So after a few days off traveling with my family—I tried and failed to write crammed in a hotel room with three other people, two of whom I’d helped manufacture—I finally got my ass back in the chair, at my glorious Cafe Mariposa and banged out five thousand words.
They came out sketchy and runny so I pumped them out as audio and listened to them and keyed back into them as I did so, smoothing and straightening and fixing. Five hours whistled away into infinity, gone forever, leaving behind a trail of prose.
Five K is a crazy awesome day, if you’re Ernest Hemingway, and it’s even a good day, if you’re a Indy Pulp writing hack. Could you do that each and every day, you’d write close to two million words words a year, or three short novels a month; or nine big thick novels a year.
Truth be told I’d been thinking up and saving scenes for this thing for awhile, so it was mostly a matter of getting stuff down on pixels that was floating around in my head.
I did a tiny bit of production work for FSI, working on a video for their GLBTQIA Takeover issue, a few loads of laundry and made dinner for the family, and walked a few miles in the freezing fucking cold.
There’s a lot I should talk about. Being off Facebook gives my brain other things to chew on. But I’m wiped out. Maybe tomorrow. But only if I finish my 1800 word minimum.
I’m still behind. I still have 200 and 300 word days. The question is, will I make myself stop having them?
Writing fiction is beginning to feel as deeply wired a habit as, well…
Facebook was. For years and years.
It takes months, to create new habits. I know I’m nowhere near that; this is just a blip on the radar.
But I’m beginning to think that maybe, maybe some sort of success is possible.
