11,000

I have just passed 11,000 words.

It's a lot of crap. I keep changing my mind about things as I am writing. Half my sentences probably don't work. My narrative voice keeps changing. It's lots and lots of crap.

But the point is it's lots.

I'm not sure that I have ever gotten this far in a story before. And I can already tell there will be several rewrites before I'm anywhere near ready to let someone else give me feedback.

But I'm getting it down. The bare bones of a story is getting put to paper. And it is very possible I won't like it at all. And I can already imagine some of the rewrites. But I'm not going to stop and go back and second guess. I'm gonna get it down.

I wish it rained in Southern California more often. It may be one of the biggest cliches ever but raining is perfect writing weather.

I can almost pretend it's six years ago, and I'm in the Star bucks on Great Russel Street, less than a minute walk from the British Museum.

Almost.

An Update

I wrote a thousand words a day for six days.

That wasn't bad.

It has now been a week since I've written anything.

That's bad.

But that is reality. And all I can do is push forward. Put this lazy week behind me and get back at it. Keep ignoring the lazy impulses. And tell myself things like "Just because you don't have time to write 1000 words this second at least write something."

It's making it a continuous daily habit that I struggle with. Making sure I do it even if my day sucked, or I have a bunch of errands to run, or I'm going out of town, or the TV is calling.

Here's the thing: I don't like my job. I don't. In fact I stress out every morning because I almost never know what my day will be like until I get there. So on the one hand I should be even more inspired to make my writing happen.

On the other hand I've been down this road before. I put all my eggs in one basket thinking this is it this is what I want to do. And I was very wrong.

So in other words: self doubt, fear of failing, second guessing every thought. Even I want to tell myself to shut up.

Let the Actual Writing Begin.

And Day 1 is check

As in today I wrote 1,000 words. Actually I wrote over 1,200 words. But the point is I wrote. 1,000 words. With my end game for this calendar year being a rough draft of a book 1,000 words a day is my goal attaining method.

I don't really have much else to say. Except that I am hopeful to keep saying I have written 1,000 words a day. Goals are so easy to come up with and such pains in the ass to stick with.

Also, on a personal side note, thank you to all who read my last blog post. It was not a story I ever imagined sharing and I really appreciate all the positive feedback.

So like I said Day 1 is check. We'll see how Day 2 goes.