Cravings Sated
I’m a woman of many cravings and inspirations – sometimes the two can be the same thing. I have a craving for a certain type of food or drink, and inspiration for a knitting or sewing design, a desire to go for a walk or a swim, or to watch a certain movie or hear a certain song. I have a craving, an inspiration, to write.
I’m sure it’s the same for most writers – an idea springs into your mind, a scene or a character or a poem fleshes itself out in your mind. You can’t control it happening, all you can do is hold onto as much of it as you can, by force of will-power, or if you’re smart you have a pen and paper at your fingertips and can jot down the main points, if you’re lucky you have the time and space to write the whole thing down right then, and the ability to keep it going.
I love these little bursts of inspiration – they’re better than candy, almost as good as sex. But for some reason I find I often waste them. Not so with my other cravings. I tend to always meet my food or drink cravings, unless they’re crazy or expensive or unreasonable. I can’t keep my hands off of yarn – I start every knitting project I think up (it’s become a problem). I go for every walk, I watch my favorite movies all the way through, and if it’s a song I need to hear, I listen to it usually more than once, often more than twice. But when it’s writing inspiration, I bask in the moment of inspiration, I feel awesome at having had such an awesome idea. About fifty percent of the time, I jot it down on a scrap of paper, or in a notebook. Fifty percent. Do you realize how many awesome ideas I must have had and forgotten? As for how many of those ideas get translated from my chicken scratch into a fully realized scene… Well the number too embarrassing to figure out.
I made a resolution to myself recently to take the time to write legibly and in full sentences whenever inspiration strikes. This resolution was the result of finding notes to myself that read along the lines of “Ch19: goes to a play with J, runs into T there ala LoPOV.” This is an actual note. I remember the play I had in mind, but I don’t know who “J” is, and I have no idea what “LoPOV” means – something Point Of View is all I can think of, but still notsohelpful.
Anyway, I think this resolution was a good first step towards being a better writer. Now it’s time for another – that every time I am having that craving to write, and I DO have the time and space, I have to do it. And why wouldn’t I? If I’m craving the feeling of keys under my fingers, the spread of a story across a page, then sitting down to it is a treat, not an obligation. Right?
Right??
New Revamp
All right, the page keeps changing around, but I think I’ve got it right this time – let me know if you have any suggestions!
Words That Get Me
Something that is important to note upon earning my MFA, and presently having no deadlines for the first time in a long time: Some people will always be writers, even if they aren’t trying to be. It is an art that, if practiced enough, whether in school or just by one’s nature, flows out of you in every verbal maneuver. One of my favorite poets, who hasn’t officially written any poetry in a while, wrote this as an update on her website:
“The lesson here is to live meaningfully and with as much love as possible, not wasting time on anger or hatred, but I really could not hate cancer enough. I hate you cancer.”
It’s not the ending to a longer piece – this is the whole thing, which makes it better, because we can all imagine an instance where this lesson applies, and specificity is unimportant. Since it’s personal, and I don’t think she’d mind, I’m not naming her here, but if she reads this she can claim it. But heartache aside, I think it’s such a perfectly crafted sentiment, starting with the fullness and sentimentality of love that we feel in the face of a loved-one’s illness, and then switching mid-sentence to the anger we feel often simultaneously with that fullness.
Preface: Q
Hey guys: welcome to the preface to my preface. Since it’s going to live in a place where no one will really ever read it, I thought it could live online too, since I did bother writing it and all.
A Peculiarity of Action or Behavior. Quirk.
The story of how I became a writer is a boring one. Or perhaps, the story of how I am a writer is a boring one, and the story of how I became a writer is impossible to tell, because there was never any actual “becoming” moment, unless you count the process of learning how to form sentences and ideas and stories. But I am a writer and have been since before I can remember. End of story.
What makes me the type of writer I am is a more interesting story, or at least a more interesting question, because I myself am not entirely sure of the answer. My style has certainly evolved over the years, as my vocabulary and understanding of the human condition have grown, but one thing has stayed fairly consistent: When people ask me what type of writing I do, I say “fiction.” And then they ask “what kind of fiction?” and I become flustered and again say, “fiction, just, you know, fiction.” But for those who have read and formed opinions of things I have written, the adjective that springs out of most mouths (or pens) when describing my brand of fiction is “quirky.”
