In chat with the_flea_king, I surprised myself by making the observation that writing a book is like exercising — it feels terrific when I’m doing it, but vaguely intimidating and overwhelming when I’m not doing it.
Having knocked out about 3,200 words today, and spent 30 minutes on the bike this morning, um, yeah. I feel more alive, engaged and wired up when I’m writing something big, complex, challenging. And this one is. Various Authorities have suggested my outline is too ambitious for my wordage. I strongly suspect that Various Authorities know perfectly well that this is like waving a red flag before a bull. It’s not like I haven’t written 200,000 word first drafts before.
:: koff :: koff ::
I think I’m settling into a pace here. It’s going a bit slower than past books, but everything I’ve written since the cancer is a bit slower. That’s hard to see as a defect. My goal to myself is a minimum of 2 hrs per day, ideally 2,500 words. I’m posting both time and wordage now, to keep myself honest by making myself publically accountable.
Like I said, the best cure for writing angst is writing. Ain’t that the truth.
And now, off to dinner with my parents and my child.
ETA: lordofallfools says it very well, better than I did.
Originally published at jlake.com. You can comment here or there.