1,000 words a day is taxing.
Hmm...that doesn't quite say it strongly enough. I could just add profanity to spice things up, but instead I'll go into a boring level of detail. I am a true protestant.
See, okay, if I sit down and write a 1,000 word story (or essay), then I'd guess that, if I have a general idea ahead of time, it's going to take about four hours. I can compose and type up 1,000 words in about forty minutes. I've found that to be a pretty solid estimate over the course of the last several weeks.
But it takes time to create. It takes time to build the story pieces, and lay them out in order, and fill in the background, and (my method, at least), I put all those pieces together before I sit down to write.
Now, when it comes to Sleeping Kings, I'd say I spend about eight hours per 1,000 word story. Y'know when you're talking to me on the phone, or in-game, or even in person, and you tell me something really interesting, and I say, "Yeah. Hey, what did you think about Josh stabbing the Queen Mum?" or something like that. That's not precisely because I think your story is boring.
It's that I'm obsessing over Sleeping Kings. I'd feel bad about it, but everyone who's actually reading it is pretty excited about it, so I don't.
Hmm, none of that is really new info. Something that is, though: I've posted a story daily now since May 25th. That's 1,000 words (production) every day for fifty-four days. Yeah, Saturday's was only on Saturday by about five minutes. That's actually what got me thinking about this.
I have never written daily. Never. I've heard that all writers write daily. I got pretty close in college, taking Creative Writing every semester, and making time in my time-rich schedule to write. But even then I didn't do weekends, and only very rarely was a day's writing actually production. Most of the time it was notes, or test material, or even just daydreaming, composing, without any words on paper.
One of my goals, back then, was 1,000 words on paper, every weekday. I know for a fact I never hit it, even for two weeks at a time. Closest I came was when I was rewriting Taming Fire, and I'd get on a tear and do four or five chapters at once. But I wouldn't even count that. That's rewrite, not original production.
Of course, as most of you know, I got worse, not better. The whole time I was in Tulsa, I never wrote anything close to a schedule. I'd get the fever for one project or another, and work on that project (and rarely finish), but I never wrote to the calendar.
I'm there, now. Want to know something sad? I think it's sad, anyway. I can't begin to explain why I'm there now. I could name a couple things, little things, but I won't. One day I dusted off the scrawny handful of pages that were the three-year-old introduction to Sleeping Kings, and I posted them on a website, and I just kept going.
It's not easy to write every day. I would encourage all of you to do it, writers or not. Writing is a good discipline. It teaches you to be a better person (I've said that before). It teaches you to be in your world, and to be aware of your world. Even if you're just blogging, journaling, emailing Mom. Whatever it is, write every day.
That's most of my Me. It sounds like something else, but that's my journal for the last week or so, everything I haven't said about what's going on in my life. What's going on, is 1,000 words a day. You'd be amazed how much of my life is wrapped up in that right now. Well, unless you know me, in which case you already know.
Here are some things that have happened, that I should have been paying more attention to:
Brad wrote me, again, after three months of silence following the last email he wrote me. He found my blogs, and he wrote me, and I took forever to respond. I finally did, though. He wants to come visit. I can't say how excited I am at the idea. Yay!
(I continue to have not written Bruce, and my shame piles up. Yea, verily, I am scum.)
Daniel's back from Europe. Hoo-ah! I believe I've already been insulted and flipped off, so life is back to normal. Yay!
We're hosting Trish's two nephews, Tweedle Owen and Tweedle Sloan. Thirteen and eleven, give or take. They're good kids. I kinda dreaded the idea at first, but it's been good. I'm glad Trish has had this opportunity, and I've enjoyed getting to know them better, too. I just hope they're not sick of me shushing them.
One of my secret projects draws near to a close (or at least a functional Release Version, with GUI updates to follow), and I am beginning to urge my evil cohorts to begin on another secret project, with which I am almost as obsessed as I am with Sleeping Kings. Which makes sense, as the two are rather related. Alas, no details yet, as it would be boring without illustrations, and the illustrations are, themselves, the result of the secret project. I'll keep you posted, once it's interesting.
I suppose that's all. I have something I want to tell you, about Archetypes and Social Construction, but that will be a post of its own. Good day. Smile, if you've got anything to smile for.