At first I was not sure how I felt about being quirky. Honestly, I was surprised so many people (I’d wager a good ⅓rd of readers) chose that word specifically. The word has kind of a flippant quality to it, like something quirky can’t really be taken seriously—at least that’s how I hear it. I began to feel like people saw my writing as the novel equivalent of that weird sort of airhead, comic-relief character. The Luna Lovegood of stories. When I read something that I would describe as quirky, I usually think it is trying too hard to be weird. Like that guy in college who wore the highlighter-yellow trench coat and the 10-foot long scarf wrapped around seven times with still enough tail to sweep the ground. We get it. You’re different. Or rather, you want to be different. I think this disdain for the trying-too-hard is shared by the general public, and I would rather not be included, especially since I’m not trying very hard at all. I’m reminded of a time when I worked at a restaurant in Maine, and there was a person (who I never actually saw myself) who liked to order a pizza with pickles on it. This individual was not super regular, but ordered from us once or twice a month, often enough that it was definitely “a thing.” This annoyed my boss no end, and he remarked one time that “they’re just doing it to be weird.” This is what gave me pause. Because people sometimes dress and speak and act weird “just to be weird,” but nobody orders weird food on a regular basis solely for the weird factor. I fully believe that this person liked pickle pizza. Hell, I’d even be willing to try it—it doesn’t sound so bad. Also, I didn’t like that boss very much.
The thing of it is, I never try to be quirky, and neither does the pickle-pizza eater. And maybe to be truly weird is to be quirky—just enough that, in reading, the quirk becomes oddly comfortable, familiar even though the weird isn’t your own weird. Granted, I’ve written a contrived story or tried my hand at creating a zany character here or there, with the full intention of being just totally weird about it, but for the most part, I feel like I write from the heart about the world as I see it. I pick up on things that I like or that interest me or are important to me, and mix them all together and make a story out of it. And I guess it usually comes out with a bit of the old quirk.
I’ll provide a little evidence. One could argue that a child as young as five or six is too young to have cultivated a self-conscious façade of fake weirdness, especially in her writing. Here is a poem I wrote about my deceased parakeet at that tender age, arguably my most successful poem to date (note, spelling has been corrected):
Untitled
1. Male
2. Bird
3. Friendly
4. Nice
5. Kind
6. Can carry a tune
7. Green
8. Yellow
9. Blue
10. White
11. Black spots
12. Down
13. Feathers
14. Pretty
15. Handsome
16. Cute
17. Parakeet
18. Trainable
19. Pleasant
20. Whistles
21. Happy
22. Thoughtful
23. Understanding
24. Flies
25. Glides
26. Trendy
27. Beautiful
28. Plain
29. Petite
30. Gone.
(signed) Emily Young, his part time owner, and all time Friend.
Totally weird, right? If not a little heartbreaking. I don’t remember writing it at all. But I feel like the quirkiness here is out of innocence. As a gesture of love, my six-year-old self pulled together a collection of observations, both of the bird itself, and no doubt a handful of favorite words gleaned from overheard conversations. Describing-words. And the words, though lovely, are not the point, and are not there to be admired for their oddness. They are there to build a character, if only briefly, for this bird, so that when it turns at the end, the weight of the loss is felt by the reader. What I didn’t know is that the character I was describing wasn’t the bird so much as myself as a bird lover.
Anyway, I’m still not entirely happy with the term “quirky,” (even though Luna Lovegood was my favorite character from those books), so I took out my trusty Merriam-Webster and GARFIELD Dictionary and explored my options.
Let me pause here to say that I have always relied on the dictionary and Garfield (the cat, not the 20th president of the United States) for information as well as entertainment. Garfield taught me the value of juxtaposing humor and tragedy for true emotion, as well as who Ralph Nader is. The dictionary introduced me to relationships built on word love—I’ve had more than one friendship that consisted largely of reading bits of dictionary too each other. So you can imagine my joy when I discovered a Merriam-Webster and GARFIELD Dictionary at a used bookstore. Who’s trying to be weird now?
Peculiar; Strange. Queer.
So M-W & G’s definition of quirky led me to peculiar (which I liked the sound of much better), and peculiar led me to queer. In two moves, I’m already back to the q pages, which number 3 ½ out of 714 pages. Peculiar indeed. I’ve always liked the word queer. I immediately get an image of a man that doesn’t totally stand out, but there is something appealingly off about him. Perhaps he wears all brown—a rather unassuming color—but he wears a little bit too much brown. Not just his suit and shoes are brown, but his socks as well, are exactly the same shade, like the person who colored him in only had the package of 12 crayons instead of 96. Queer.
