Hmmm … this journey is taking some interesting turns as the second week gets under way. Until now, the blog has been the main focus of my efforts. I’ve fretted about posting 500 words a day, so as to ‘prove’ I’m writing. However, this has often been at the expense of producing anything substantial. Writing about writing has begun to be an excellent excuse for not actually writing.
Today’s been different. This evening I’ve focussed mainly on my piece about One25. It’s growing steadily. I’m also editing the early part, but my editor and I seem to be getting along much better than we were last week. Editing feels like progress now, rather than frustration. This has made it a little hard to judge how many of the words have actually been written today and how many simply changed or replaced. But I’m confident that this post, together with the work I’ve been doing on the other piece will give me well over 500 words for today.
I’ve also started to think about ways to work with my inner butterfly instead of suppressing her. I could experiment with different styles and genres. I love writing poetry. It may not work well with the 500-word rule though. Flash fiction could work. And it’s well suited to the butterfly mind. Polemic of course. I could do that really well. There’s nothing like a good rant. And who says you have to start at the beginning of a novel and plod through to the end? It works better if you’re reading admittedly, but the writer isn’t restricted in the same way. I could write individual scenes and stitch them together later. Like the patchwork quilt in last night’s photo.
I’ve been browsing through articles and books about writing. I’ve resisted the urge to go wild on Amazon so far, much though I’m itching to download some goodies onto the Kindle. A ‘domestic storage device’ my daughter called it when she bought it for my birthday a couple of years back. She thought it might reduce the piles of books strewn around my flat. We can all dream … I think Natalie Goldberg is top of my list at the moment. But I already own books about writing by Anne Lamott and Christopher Vogler that I haven’t finished reading yet, so I’ve no excuse for buying more at the moment. I also found an excellent article in the Guardian, that’s given me yet another idea for a piece of writing of my own, so watch this space … All in all, day nine has felt fruitful. But I’m wary of complacency. I mustn’t let one good day lull me into a false sense of security.
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