1500 Words
It's not a lot, really. Five or six pages of double-spaced typing will do it, even if there's a bit of dialogue in there to space things out. Two hours quiet time should see it done, no problems.
This then is the daily target I have been missing with embarrassing regularity since January ushered in the new year. I set it low, at least by my standards, because I've been in a writing slump for some months now. It's not that I don't have the enthusiasm, and there certainly isn't enough paying work to keep me away from the keys. But some strange malaise has nipped my creativity in the bud.
I've been treading water with rewrites for too long - perhaps that's why I've found it so difficult to do something new. But rewriting a ten-year dead novel is just an attempt to relive the past. It's ultimately useless and unfulfilling (though I'll recant that if a publisher bites).
Back in the Roslin years, I used to write anything from 5000 to 10000 words in a productive day, and never less than 3500. Verbose I was, like a parrot on speed. They weren't good words, but they were mine. Lately I've become slower - old age gets to all of us eventually I suppose. But that's no excuse to stop altogether. Do not go gentle into that dark night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Twas a Welshman wot said that, dontchaknow.
On Sunday night I wrote 1500 words of a new Inspector McLean story. Last night I managed 1500 more. Tonight, I've done just over 2000*. Have I turned the corner? Only time will tell.
*Yeah, I know. It's meant to be a short story and it's already 5000 words long. And I'm only about half way through.
This then is the daily target I have been missing with embarrassing regularity since January ushered in the new year. I set it low, at least by my standards, because I've been in a writing slump for some months now. It's not that I don't have the enthusiasm, and there certainly isn't enough paying work to keep me away from the keys. But some strange malaise has nipped my creativity in the bud.
I've been treading water with rewrites for too long - perhaps that's why I've found it so difficult to do something new. But rewriting a ten-year dead novel is just an attempt to relive the past. It's ultimately useless and unfulfilling (though I'll recant that if a publisher bites).
Back in the Roslin years, I used to write anything from 5000 to 10000 words in a productive day, and never less than 3500. Verbose I was, like a parrot on speed. They weren't good words, but they were mine. Lately I've become slower - old age gets to all of us eventually I suppose. But that's no excuse to stop altogether. Do not go gentle into that dark night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Twas a Welshman wot said that, dontchaknow.
On Sunday night I wrote 1500 words of a new Inspector McLean story. Last night I managed 1500 more. Tonight, I've done just over 2000*. Have I turned the corner? Only time will tell.
*Yeah, I know. It's meant to be a short story and it's already 5000 words long. And I'm only about half way through.
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