No, it wasn’t John Wayne. But yes, I am still being faithful to my western theme this morning. “Rawhide” was the launching TV series for Clint Eastwood back in the 60s. But that’s not what this is about.
After my rant yesterday about all the things that come between a writer and his work, I decided to figure out how to make it work. I didn’t get 3,700 words written like I did the day before, but I did get 1,600 words written in the afternoon. My goal for today is to get at least 2,000 words.
Tomorrow we drive to Austin, spend a couple of days with my kids, then take my grandson home with us for a week. I am determined to keep my momentum going. I may have to get up at 5 a.m. to start writing before he is up, because after that it is either cartoon time, or working on his treehouse time. But I am determined.
After the week is over, we will be in the middle of getting ready for school. I originally had hoped to have at least the entire rough draft done before school started. But that’s not going to happen. Two things make that impossible. First, day-job commitments will preclude writing commitments. Second, as I write this book, what was originally 15 chapters has turned into 20 chapters and now into about 24 chapters. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; it means that I am fleshing out my scenes and my characterization more than I had anticipated. I won’t necessarily hold onto all of it–many writers plan on cutting 20 percent of their rough draft–but it’s better to have too much than too little.
And so I am resigned that work on my book will continue after the summer is done. I came up with the idea before summer of setting aside two hours each day to write (noon to 2? 5 to 7 a.m.?). I think that’s going to be my goal. Not to get X number of pages or words written, but to spend two hours a day in quality writing, regardless of how many words that equates to.
Summer’s almost gone, but I have today. Let’s see what we can get done in the next few hours.
The Great Adventure 