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1,000 Words of Spring 2024, Day 28

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Sleepy Charlotte, still at her post

When I posted a few days ago, I mentioned the advice which is so controversial among writers and aspiring writers, namely, that a writer must write every day.

I hate to break it to everybody, but based on the past four weeks, I have to concur.

I have now written at least 1,000 words every day for the past 28 days. I can’t say whether I really thought I’d do it or not, because the truth is that I didn’t ask the question.

Instead, I just wrote. Every day since April 1, at some point I’ve opened up my Surface and written at least 1,000 words of my new book. Most times, I’ve done it in my recliner, with tea on one side and Charlotte on the other. I didn’t question whether I felt like writing, because if I had, there likely would have been at least a couple nights when I’d have said no, like the night when I was falling asleep as I typed.

But my draft is coming along. I have a much better sense of the story now than I did a month ago. Back then, I had no idea whether what I was thinking of writing about would hold together. So far, it’s holding. And I believe it’s working because I’m writing consistently, picking up the thread every day before I can lose momentum.

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1,000 Words of Spring 2024, Day 22

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Photo credit: tigerlily713 on Pixabay

There’s a part of me that can’t believe that I’ve met my goal for 22 days.

There’s another part that can’t imagine stopping before the book is done.

I’m especially proud of having stayed on track this weekend. On Friday night, I was away at a Bible study retreat. I don’t usually go away overnight; in fact, this was the first night I’ve voluntarily been away from home since the beginning of the pandemic. But I went prepared to stay on track: I took my Surface, my notebook, my flash drives, and my computer glasses. By nine-thirty, I was set up on the spare bed in my room, and I wrote my 1,000 words, plus some.

Somewhat surprisingly, it was the next night that was more challenging. I was home, and Charlotte was sulking in the bedroom, which meant I wrote alone in the living room. The problem was that I was exhausted. I literally dozed off at least four times, waking to find that I’d kept typing in my sleep. This would have been fine, except the words—and yes, I was typing real words—didn’t make any sense. So I had to delete them and press on. I hit 1,000 words on the nose and called the night done.

Char was still sufficiently miffed that she didn’t join me last night, but tonight, she was in the living room, waiting for me to settle in for writing time so she could join me. And so, I’m back to my routine: tea, music, recliner, Charlotte, and writing. It’s a nice routine, and I wonder that it took me so long to find it.

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1,000 Words of Spring 2024, Day 16

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Photo credit: Miguel Bruna on Unsplash

We’re into the second half of the month, and I’ve met my word goal every day. So far, so good.

If I’d been thinking, I’d have noted how many words of this book I’d already written before I started this challenge so I could know exactly how far I’ve come. As of tonight, the first draft is 20,523 words. I know I’ve written at least 16,000 words this month, but the truth is that I routinely go at least a little bit over the 1K daily minimum. So all I know right now is that if I continue to meet my daily goal, I’ll have another 15,000 words written by the end of the month, for a total of just over 35,000 words of my first draft.

Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?

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1,000 Words of Spring 2024, Day 13

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Charlotte

When you’re trying to stick with a writing program, it helps to have a buddy to keep you on track.

My buddy is Charlotte.

As I mentioned earlier this week, I usually start getting ready for my writing time a little before ten o’clock in the evening. Yes, I know that for some people, ten o’clock is bedtime, but I haven’t gone to bed that early since the eighth grade. These days, on a typical weekday, I finish work around seven or seven-thirty. Then, it’s time to feed the cats and make my own dinner. I usually eat somewhere around eight-thirty or nine o’clock, so by the time I finish and clean up, it’s getting close to ten.

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1,000 Days of Spring 2024, Day 11

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Charlotte, My Chief Encourager

We’re getting into a routine, Charlotte and I. At about 9:45 p.m., I put the kettle on to make tea (decaf at that hour). While the water boils, I put my glass of ice water, the journal in which I make book notes, and the little pouch containing my flash drives on the round bookcase/end table next to the recliner. Then, I make tea and place it next to the ice water so I’ll have choices.

By this time, Charlotte knows what’s going on. With my Surface and lap desk, I settle into the recliner, and she hops up in the chair, reclining next to me. I haven’t sorted out whether she thinks it’s her job as managing editor of Tuxedo Cat Press to oversee the drafting of the next book, or whether she’s being kind because hanging out while I write used to be Ned’s job and she doesn’t want me to be lonely. Either way, it’s lovely to have her next to me as I craft the new story.

I’m almost afraid to say it, but so far, it’s going well. I suspect some of this has to do with the fact that I’ve been thinking about the story and making notes for the past couple months, but I think a bigger factor is that I’ve been writing regularly. This is the eleventh day that I’ve written at least 1,000 words, and the routine definitely makes a difference.

This, I think, is probably why so many established writers counsel aspiring writers to write every day. Doing something regularly keeps the flow going, whether it’s exercising, watching what you eat, practicing the piano—or writing. The reality is that sitting down to write is less intimidating when it’s just what you do every day, like brushing your teeth, and you don’t have to spend time and energy deciding whether you’re going to do it.

