Words

An experiment

I have an app I use to help me keep on track with repeating tasks. Some of it is basic stuff I just need reminded of, and checking it off helps me know I did it that day, like taking my vitamins. Some of it is more nebulous. Making art every day. Reading a book every day. And writing daily.

Currently the wordcount goal is 300 words. I can, on a good day, do this in less than 30 minutes. I rarely have a ‘good day’ any longer.

Which begs the question, I suppose, of what good is. Now? Where I’ve sat down and written a paragraph of this post each time, in a spare moment or two? I’ll be getting up in about ninety seconds to flip dinner over to cook on the other side. What I’m doing is warm-up exercises.

Ok, now I have four whole minutes to write on this chunk of the post, which is also getting my mind into the mechanics of making words happen on the screen. I was reminded recently that daily writing for me requires discipline - as it does for most writers I believe - and that the first step of recreating a habit is simply to get back on the horse when you’ve been thrown off. You don’t have to be up there long. Chances are there was a reason you lost your seat in the first place, and both you and your steed are hot and bothered. You do have to swing your leg over, settle your seat, and head him in the direction you want to go. Maybe he’s going to crab over a few paces, you need to remind him that the shenanigans won’t shake you, and going forward is the point you mean to make. Only then, when you’ve put your horse through his paces, can you dismount in good order, ready to take a break before starting back into training.

I’m not going to make that last paragraph a full four-minutes long. Reading on the internet is an exercise in keeping it short and interesting, which I fear this post will be neither as it is, so I may as well give your eyes a rest from time to time. My fingers are warmed up and I’ve got a good alignment for the wrists and seat vis a vis the keyboard at this point. Time to contemplate story.

It’s easier, after a long break, to start something new. If you want to return to a work in progress it takes a lot of skull sweat, in reading what you’ve written (and resisting the urge to edit which you really must not do now), and figuring out where you were going with that, what the character motivations were, and so on and so forth. Might be easier if you can outline, but I cannot, so wishes might be horses… I’m missing riding tonight, can you tell? Funny thing is that I don’t usually think much about it, I haven’t ridden much at all since we moved away from Alaska and my last pony was sold. For some reason tonight I can feel the saddle under me, and the horse stepping along with that sarcastic hiproll they put in there sometimes.

And now I’ve got supper ready to serve. More later…

And I’m back, with boozy dessert. Put in a bowl about a half-cup of good vanilla ice cream (Blue Bell, because I’m in Texas, after all) with blackberry puree drizzled over it, and a tablespoonful of ginger liqueur. Well, that’s something! And my husband has wandered off to the front porch for a post-prandial sit and digest, so I have some peaceful moments to think in. Thinking is every bit as important to the writing as the making with words is. If you can’t find time to think, and get the story to start gelling in your brain, before the writing starts, you wind up with… well, it’s not appetizing. Kind of like this post is to read, I’d imagine. When my children were small, I wrote short stories, and thought I couldn’t write novels. I learned, later on, that I just lacked the time to think. With thought, you can carry a whole complicated plot in your head. Without it, you can probably manage flash fiction.

Which is not to denigrate a short story. Read Frederic Brown’s shorts, and then contemplate that for a while. You don’t have to write a novel - or several of ‘em - to be a good writer, no matter what the current trend in Indie Publishing circles seems to claim. Practice on the shorts. The longs will come later when you have time.

Speaking of time, I’m going to attempt fiction this evening while I have a quiet moment. I appreciate you coming along on this warm-up exercise with me. Tomorrow, I’ll shoot for more topical… something. I have a post queued up in drafts talking about food, good company, and how they go together. I’ll see if I can finish that. Might not. I start far more drafts than I finish, it seems these days. I just don’t have time to settle in and really do some thinking, much less time for the words, words, words that beat in my brain like trapped moths…