There is a special kind of delusion that comes with November. This year in particular, it manifested itself as selective amnesia. In planning all kinds of writing I'd do for #NaNoWriMo on planes, in airports, in cars, at odd moments during travel, I somehow forgot that travel is pretty damned wearying.
If I'd been going somewhere peaceful and quiet - a mountain cabin, perhaps, or a camping trip in the middle of nowhere - I might have gotten more written, but only if the emptiness of the locale was matched by an emptiness of schedule. When your time is fully booked from sunup to sundown, every step of the way? When you are flung for a week across 14 time zones and back, turn around, and push yourself by car for a week across a thousand miles and back? Not so much.
Using my mechanical pencil and spiral bound notebook, I wrote a grand total of 6000 words this year. Was this a failure? Call it a mixed result instead. The words themselves are meandering dreck, none of which would survive an editing. However, they were enjoyable to write, and it reminded me of why I like stringing words together.
Moreover, the book I set out to write is not the book I found myself writing. That's a useful insight.
||| Comments are welcome |||
Help keep the words flowing.
If I'd been going somewhere peaceful and quiet - a mountain cabin, perhaps, or a camping trip in the middle of nowhere - I might have gotten more written, but only if the emptiness of the locale was matched by an emptiness of schedule. When your time is fully booked from sunup to sundown, every step of the way? When you are flung for a week across 14 time zones and back, turn around, and push yourself by car for a week across a thousand miles and back? Not so much.
Using my mechanical pencil and spiral bound notebook, I wrote a grand total of 6000 words this year. Was this a failure? Call it a mixed result instead. The words themselves are meandering dreck, none of which would survive an editing. However, they were enjoyable to write, and it reminded me of why I like stringing words together.
Moreover, the book I set out to write is not the book I found myself writing. That's a useful insight.
||| Comments are welcome |||
Help keep the words flowing.
"The book I set out to write is not the book I found myself writing."
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, been there done that. :-D At least you made the attempt.
You wrote more than me!
ReplyDeleteStill want more adventures of the Grammarian. Just sayin'. ;)