Month: January 2013

Oh, and it’s also very cold outside

I woke up 40 minutes early this morning to write 3 pages, in what took about 10 or 15 minutes. Then I went to the train station 10 minutes early for the 7:20 train. One minute after I arrived, the 7:01 pulled into the station, 11 minutes late. I figured I’d get on that rather than wait for who knows how long. I arrived in Manhattan 15 minutes early, at the tail end of the lamest math non-problem ever.

I didn’t love getting up early this morning, but I did it, and I scribbled my three longhand pages. Because it really does seems to be helping. I wrote another page of my story this evening. For me, for this story, a page is damn good. I don’t want to suggest that it’s a page of all gold, or that the words weren’t still all hard-earned. Writing three, free-flowing, stream-of-consciousness pages every morning isn’t remaking me as a writer. But it does seem to be helping me past what’s always been my biggest obstacle: editing as I go. I know I can get three pages out, and knowing that has been helping me not get so hung up on each and every word.

I mean, nobody has to see a first draft.

Well, depending on when I finish this story and what I do with it, I might like to submit it to the Online Writing Workshop. I haven’t completely got a handle on what’s going on, but it’s certainly some kind of horror.

Well, nobody’s going to see that notebook of morning pages. I think I can guarantee that.

This evening, I had a ticket to see Selected Shorts, a night of Junot Diaz and Karen Russell’s stories, but I didn’t really want to go, as much as I’ve enjoyed both of their work, and Selected Shorts as a whole. I thought, rather than not get home until 11 or 12 o’clock, I’d come home and write. And I’m glad I did. I’m sorry to be out the $28, but…oh look, this is turning into a math problem again.

Time, I think, for me to turn in.

Tuesday or close enough

There were morning pages, and there was another page of short story this evening, and in between there was something approximating work. On my lunch break, I played Portal 2, which is the sort of thing you can do on the days you work from home.

One thing I avoided doing was going outside. It’s apparently very, very cold. I have decided I would prefer to take everyone else’s word for it, at least until tomorrow.

Writin’

I don’t know if the “morning pages” thing is working — though I do know lots of people swear by them — but I had a productive day above and beyond the stream of whatever it was I penned this morning. Well, productive is a relative term. But a whole page of story. I’m not entirely sure I’m going to be able to finish this story in ten days, or even that I’m going to be able to maintain the morning pages when I go back to my day-to-day work schedule. But today was good.