Writey Write Write

I'm happy today. The house is a mess, I have a pile of things still to do and I stink like a fish, but I'm happy. That's because I wrote seven pages today. Some pros might think, "Seven pages? Big deal," but seven is a lot for me. I may be onto something good. I got worked up by this month's posts on Dean Wesley Smith(no relation)'s blog: http://deanwesleysmith.com/. He's been posting about writing goals all this month. If you're a writer, I strongly encourage you to check out everything on there from December of 2008. You'll want to read them in chronological order since each day builds upon the last.

Yesterday's post in particular kicked me into gear, because I was really able to throw down the numbers for what I want to do and figure out what I need to do to meet those numbers. About six and a half pages a day will get me where I want to go. That should seem like a lot to me and to be honest it often has in the past. But today I looked at it, and thought, "We're talking one and a half to two hours a day here. In the big scheme of my life, that's doable." Hell, I often waste that much time screwing around online. Today was easy, because I had a day off. Tomorrow might be harder. I want to get the writing out of the way as early as possible so it's done and I can get on with the business of real life like cleaning the toilet. Today, once I made my goals, I wrote before doing anything else and that equals happy. Tomorrow, I'd have to get up at 2:30 in the morning to get the writing out of the way and that probably isn't happening, so we'll see what I can do later in the day. But at the moment I'm optimistic.

Another thing I've found is how to get the writing done. You may recall the wonderful AlphaSmart I blogged about here:
http://theonethousand.blogspot.com/2006/09/finally-he-gets-to-review_04.html
It's a magnificent little machine, but I put it aside once I got my MacBook. It sat unwanted in its corner, looking pathetic for a year and a half. A few months ago I picked it back up and discovered that it rocks out for first drafts. Why? No goddamned Internet! No e-mail. No distractions. Just writing. I got huge chunks of my story, Maisy's Many Souls (75), done on the AlphaSmart and I picked it up again a few days ago. It's awesome. Alphasmart for first drafts, MacBook for editing. By the way, the AlphaSmart is still running strong on the three AA batteries I put in there Christmas day 2005! Battery strength is still a little over 50%! Did I mention it rocks?

So there you go. Everything's coming up roses. For today at least. We'll see what tomorrow brings but I'm going into it aware of the hump I'll have to overcome and I am so fore-armed. Cheers until the morrow good friends! What ho!

Where the hell did that come from?