According to Garfield (and Merriam and Webster), quirky and queer are basically synonyms, although I still hold that there is a subtle difference between the two (otherwise, we wouldn’t have two different words—right? Right??). I would much rather be queer, which seems inherent, than quirky, which seems affected. So here is my argument for queer, illustrated in the form of another selection from my collection of juvenilia. The following is a chapter from my first novel (which totaled about 700 words) written when I was nine-or-so years old. All you need to know so far is that Spud and Lilac are sibling dogs, and June and Jackie are their owner’s daughters (two of three triplets, natch):
Spud and Lilac: Chapter II Lilac & the Possum
One morning, when Spud was investigating the barn, Lilac decided to take a walk in the woods. As she walked along taking her time she saw something move in the bushes.
Lilac growled a low growl at the bush and a little raccoon jumped out. It was the same raccoon that she and her brother had seen on their last adventure. She could tell by the black spot on his back.
Lilac chased him all around the woods until they came to a big oak tree and then the raccoon hid in the bushes. Lilac couldn’t find him, all she could find was a possum hanging in the oak tree. Lilac tried to climb the tree and get the possum 12 times with no success. That night Lilac went home very tired and all she could think about was the possum. She thought about this so much that she couldn’t finish her supper that night.
Since then every day for 2 weeks, she and her brother would go there and that same possum would be hanging from that same tree every time.
But one day Spud over heard June say that she lost her toy possum and then Jackie said she saw it in the oak tree out back. The dogs had been tricked! The possum was just a toy!
Seriously, where was I coming up with this stuff? Who has a toy possum? —possums are scary looking. The thing is, I didn’t think so at the time. I don’t know if I had ever seen a possum before, but they were my favorite animal back then, and I didn’t think there was anything weird about them. Is that quirky? More queer I think. Like I said, I’m going to own the quirkiness of my writing at any rate. Sometimes the masses are right. But since I make the rules, I’m going to own my queerness too. And if I’m going to go on about adjectives that start with q in relation to my writing style…can I be quixotic too? Can I afford not to be?
Foolishly Impractical Especially in the Pursuit of Ideals. Quixotic.
I’ve been drawn to the word quixotic since I first heard it. It’s horribly awkward in a very appealing way, and therefore I think that, aurally, it describes it’s own meaning perfectly. Plus, if you try to pronounce the “quixot-” part the same way you’d pronounce it in “Don Quixote,” you just sound like you’re saying “chaotic,” which is a confusion I can relate to. Aside from how the word sounds coming out of one’s mouth, the notion itself is romantic and sad in the best way. “Foolishly impractical esp. in the pursuit of ideals”—I didn’t expect a dictionary definition to make me emote, but I must say, this one has that effect. Foolishly impractical—I think I subconsciously strive to have a quixotic character in everything I write. I strive for situations that just won’t work out. And I think, in my youth (I smell another example, don’t you?) I was quixotic myself, and sometimes wrote about situations without realizing the hopeless impracticality of the characters’ motives. Take, for example, this short story I wrote at about eight years old:
Magic!
Once there was a little girl named Chezley McQuinsen. Her best friend’s name was Jonathan Dunkley.
There was one thing that Jonathan didn’t know about Chezly and that was that she was a white witch.
One day Chezly, her little sister Erica, their canary Hubert, and Jonathan were all sitting in Chezley’s attic.
“I’m bored,” said Erica, I think I’ll go watch TV.”
“I’ll go too,” said Jonathan.
“Not so fast,” said Chezly. “Now that my sister is gone, I want to tell you something……”
They went in to their secret hide away. Then Chezly said, “Guess what?……I’m a white witch! I can make magic, want to see some?”
“Sure.”
Poof!! She turned him into a camel. Poof!! She changed him back.
“Oooohhhh Joonnaathhaann ….” said a singsong voice.
“Oh that must be my mom.”
“I have an idea, I’ll shrink you and you can live with Hubert. That way you won’t have to go home.”
That’s how Jonathan got into the cage.
THE END
I remember distinctly being the kid that would hide from my parents when it was time to go home. Every time. I hope it was adorable, but I’m sure it was annoying. I would spend the last half-hour with whatever friend I was visiting agonizing about having to go home soon, and when the time came, I’d whine and drag my feet and beg for a little more time. I’m sure the above story was not the first time I imagined a way to stay longer. But what’s up with that last line? Not “THE END,” the part right above that. Okay, I take back what I said before, I must have known how hopelessly impractical this was, to shrink a friend into staying longer. And I clearly found the notion to be delicious. Now Chezly’s best friend is essentially a toy—and there is no mention of Jonathan’s consent here. Did I know that “white witch” was supposed to mean “good witch”? Or did I mean evil, and incidentally Caucasian?
