Huh. So even my long-suffering boyfriend thinks I've not been writing enough for the past couple of months. And he's right - I have absolutely no excuse.
I have been trying to write my story rather than my blog, but a rule is a rule - and 1500 a day is hard regardless of where I type it! This advice - 1500 a day regardless of quality - has been advice you will find anywhere on the internet, and I'm keen to get the creative juices flowing a bit more going forward. Certianly with no job for the 6th month, I'm beginning to look seriously at what options I have outside my engineering career. So, I thought I would throw together 1500 words or so on why 1500 words EVERY DAY is important, in the hopes of ensuring I'm not a hypocrite going forwards.
The first thing to do is break down the system a bit further. Words: you need approximately 40,000 to 200,000 in a book (scary!). Say for ease of calculation, we (the royal we) want to write a 50,000 word novel (that's how many words
National Novel Writer's Month uses as their benchmark, and we want to write that book in a 30 day period (as required for NaNoWriMo), we would need to write 1666.7 words per day. huh. that's pretty close to the 1500 we are talking about. BUT, and here's the trick - those 1500 odd words per day only add up to a 50,000 word masterpiece in a month IF the next 1500 odd is written the next day, and the day after, and the day after that...
Jeff Olsen, in one of my favourite books on this subject,
The Slight Edge, discusses the power of small disciplines that when repeated daily over a lifetime make big changes. Olsen says it best: "you will achieve those aims, goals and dreams by doing simple things" but, as Olsen emphasises for the 168 pages of his book, you will only achieve those aims, goals and dreams by doing those simple things every day. "There is a cost to waiting." This applies to every element of our lives: it applies to our health: the cumulative effect of eating healthy and excercising daily isn't seen in a week, it's not seen in a month (well, not much) its seen in the years, and the long term freedom from chronic disease. It applies to studying a new language, to personal development of any kind, and what's interesting in these daily disciplines, the earlier the discipline starts, the better the outcome cumulatively. In fact, it even applies to the ridiculous 6000 piece puzzle on my dining room table - mind you, at one piece per day we will still be in Thailand in 2028.
It applies to our finances - the cumulative effect of saving $100 a
week is not seen in a month, or a year, but in the interest/income from
investing that $100 every day for years. Money is the most obvious measuring stick for cumulative benefit, we all know the benefit that compounding interest can provide - it can only provide that benefit if the money is being compounded, not spent! ( I struggle with this a bit, more so now that I don't have a job, that nest egg looks mighty tempting).
So, what? how does this affect our hypothetical novel?
well, number 1, not matter how much my writing sucks (and believe me, I'm under no illusions!) it HAS to improve if every day I'm challenged to create something. Although it is REALLY hard to get to 1500 words at the
moment, and likely it will be harder and more annoying tomorrow, everything is a skill, and anything that's practiced gets easier. I mean, seriously, NO-ONE had a blog 20 years ago, now people make their living from this. It's only 10,000 hours to mastery; just ask Malcom Gladwell (Check out
Outliers for some spectatcular examples of the 10,000 hours rule)
Benefit 2: even just getting 1500 words into the interweb's anonymous ether may impact someone. Sometimes authors do google themselves, if I've posted something respectful - and I do
try to be respectful, hopefully that gives the author a warm fuzzy. The exceptions to being nice and respectful are if I'm ranting abour poorly edited manuscripts or stories that have waaay more noteriety than I can provide (*cough Twilight, 50 shades cough*). They might also randomly point a passing blog reviewer to a really cool series of books they haven't read, and that would be useful.
Benefit 3: 1500 words of dross can be cleaned up, polished, moved, re-written, re-imagined, and of course deleted, if the 1500 words aren't written, the only thing that can be done with them is... nothing.
my goodness, I'm only at 800 words...
So, what has passed the Lounge Basilisk's Kindle since October?
Janet Evanovich released
Notorious Nineteen. Man alive, with every book I'm cheering more and more for Ranger. I'm not sure that was the outcome we were meant to have after 19 books, but as the Evanovich's pioneered "Team Morelli" and "Team Ranger" t-shirts and baseball caps before twi-hards ever went there, I guess Janet and Alex Evanovich know EXACTLY what they are doing making all our hearts flutter at Ranger's bad guy charisma.
My classic choice for the month was James Herriot's series
All Creatures Great and Small. I'm not sure if my very limited background in vet science has made these books funnier or if its just a result of "getting" more of the jokes these days, but I was in hysterics. Like seriously, laughing non-stop. These books just capture the incredible characters of the 1930's farming community the books are set in, and the great irony with which Herriot delivers the outcomes of those more self-depreceating tales is just brilliant. I've linked you to the omnibus edition of the first 3 tales.
My re-read for the month was the Kate Daniels series from Ilona Andrews (Start with
Magic Bites). Kate Daniels, in the vein of two of my favourite heroines Mercy Thompson (Patricia Briggs) and Alexia Tarabotti (Gail Carriger) is a hapless slave to her overly witty tongue. The chemistry between Kate and Curran is magic, and the careful line that these ladies have to dance between staying independant and doing the right thing in the face of overly alpha love interests always makes for interesting dialogue. While Mercy Thompson plays the dominance game better, and Alexia Tarabotti relies on social conventions to ensure she is not ripped limb from limb, Kate Daniels relies on her sword, and the undeniable fact that at every juncture she is straddling that line between duty, love, family and secrets the only way she can. Often the only reason she's not itty bitty bits of cat kibble is the fact that its obvious to the other players around her that without her, they are in way deeper trouble than she's getting them into. She's actually a very interesting character study - her entire life is devoted to ensuring that her lineage is not discovered, but she constantly has to chose between her safety and the safety of the people who trust and rely on her. Sometimes the Andrews' are a bit flip with her tough decisions, but the reader knows that it's Kate's character shining through; as far as she's concerned she has no other choice.
What else? I did get around to reading the latest JR Ward book,
Rapture. Once I got past the first 5 pages I enjoyed this story almost as much as the previous offerings from Ward, which made me feel better, I was really not stoked at the start. This is a highly developed universe, and the overall plot is thickening, which is good. Matthias will never be my favourite hero in urban fantasy, sorry.
Allie Condie chose an interesting solution to her tale of over-zealous governments and young love in
Reached (Book 3 of the Matched trilogy). I really enjoyed these books. While maybe not as tight as The Huger Games trilogy, from the perspective of offering a high school audience a specific moral, there was a lot more depth in the character choices and the twisting turns of the manipulative government. The emphasis that Condie places on history and culture, even in the face of surviving a revolution, is a powerful thing, and it reads powerfully as well.
I think that about brings me up to date, and if I'm under 1500 words, you'll have to forgive me!
huh, 1386, better than nothing right??
