Just a little update

Time for a little update. I’ve been continuing to write nearly every day and have taken few breaks. I love the regularity of it, even if I don’t care for the early hour when I get up to do the writing. I’ve gotten a lot accomplished and expect to roll over the 100K mark by the end of the week. It is amazing to me that by the middle of April I will have written more words that I had done in the first three years of serious writing. I would never have put myself in the category of a fast writer, but at this pace I will be easily able to hit the 365 K for the day. I imagine if I could write full time the idea of a Million words in a year would not be out of reach. Of course that assumes something that has not yet materialized, namely the ability to quit my day job as a pharmacist and provide for my family with just my writing. I keep working on that, but nothing yet. I am still working though and without any discouragement. I think I have at least two good stories in first draft. I have another that is ready for final pollish and another submitted to a publisher. I keep working. A screenplay is perhaps next, but that remains to be seen. I have many irons in the fire and not enough hammers. But I keep writing and keep editing to work toward that goal. These words will not write themselves.

JRH

Plugging along

I’ve been working diligently on the 365 thousand words in a year challenge. So far I’m at day 86 and at 87307 words. I’ve noticed that a thousand words a day is not really a challenge, but more of a habit. I’ve been at this schedule of waking at six am to write for about a year and a half. In that time I’ve written a lot. Some of it is terrible, and most of the time the first drafts look like a bloodbath from all the red ink when I do the first pass of edits. But, it becomes easier every morning to write. I’m not sure if this is because of the habit of it or because I’m reaching some new phase of my writing. I’ve recently had a first reader tell me that a second draft of a novel is the best thing I’ve written. I guess there is something to be said for practice making perfect.

Writing is something that started as a hobby. It was something that I did to amuse myself and because I saw snippets of things in my mind that I wanted to convey. Now I see more complete stories and full scenes and dialogues. I think something in my mind is changing with the practice. I think the biggest jump was when I realized that I can think and type at the same time. I no longer have to think about the typing so I can focus on the content and not the process. And the speed is the thing when it comes to writing. I have several more stories to write that I have queued up in my mind and I have more ideas every day. I truly think I could write eight hours a day and not exhaust the ideas I have for a long time. Writer’s block has not ever been the problem, it has always been, an will be for the foreseeable future, sufficient time to write all that I want to write.

Good words for you all.

JRH

By hand

I’ve begun to see several blog posts around about writing by hand. That is how I started because I hadn’t uncoupled my typing from my thinking. Now the typing is much faster and unconscious so I am able to think about the words and not where my fingers need to go. The speed is so much better, but I do miss the ‘by hand’ part of writing. I sometimes wonder if I should go back to it, but then realized that I am writing on borrowed time. I get up at 6 every morning just to have an hour or so to write before getting ready for my day job. I edit on my 30 minute lunch and my evenings are filled with dinner, family events and tiredness. That hour in the morning is golden, carved out time and it is essential to get as much down as I can and typing is, regrettably, the fastest way to get there. I usually get about 1200-1500 words in that time and there is no way I could do that by hand in the same time. I keep telling myself when I get to be a full time writer (when I sell a movie deal or a book hits the NYT bestseller list, it is good to dream big), that I will go back to that by hand first draft. The real me is not so sure, simply because I’ve become accustomed to the speed and I have so much to write and already have the bones of the next two novels rattling around in a bag in the corner of my mind, like the bones of Rebecca’s parents in “A Hundred Years of Solitude” along with a dozen more ideas. Speed is addictive and time is of the essence. I envy those who have the time to do it all first on real paper with a favorite pen or pencil.
Write On.
JRH

Hoarded Ordinaries

The top photo shows the first draft of this post, which I wrote by hand in my journal. The second and seventh photos are images from Syllabus itself, and the other photos show you previously-blogged images from the nature journal I used to keep when I taught a first-year Thinking & Writing class called “The Art of Natural History” at Keene State College.

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Inky Breadcrumbs and the Forgotten Magic of Writing by Hand

I wrote the first draft of my first novel ‘Smokestack’ entirely by hand. I don’t regret it for a second. I miss that I don’t have time to get the pen and notebook out to write that way anymore. I’m too focused on getting the words down to think about the method. And I am so much faster typing than writing. If I had not been pushed by time to write on the computer, I would probably still be writing with a favorite fountain pen I have had since high school on cheap notebooks or Moleskene ones( when I could afford them), if there weren’t so many stories in my head that need out. The speed is the the thing since the time is of the essence. This post sums it up nicely. JRH

EJB Writing Studio

Photo by Erin J. Bernard

Hey, writer! When was the last time you took a good look at your own hands? I mean, a really, really good long look?

Sure, they’re fluttering in and out of the periphery of vision over the course of any average day, assisting in the picking up and setting down of life’s dull and delightful objects. But, most often, their task feels secondary – to hold up for inspection the things you’ve deemed far more fascinating: smartphones, babies, books, burritos.

There’s little incentive to notice them. And this strikes me as odd. So do it now. Have a good, long gander. What do you see? Look carefully: your hands are miraculous, surprising, ordinary, and, for my money, entirely underappreciated.

You’re in good retroactive company. I’m first writing this by hand, in fact, down here in Mexico, though by the time it reaches its final destination…

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moth has a sudden and shocking realization.