Not unlike Don Quixote, Chezly has deluded herself safely into an ideal, in this case the extended friendship provided by shrinking his friend and caging him. I’m not going to look into it too deeply, I mean, it was written by an eight-year-old, but still. What a queer little story. How quirky.
My intentions in writing “Magic!” are debatable—it’s likely that I was more interested in the idea of magic than what my characters actions say about each other. This is one way in which my writing has evolved: more and more, I write with intention. And I don’t simply mean that my writing has become more directional since I was eight-years-old, as this is (hopefully) true for any writer. As someone who grew up with a psychologist for a mother, on top of my writer’s curiosity, I find myself observing people and situations and really trying to figure out why and how everything comes to be. And how I can make it fit together in a pleasing manner. It feels cliché to say I want to write about and understand the human condition, but it also feels true.
My writing has also been informed over the years by my peers and by authors I admire, those to whom my work is similar and those whose work I’d like to aspire to. I’ve had people tell me my writing style is similar to that of Kurt Vonnegut and Toni Morrison—a bit overly flattering for sure, but I can see it in the simple yet often intense, sometimes rambling voice my narratives tend to have. There is something all my own in there, too. My writing is so much more about the character and how they tell it than it is about what they tell. The story is revealed in tone more than in the actual events described.
But we’re getting away from the letter Q. I know, it’s a gimmick, but I think it’s important. It’s holding my preface together, and it’s also demonstrating a very important point that I’ve learned as my writing has developed: that a piece of writing needs to have both an idea and a structure, but the two don’t always have to make sense together, at least at first. In fact, it’s often better if they don’t, because the challenge is in making it work. Good writers thrive on challenge, or else they get lazy and their writing deteriorates. This is important to know. So let’s have another Q.
Comically Quaint.
This definition isn’t quite what I want, true though it may be.
Expressive of Puzzlement, Curiosity, or Disbelief
We’re getting closer here.
Mildly Teasing or Mocking. Quizzical.
In fact all three definitions of quizzical feel right to me. The same part of me that is uncomfortable with the word “quirky” is also uncomfortable with the word “quaint.” Even though I like quaint things (it means “attractively unusual”), the word itself leaves a little bit of condescension residue in my ears. The second definition is a little better—the idyllic, child part of me is forever quizzical in this way; curious, discovering, amazed and confused. But what I’m really talking about, when we get down to it, is teasing and mocking. Humor is my jam. And one of the most important realizations I’ve had—and I say realize instead of learn, because I believe this is one of those things that everyone knows inherently—is the importance of humor. Humor births joy, but it is also the crutch of those who are afraid. In real life, its presence is inevitable, even in the most dire of situations, and it provides a juxtaposition for other emotions. I believe humor belongs in writing no matter what. Humor is the quirk that hides in life’s seriousness. And if humor is a quirk, that’s the quirk I want.
Reoccurring Characters
Is it recurring or reoccurring? Both are real words, according to spellcheck. Okay, quick sidetrack before I even begin the post. According to my Merriam-Webster and GARFIELD Dictionary, they indeed mean basically the same thing, “to occur or appear again,” although “recur” seems to be a more unique word, where “reoccur” is simply “occur” with a prefix. I’m guessing “recur” came second, as people began to find it tedious to say all three syllables in “reoccur.”
Nerdiness aside, I just wanted to talk about how awesome reoccurring characters are, and in this case I am referring to characters that appear in more than one work, usually by the same author, but not in a series. I’m looking at you, Kurt Vonnegut and Toni Morrison. Granted, I do love a good series or trilogy, but with those it’s still like an extra long novel. You are still in generally the same storyline, and more importantly, within one arc. When one simply has reoccurring characters, it instantly puts the reader in a whole world that is bigger and more dynamic than the books are individually. Things can happen to the characters that are never chronicled in the actual story. With a series, it is really best to not leave gaps in a character’s life, because they will be labeled as plot holes, but if you are not telling the story of that character’s life all in one narrative, you’re allowed those holes. In fact, I’d argue that it’s better that way.