Today, writing my 1,000 words (slightly more, actually) took less than forty-five minutes, leaving me plenty of time to put everything away before the eleven o’clock news. Granted, a lot of people can’t devote forty-five minutes to writing every day. To them, I say, “Do what you can.” If you can only spend ten minutes writing, then spend that ten minutes. Whatever you can do, try to do it every day, or at least as regularly as you can. Don’t give the creative well time to dry up.

1,000 Days of Spring 2024, Day 7

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My copy of Jami Attenberg’s wonderfully encouraging book

I know what you’re thinking: “1,000 words of spring? Day 7? Did I miss something?”

No worries. It’s not you. It’s me.

First of all, the marvelous Jami Attenberg, who oversees the annual #1000wordsofsummer challenges, hasn’t actually established 1,000 Words of Spring, at least as far as I know. That’s just me on my own, using her incredible work as inspiration to write more.

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Haunting

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Photo credit: Dan Meyers on Unsplash

Haunting

Earlier this week, I attended a writing webinar taught by Carmen Maria Machado. The title of the webinar was, “Every House is a Haunted House.”

To begin, let me note two important points. One, Ms. Machado is a wonderfully dynamic teacher. Her enthusiasm is contagious, and her knowledge of the subject matter is obviously wide-ranging.

Two, I clearly misunderstood the topic. I assumed she would be talking about the notion of something haunting a character in a more psychological sense, such as visiting their childhood home and being haunted by the memory of a mistake, a lost love, a missed opportunity. Instead, much of the webinar focused on horror (or horror-adjacent) works involving haunted spaces. For example, the writing exercise involved making lists of five times when we experienced a haunting (including metaphorically) and five times when we should have been haunted, but weren’t. Then, we were to spend five minutes writing about one of these times. Unable to come up with such a list—especially on the spur of the moment, and without any real understanding of what she meant by “haunted”—I checked my email instead.

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The Constant Amid the Change

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Photo credit: Andrew Martin on Pixabay

Happy Meteorological Spring!

In case you missed it, March 1 was the first day of meteorological spring, which is not to be confused with astronomical spring, which starts on the vernal equinox, which this year will fall on March 19 at 11:06 p.m. EDT. (How impressed are you with my ability to find semi-useless facts online?)

I like the notion of meteorological seasons. Unlike astronomical seasons—the ones where the first and last day shift every year—the meteorological seasons are regular and predictable. Forget the first robin or the first daffodil. I don’t need research to discover when meteorological spring will begin, because March 1 is March 1, and that’s all I need to know.

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Tackling the Block

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I should probably start by noting that I don’t believe in writer’s block. I absolutely believe that there may be reasons that a writer doesn’t write, and some of them may be quite valid (as opposed to, say, making up crap to cover the fact that they’re just lazy). After a devastating experience in a writers workshop during my junior year in college, I didn’t write fiction for twenty-five years, apart from a couple of tiny efforts that I quickly abandoned. In my case, it wasn’t a block–it was pure fear, and I knew it. The fear didn’t begin to melt until someone whose writing I admired offered genuine and enthusiastic praise for a story I’d written. Turned out that just as some arrogant, ignorant students could shut me down with their withering comments, someone I respected could lead me back out into the sunshine.

This is not to say that I have a constant flow of confidence and I always find writing easy. I can still get jammed up, unable to come up with anything worth the effort of tapping keys. Like most writers, I have a hard drive full of false starts and outtakes, pieces that seemed to have promise until I grabbed them out of the air, crushed them in my hand, and smashed them onto the page. I expect that many writers have had similar experiences. A story is never so beautiful or perfect as the moment before we begin to put words to it.

Some people say that if you’re stuck—the words won’t come, the idea bank is empty, echoes reverberate in your brain—the answer is to fight through it. Butt in chair, hands on keyboard, and don’t get up until you’ve written. The fact that what you write may be utter dreck is beside the point. Especially if you’re a professional, waiting for inspiration is a luxury. Write the damned story, even if it sucks. You can’t edit a blank page.

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The Gift of Snow

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One of the guests at my suet feeders

Today is my mother’s birthday, and we’re having our first real snowfall in two years. Since she never goes outside anymore, she doesn’t really care. I, however, think it’s a fine, fine birthday present, and I hereby accept it on her behalf.

My birthday is more than a month away. In mid-March, we rarely get the gift of snow. More often, it’s a sloppy mix of sleet and freezing rain, with maybe a touch of snow designed to taunt me. In 2007, the infamous wintry mix included enough snow to plow before it turned to all rain. For reasons unknown, the snowplow that barreled over the hill knocked over my mailbox, post and all. To complicate matters, as I tried to back out of my garage to go to the post office, my left front tire got stuck in a rut in the driveway. Because of the slick surface, it took nearly an hour to free my car. When I made my way to the post office to pick up my mail, I was informed that it was on the truck which, of course, would not be able to deliver it since there was now no box. Try back on Monday, they said. Sigh.

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