The significance of the 25,000 word mark didn't occur to me until I read a post on the AW forum recently. Consider the average page has 250 words, that works out to 100 pages of prose.
Let's not got too excited cause I ain't there yet.
I hit 20,000 words early last week after going on a straight out binge the weekend before. According to Ms Word 2007 I've completed 21,225 words of my epic masterwork in lyrical prose: Guy Loses Bet, Loses Hat, Loses Girl.
I was more concerned with the magical 20K number. Goals are a strange thing though. On the one hand they can serve as a constant motivator, on the other the finish line looms and I imagine a gigantic guillotine suspended above it.
Writing is hard. I'd never trust anyone that thinks it's easy and every sentence, paragraph, phrase, errant punctuation mark that I produce, the nagging feeling that it's JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH never goes away.
I want it to be good. I want it to be BRILLIANT but you just can't want the thing without sweating for it. Most days I'm content not to sweat, procrastinating until the fire is lit under me and my fingers fly at the keyboard unable to keep up with the stream of words forming in my mind.
So what works as a motivator? Striving for an unattainable perfection or tempering the attempt with the knowledge that the odds are heavily waited against attaining your goal? I have no freaking clue.
Do you?
You Left Your Typewriter at my Apartment
1 week ago
2 comments:
If a full time author writes 150,000 words in a year, it is considered a good year. Then they have editors to tell them what to rewrite and what sucks. You have a sub-tolerable job and a life with a wife. 20,000 words is a great accomplishment. Just keep going when you feel like and forget about stupid motivation and punctuation.
Thanks for that.
I'm at 27k now, the makings of a plot just barely over the horizon, I think... maybe it's just a rabbit.
Too far away to tell.
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