What I’m getting at here is I’ve just finished an advanced draft of a novel, and I’ve realized that I can include the protagonist as a minor character in both of the other projects I’m working one. In Darling, the project I am using for my MFA thesis, Lily is nine years old. And I just figured out a way to show her at ages 10 and 18 as well. And who knows what will happen after that!
The value of a pair or two of extra eyes.
So I’ll have completed my master’s degree this January. The Stonecoast MFA was hands down the most valuable experience I’ve had as a writer, and a large part of that value was the knowledge gained and the sense of a community of writers that, while I’m sure it will dwindle after graduation, I’ll be able to take with me after graduation.
A lot of people at Stonecoast grow attached to the community and the writer friends that they make there, so graduation is also a sad time. And while I’ll miss the friends I’ve made for sure, I’m lucky in that I was blessed with a wealth of writerly-minded friends before I came to Stonecoast, so I never became quite as attached to the community as some. Therefore, I’m seeing graduation as a sense of achievement, and, perhaps to a greater degree, a sense of relief. Starting at the end of January, I’m free from one of my many obligations, and writing (at least until I dip my toes back into the water of publication possibilities) becomes my own again.
But something occurred to me today. I’ve been rereading The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia, a book that I’ve held in very high esteem since I first read it a few years ago, and which I’ve recommended many times over and am now all-but-forcing the Total Bummer Book Club to read for December’s meeting. The book is still gorgeously written, but there are two discrepancies (so far) that I feel like an editor could have caught, and made the book just a little bit better.
For one, Plascencia describes knitting in a way that does not makes sense if you are a knitter. An example: “Sandra listened while trying to knit the tail of her shawl, but her knots always unraveled, leaving strands of string strewn wherever she sat” (55). What? If I didn’t know how to knit I could see myself just passing over this, but plenty of people have enough understanding of knitting to know that that sentence just doesn’t make any sense.
Another thing Plascencia does is he interchanges the words “turtle” and “tortoise.” Here is an example: “I began dismantling the mechanical tortoises when I found one chewing on the meat of a real sea turtle. The carapace of the tortoise had been pierced by the metal jaws, and aside from a little blood and some fleshy pouches of milk, nothing was left of the animal,” and a couple paragraphs later, “I suckled the tortoises on the tit of a goat and let them roam in my bedroom until they ate all my sheets and were old enough to return to sea” (57). While it is generally accepted to call all turtles, tortoises, and terrapins “turtles,” I don’t believe it is acceptable to call sea turtles “tortoises” anywhere, and it is pretty clear he is talking about sea turtles here. And even if it was acceptable to use either term, pick one, dude. In that first quote he bounces between the two terms 3 times. Even when referring to the mechanical tortoises (which I’m sure must be tortoises, since they only go on land), he calls them mechanical turtles about 1/3rd of the time.
But I digress. My point is that, of all the possible things to miss at Stonecoast, I suspect what I will miss the most will be all those extra eyes in workshop. Even having several writer friends, it is difficult to arrange the level of discussion that happens naturally in workshop, and which is the best place to find these little slip-ups. It would have been great if the editor spotted these, but maybe Plascencia’s editor doesn’t knit and doesn’t care about turtles. I expect an editor to have a keen eye, but I don’t expect them to know everything. There are probably other things in this book that are a little off that I didn’t notice because I don’t know. It takes place in Northern Mexico and Southern California, and has to do with picking carnations. For all I know, the area and the work is described totally inaccurately. Or maybe it’s spot on. But the fact that I noticed something else wrong calls everything I don’t know about into question, and takes my focus (a little bit) away from the work itself. Which is too bad because it is a beautifully written story, structurally exciting, and the plot and characters are well imagined, with the right levels of sadness, happiness, and urgency to keep me reading and affect my emotions without bumming me out. If only he’d had a knitter read a draft, and run “find & replace” with “tortoise,” I’d be writing all praise here.
Verisimilitude
I’ve recently been put in charge of a book club, and this week we are discussing Great House by Nicole Krauss. I’ve never run a book club before, so we’ll see how it goes.
The book, however, has a great quote in it about writers, which goes: ”The writer should not be cramped by the possible consequences of her work. She has no duty to earthly accuracy or verisimilitude. She is not an accountant, nor is she required to be something as ridiculous and misguided as a moral compass. In her work the writer is free of laws. But in her life…she is not free.”
