NaNoWrSu: The Rules
And, perhaps most importantly:
5) I am going to tackle the 8-hours-a-day, word-count based, writing project. I will start on Tuesday, May 30th and “end” Friday, September 1st. I will try to work Monday - Friday but will use the weekends to catch up on short word counts. That’s 68 working days (excluding Independence Day) within 14 weeks.
Here are the numbers:
1500 words a day / 7,500 words per week / 102,000 words by summer’s end
~At approximately 285 words per page:
5 pages a day / 25 pages per week / 350 pages by summer’s end (99,750)
6 pages a day / 30 pages per week / 420 pages by summer’s end (119,700)
I’m trying to decide what type(s) of writing will qualify. I suppose the first rule should be that I must write fiction or creative non-fiction. (That means personal journal entries, putterings, lj community entries, writing exercises and such will not count.) Any qualifying project must be text heavy and entered into with an eye toward publication. (That means rewriting queries and tweaking the Keeping Score tally itself will not count.)
That leaves me with:
Keeping Score text
The Lizzy novel
A new novel (possibly written within the Marshall guidelines)
Essays and articles geared toward a particular market
*Memoir
*Anoka historical (useful for the newspaper content generation)
*these both fit inside my long-simmering family almanac project
Of course I want to generate a lot of words but that’s not the only reason I’ve decided to conduct this experiment. I’ve been a stay-at-home parent all my adult life. I have no idea if I am capable of “working” like other people work. I need to find out if I can have a reasonable life while also dedicating a normal number of hours to a typical job structure. As it is, this experiment won’t exactly duplicate the conditions that R- deals with. I won’t have to commute. I won’t have to be at the keyboard at a certain time. I won’t have to attend meetings and get along with co-workers. I don’t mind that these conditions won’t exactly mirror my husband’s experiences but I want to maintain the idea of working for 8 hours a day.
I know that there will be days on which writing 1,500 words won’t require 8 hours. (And some days when I’ll be lucky to get 500 decent words.) After this experiment has run it’s course, I will take an either/or approach. (1,500 words or X-number of hours, whichever comes first.) For at least part of this summer though, I need to do the 8 hour thing. I think I’ll commit to that for at least 4 consecutive weeks. I don't yet know which four weeks I'll choose -- somewhere in the middle, I expect.
Here’s what I can’t do during those 8 hours:
Cleaning / cooking / laundry, etc.
Gardening / animal tending / crafting / etc.
TV, reading, personal journaling, organizing non-writing stuff / etc.
Socializing (fun, friends, family, crises, etc) on the phone or in person
Parenting …
Once again parenting turns out to be the biggest “problem”. Perhaps I have to rethink this one thing. It’s not like Ch- will be off at a daycare and I can’t very well abandon him to his own devices for a month in the summer. It’s not like R- spends his off-time preparing activities for Ch- to do while he’s away at work. I think that means that I have to make the proper routines and suggestions ahead of time AND that it’s okay to have R- help with that process. I don’t think the self-directed time would be bad for my son, that’s not the issue. He’s old enough to start learning how to productively and enjoyably structure his time. Theoretically, it’s a good idea. In practice though, it will be a different story.
Here's what I can do in those 8 hours:
write fiction or creative non-fiction
(any of the projects mentioned above)
In a pinch, I will allow myself to reboot or rest by doing the following:
edit
submit to a market
write a query or a "fan letter"
research historical facts (no more than 8 hours per week and then only IF I am actively working on a project the REQUIRES that research.)
--------------------
Here’s the other part of the equation:
There are 24 hours in a day. I’ve already determined that I need to spend somewhere between four and seven hours taking care of the house and the farm.
Worst case, then, looks like this-
24 - 7 (homecare) = 17 - 8 (writing) = 9 - 7 (sleeping) = 2 (for everything else)
I’ve already spent 5 ½ hours of today doing stuff that doesn’t fit into any of those three categories. This is going to be educational for everyone ... but most of all for me.
