6000 Words
Oct. 24th, 2012 08:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmerriamThat's the number of words hammered out over a weekend in Hershey, PA, holed up in a hotel room while Beloved Spouse was at a professional conference.
That's the number of words needed to finish the first draft of my new Arkady Bloom novella, A Study in Violet.
That's the number of words I wrote in three days. I hadn't written that many words in the month previous. The last time I wrote anywhere near that pace was when I was hiding in a hotel room in Atlanta while Beloved Spouse was at another professional conference.
I remember when I used to write at that pace without needing to hide away from the world in hotel rooms in strange cities. Granted, I was at the end of the story and the horse was pointed at the barn. I always write faster at the end of the piece, but still…
I need to remember how to do this on a regular basis. I need to figure out why my writing production has slowed so dramatically this year and correct that. I need to find a place or space where I can work for at least three or four hours a day with little or no distraction. I need to find a space (both physical and mental) where I'm comfortable as writer.
That said, A Study in Violet is complete in the first draft. I am intensely pleased by this. Where Horror at Cold Springs was Lovecraftian horror and The Curious Case of the Jeweled Alicorn was a Bondian spy-thriller, this one is (as you might guess from the title) a Holmesian murder-mystery.
Originally posted at michaelmerriam.net. You can comment here or there.
That's the number of words needed to finish the first draft of my new Arkady Bloom novella, A Study in Violet.
That's the number of words I wrote in three days. I hadn't written that many words in the month previous. The last time I wrote anywhere near that pace was when I was hiding in a hotel room in Atlanta while Beloved Spouse was at another professional conference.
I remember when I used to write at that pace without needing to hide away from the world in hotel rooms in strange cities. Granted, I was at the end of the story and the horse was pointed at the barn. I always write faster at the end of the piece, but still…
I need to remember how to do this on a regular basis. I need to figure out why my writing production has slowed so dramatically this year and correct that. I need to find a place or space where I can work for at least three or four hours a day with little or no distraction. I need to find a space (both physical and mental) where I'm comfortable as writer.
That said, A Study in Violet is complete in the first draft. I am intensely pleased by this. Where Horror at Cold Springs was Lovecraftian horror and The Curious Case of the Jeweled Alicorn was a Bondian spy-thriller, this one is (as you might guess from the title) a Holmesian murder-mystery.
Originally posted at michaelmerriam.net. You can comment here or there.
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B.I.C.
Date: 2012-10-25 02:26 am (UTC)Take a good hard look at your schedule and write in those hours every day. At first you will rebel against it, but eventually, the routine will be as effective as a hotel room in a strange city. You'll find that you can't not sit down and write at that time and when you do, the words will be sitting there waiting for you.
That is how I've managed to maintain 40K words/month this year.
What I need now, is the same kind of discipline for editing so I can put more of it out for publication.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-25 02:00 pm (UTC)