Hello Hello Hello Is there anybody out there?
How is everyone doing? Natalie? How's your story coming? Pete? What about you? Jeff? Karen Lynn? I'm itching to hear from you all.
I can't believe how late it is. (To me. I realize that lateness is relative. Mama time is different. Longer? Shorter? It's hard to say.) I started writing at 7:36 pm and finished at 9:18 with 11,672 words. Three words over the Quota. Yihaw. Yawn. Yaaawwwwwnnnn. I am so tired. But I am going to keep posting these entries every day to remind myself that I am being watched. I don't want to slack.
These seven days have been so enlightening to me. I learn something new each time I sit here and face my anxiety (and beat it to a pulp). It comes back every day. It doesn't slink into a corner. I don't beat it indefinitely. I just beat it every day with the knowledge that I'll have to beat it again the next day too. But I realize that I've never finished a novel before because I've invested so much into the desire to be a novelist. Since I was old enough to read books, I've wanted to write them. I've never wanted to do anything else. That's a lot of pressure to perform, especially for a neurotic basket case like me. It's no wonder that I've let myself off the hook over and over again. I've come up with a million excuses not to write. I've only just now realized that they were bad excuses. Because I sit here every day - despite laundry, despite bath time and poopy diapers, despite back aches and exhaustion, and despite that nagging voice in my head that moans after every word, "I can't think of anything else, I'll never be able to come up with 1000 more words, I can't do it" - I sit here and I do it anyway. I'm saying it from amazement, not arrogance. The tone that I want you to hear is befuddlement. Every time I reach that Quota, I am dumbfounded. And I'm anxious all over again because I know that the fight is only over for now. That I have to fight again tomorrow. And the toughest part is knowing that I'm fighting myself. Tooth and nail.
Line for the day:
I considered the possibility that not everybody is cut out to be a somebody.
posted by Autumn @ 9:41 PM
2 Comments:
autumn,
i completely agree, it is surprising what having someone to answer to has done, for all of us, some meet the quota some just sit down and habituallly write, either way we are all gaining something from this experience,
i think now that it is a lot easier than i realized to write, i had for a long time, huge idea about whe mad gush of inspiration that would finally allow me to write a decent amount, always letting myself slack with the excuse "i'm collecting data, still collecting data"
but you know you can collect data forever,
the real magic is the synthesis, and it ain't easy.
even if these novels SUCK we will have learned that just forcing ourselves to do it can produce.
i was already thinking this morning that after this we should do challenges, like a novella in a week and 3 day short stories, i like the discipline and the feeling that others are struggling as well.
am i a sadist?
xox
pete,
check this article out...
tv is evil
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