5) I am going to tackle the 8-hours-a-day, word-count based, writing project. I will start on Tuesday, May 30th and “end” Friday, September 1st. I will try to work Monday - Friday but will use the weekends to catch up on short word counts. That’s 68 working days (excluding Independence Day) within 14 weeks.
Here are the numbers:
1500 words a day / 7,500 words per week / 102,000 words by summer’s end
~At approximately 285 words per page:
5 pages a day / 25 pages per week / 350 pages by summer’s end (99,750)
6 pages a day / 30 pages per week / 420 pages by summer’s end (119,700)
I’m trying to decide what type(s) of writing will qualify. I suppose the first rule should be that I must write fiction or creative non-fiction. (That means personal journal entries, putterings, lj community entries, writing exercises and such will not count.) Any qualifying project must be text heavy and entered into with an eye toward publication. (That means rewriting queries and tweaking the Keeping Score tally itself will not count.)
That leaves me with:
Keeping Score text
The Lizzy novel
A new novel (possibly written within the Marshall guidelines)
Essays and articles geared toward a particular market
*Memoir
*Anoka historical (useful for the newspaper content generation)
*these both fit inside my long-simmering family almanac project
Of course I want to generate a lot of words but that’s not the only reason I’ve decided to conduct this experiment. I’ve been a stay-at-home parent all my adult life. I have no idea if I am capable of “working” like other people work. I need to find out if I can have a reasonable life while also dedicating a normal number of hours to a typical job structure. As it is, this experiment won’t exactly duplicate the conditions that R- deals with. I won’t have to commute. I won’t have to be at the keyboard at a certain time. I won’t have to attend meetings and get along with co-workers. I don’t mind that these conditions won’t exactly mirror my husband’s experiences but I want to maintain the idea of working for 8 hours a day.
I know that there will be days on which writing 1,500 words won’t require 8 hours. (And some days when I’ll be lucky to get 500 decent words.) After this experiment has run it’s course, I will take an either/or approach. (1,500 words or X-number of hours, whichever comes first.) For at least part of this summer though, I need to do the 8 hour thing. I think I’ll commit to that for at least 4 consecutive weeks. I don't yet know which four weeks I'll choose -- somewhere in the middle, I expect.
Here’s what I can’t do during those 8 hours:
Cleaning / cooking / laundry, etc.
Gardening / animal tending / crafting / etc.
TV, reading, personal journaling, organizing non-writing stuff / etc.
Socializing (fun, friends, family, crises, etc) on the phone or in person
Parenting …
Once again parenting turns out to be the biggest “problem”. Perhaps I have to rethink this one thing. It’s not like Ch- will be off at a daycare and I can’t very well abandon him to his own devices for a month in the summer. It’s not like R- spends his off-time preparing activities for Ch- to do while he’s away at work. I think that means that I have to make the proper routines and suggestions ahead of time AND that it’s okay to have R- help with that process. I don’t think the self-directed time would be bad for my son, that’s not the issue. He’s old enough to start learning how to productively and enjoyably structure his time. Theoretically, it’s a good idea. In practice though, it will be a different story.
Here's what I can do in those 8 hours:
write fiction or creative non-fiction
(any of the projects mentioned above)
In a pinch, I will allow myself to reboot or rest by doing the following:
edit
submit to a market
write a query or a "fan letter"
research historical facts (no more than 8 hours per week and then only IF I am actively working on a project the REQUIRES that research.)
--------------------
Here’s the other part of the equation:
There are 24 hours in a day. I’ve already determined that I need to spend somewhere between four and seven hours taking care of the house and the farm.
Worst case, then, looks like this-
24 - 7 (homecare) = 17 - 8 (writing) = 9 - 7 (sleeping) = 2 (for everything else)
I’ve already spent 5 ½ hours of today doing stuff that doesn’t fit into any of those three categories. This is going to be educational for everyone ... but most of all for me.