"I'm not sorry there's nothing to save..."

Feb 03, 2013 12:57

Cold.

Yesterday, I wrote the first 2,478 words on Red Delicious. So, numerically - speaking strictly in terms of word count, quantity - it was an exceptional goddamn day. The last sentence of the day was:

In retrospect, leaving him alive was merely the latest boneheaded move in Quinn’s Little Golden Book of Boneheaded Moves.

Yes, I began a novel on Groundhog Day.

When I'm writing a novel there is a panic that I'm constantly dodging. I can only think of the thing in pieces. Small pieces. Pieces the size of what can be done in a day. Sometimes, pieces the size of what can be done in an hour. If I ever allowed myself to look at the whole, I'd lock up and stop writing. The whole is terrifying. And this is another - and possibly the main - reason I don't write outlines and drafts and such. One word at a time. One day at a time. Baby steps. Fuck, if I set out thinking, "I'm going to write a 70k-100k word novel, and there will be two or three drafts, and then I'll actually listen to the editor and do the rewrites" - if I did that - I'd never have begun that first book, twenty years ago.

Day 2, and I already have 1,378 words in the word bank.

Last night, we played far too much Rift.

Level 55,
Aunt Beast

writing without a net, rift, word bank, red delicious, writing

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