Not only is it true, and it has a nice little twist at the end there, but it has a favorite word of mine in it, that being verisimilitude, although in the case of this word, I’m not sure I agree. I think a writer, of course, can write whatever she wants, but can choose to make her writing realistic or no, but I think it’s better to make it realistic. And by realistic, I don’t mean to omit fantasy, but rather, a piece of writing should be realistic within its own boundaries. But that is not the point I want to make.
The point I was to make is that I have a brand new baby writing project where one of the main characters is based on a person I know, and which may characterize them in a less than favorable light. I didn’t ask this person’s permission, so much as mention the idea for the story and this person, unprompted, gave me permission to use whatever details from real life that I wanted. For this I am grateful. While I would like to be as ruthless as Nicole Krauss’s character, and maybe someday I will be, there is nothing like the blessing from the person who’s reaction you have been dreading.
Quirky
As part of my thesis towards completion of my master’s degree, I am being forced to write 10-20 pages about myself as a writer. This is one of my most dreaded assignments, so I have of course put it off until the last minute. In working on what will become the introduction to my thesis, I have found myself ruminating on the word quirky, which has been brought to my attention more than once as a word that describes me and especially recently as a word that can favorably describe a writer (that’s the important part).
A few weeks ago now, I attended the inaugural event of the Maine Women Write organization, and it was one of the best things I’ve been lucky enough to attend recently. The gist is this: for what may be the first time, seven female Mainers have all published their first ever book in the same year (this year). And so they got together and will be traveling around independent bookstores in Maine for the Maine Women Write statewide book club, and in support of other Maine women writers (like me… and maybe like you). After each of the women did a short reading, there was a question and answer period as there often is at such events, and one question (I believe it was something along the lines of “how do you get published”) was answered (if only I could remember by whom!) with the greatest advice I would like to take as a writer, which was: when submitting a book proposal or query, “Be quirky as all get out.” I like the quote so much that I immediately wrote it down, and have since taped it to the wall above my desk–and I am not normally an inspirational-quote-taping type of gal.
Anyway, I am taking this advice particularly to heart, since the word “quirky” has so often been said to me in relation to my own writing style, and I have decided to welcome the word as a compliment and an old friend.
Makeover
Makeover time!
I’m reminded of a time in middle school when my best friend Heather and I decided to give a “makeover” to the least popular girl in our class. Not an unkind thing to do, but not a very kind thing either. She was on board with the makeover, but she was never in on our friendship.
Anyway, today Chase Dream gets a makeover. Time to throw of the shackles of being a closed up one-month blog, and time to become a real writing blog! Because it’s about time, and also because I have to for my final semester at Stonecoast–graduation here I come! It was this or an author web site, and frankly, my favorite thing to read on author’s web sites is their blog. If and when I publish some books, I’ll list them here.
Novel in a Month?
So, the month is over, but the project isn’t. This is by design, and I want to take a moment to clarify the project, because I’m (honestly) a bit of a snob here, but I am not trying to align myself with NaNoWriMo, and I only brought that project up a few weeks ago because it would be odd to set about writing a novel in a month without mentioning them, and also because Cat Valente, who inspired me, was at one point inspired by NaNoWriMo. Here’s how I am a snob, but I think rightfully so – I’m basing my project on the objective of a professional writer, which is what I strive to be.
I am not interested in word count contests, I am interested in composing a story quickly, because I think that is a realistic way for me to manage my time as a writer. For this reason, I am more interested in actual professional writers who happen to write quickly, not those who got their start in NaNoWriMo. This, of course, makes my project a little more difficult, since I want to hear about writers for whom the writing is important, not the speed, but who happen to write quickly, instead of people for whom the point was to write quickly, and are pleased that the piece actually came out good.
Here’s an example, and hopefully it won’t be too difficult to find more: Stephen King, hugely well-known and prolific writer, writes n average of 10 pages per day (if a page is 250 words – that’s right, 2000 words a day, same as my project). I That is what I think of as speed writing. With a minimal amount of research, I’ve found that in the realm of professional writers, not every writer writes every day, and for those that do, a page or two is the norm. Example: Ernest Hemingway’s daily word count was around 500. James Joyce could be satisfied with as little as a paragraph a day.
So, I’ve certainly got some more research to do, but I just wanted to clarify that while this experiment was focusing on speed, my real interest is in time management in general, and I believe any goal of writing, fast or slow, should be quality, not speed. Like in flipping an omelet in a pan – my goal is to flip it perfectly onto its other side, and the best way to do so is very quickly, but you shouldn’t be impressed by the speed when the egg is so nicely round.