I’ve really gotten smitten with Sarah’s work. It has darkness and depth that is amazing in the initial simplicity of the design. It is like a really good blues guitarist in Toledo Ohio named Pat Lewondowski http://patlewandowski.com/ can do playing a walking bass line and the solo guitar riffs at the same time on a 6 string acoustic. I’m thinking of what she would do with illustrations for one of my children’s stories.

sarahgoodreau

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Words. Huh. What are they good for?

I’ve been keeping up with the 365K words in a year challenge I’ve set for myself. So far as of this morning I’m 532 words ahead of the count. That does not include the words of this post. I’ve realized that the challenge is not so much in keeping up the discipline to write every day, it is more in the discipline to stop. I can and have cranked at around 2500 words a day for a month or better, during NanoWriMo last November (I got a late start and had to play catch up). The trick now is to stop at around 1100-1200 words and then spend time editing. That is the habit I’ve gotten into and It seems to help. Given my own preference I’d rather write and not have to edit. But, since I cannot write without needing edits, it is a necessary evil. That is where the 1000 words a day comes in. I usually get up at 6AM and spend about 90 minutes in my office, writing and/or editing. I’ve previously been in the mindset of doing one or the other but not both and I’ve found it left me feeling less than enthusiastic during the stretched of editing. Now I’ve started to split time and the thousand words comes out usually around 45 minutes to an hour in to the work, leaving 30-60 minutes to edit. I’ve already seen the fruits of this. I’m six weeks in and have nearly edited the entirety of one of my previous novels on the first pass of editing, and still managed to write about 47K words of new material in a book that seems to have taken a life of its own. So far, I’d say the experiment is a success. I hope to keep it up and the result will be a year with maybe 3 novels finished and at least one published. That is the plan. Maybe more will come from it. I hope so.

As of the end of this post I am now 867 words ahead.

JRH

And so it goes again.

I just heard back from a contest to which I had submitted what I thought was some of my best work. I did not place. I wonder if the month long cut down to 16K words took to much out of the story to make it readable. I wonder what to do with it now. Do I leave it short, I worked so hard to cut it down. Do I go back to one of the intermediate cutdown lengths and leave it there for more of the story. I’m bummed and confused. At the same time I guess I’m glad I at least know. That story is the one thing that is finished which I can keep trying to get published, or maybe just do as self publish. I just don’t know. I need to get something moving. I did not publish anything in 2014. I need to get back on the horse, but the horse had gone missing. I am going to ponder the next step with “Gilgamesh Shuffle” for a few days. I think it is a good story, but finding anyone else to think the same has been a challenge. That is it. It is always a challenge to get anyone to look at anything. Sigh. Enough self pity and navel gazing. I’ll just keep writing and editing and try and figure out the other parts as I go along. That is all I can do. No one ever said that being a writer would be easy.

JRH

The Writer’s Notebook: In Praise of Paper

 

I read this today and it hit all the right places. I always have little pocket notebook and a pen. The thing when it is full makes no sense to anyone else by me, and that is just fine.

The Writer’s Notebook: In Praise of Paper.

And, So It Begins.

I’ve started down the rabbit hole. I’m not sure how wise it is but I’ve done it none the less. I’ve decided to get on the 365000 words in a year challenge. That is 1000 words a day, every day. I easily write more than that. The problem is that I also have a backlog of editing I have to take care of. That is the problem. I need to edit. At last count, I have three full novels that need attention and submission and I have to try and fit that in around the writing a thousand words a day.

How will this go. I really do not know. I guess the best way is to just try and keep a running tally and not write the epic number of words each morning that I had done for the month of NanoWriMo. I hit the 50000 easily, with several days of 2500 words. The words to page I don’t think will be the problem. The issue will be the fixing the words and getting them published that will be the problem. And, blogging. I think I want to try and work on developing a web presence. Heaven knows I need help selling books. I’ve got two out there and another ready, but sales are slim. I need to take a three pronged approach to this and make 2015 the year that the tide turns on my career as a writer. I don’t know what things will look like by the end of the year, but I expect to be a few more novels into it and hopefully at least one more publication into my career by year’s end.

Here is to a great year of writing.

Jim

What will the challenge of 2015 be?

The new year brings the question of what to do with writing this year. Last year, I set for myself the goal of 5000 words a week for the writing of new things. When I was writing I met those goals. I did spend a lot of time editing. I looked at the end of 2014 and most of today the first of January 2015, trying to figure out what the devil I’m going to do this year to set myself apart. I tried to look at different things other writers have done and I’ve seen the million words in a year being a possibility. I work 40 hours a week and that simply doesn’t seem like a possibility. I’ve seen on http://thewritingrealm.tumblr.com/ a 365 thousand word in 365 days challenge. I think this is something I can accomplish. When I’m writing, 1000 words in a day is not a problem. During November I was easily doing 2000 words a day.  The question is whether I can do it day after day?

The other part of it is that the writing requires editing. I simply can’t take what I write to a potential market. My first drafts suck. I am aware of this and know that editing is essential. Editing takes time. I feel bad that 2014 had nothing published. NOTHING. Part of that is that I spent too much time writing and not nearly enough editing and submitting. I have to find a balance. The challenge this year has taken shape in my mind as being the combination of 1000 words of new work a day and getting some editing done each day. That is a balance that the first month of the year will show whether I can handle. It is the goal I have set for myself. I will write 365 thousand words this year and get at least one thing published this year. There it is. Maybe a million words will be next year.

Jim.