd be getting up to go to work again, with no long space of time to think until that next night. And yet, I opened the file. Stared at the page a couple of minutes, and I guess I wrote a sentence, and then another, and then the train was boarding, and I wrote more on the train, and then it was my stop, and I had a late snack and went to bed and got up, and I had 30 minutes before I had to leave for work, so I wrote, and then on the train to work, and then during lunch, and then home. I didn't need to settle in each time; I'd just reread the last couple of sentences, remember where I was going, and go. It was easier than finding my place in a book I'm reading by, you know, another author.
WTF, brain? I mean, it's nice, but why now? Why not, say, in grad school? Gift horse, I know, but it drives me crazy to not understand why I do things. Why was last month different from all other months? (Sorry; that wasn't planned, it just popped into my head right now, and I couldn't resist.) Is this my new normal, or was it a brief fluke and I'll go back to my usual binge/marathon method? If I do revert, will I be able to not beat myself up over reverting, or will I berate myself for being a lazy, self-indulgent dilettante?
I guess I'll find out next month.
