Word Count!

I mentioned the contracts and weekly goals for the studio writing group. Half of my contract for this week is editing, ten pages per day, everyday. It is day two and I am doing really well. It is basic first run editing to the Mac Grabes detective story. Grammar, structure, spelling errors the spell check kindly glosses over; this is the easy stuff. As I mentioned in the editing diatribe, I hate editing, I am mediocre at the laws of English 101, and I drag the process out really tediously. So, why then, is the hard part of this week’s contract the writing?

Three thousand words per day, every day; it should be a cake walk. I am a National Novel Writing Month champ ten times over. I doubled the word count requirement in my second year, just for kicks. That count, for one hundred thousand words, is 3,336 if anyone was working on the math. I can do this in my sleep. I used to be able to do this in my sleep at any rate.

This week should be easier for writing on other counts too: I am out of classes for the session, there are no big events this weekend, no work, no school, the house is pretty clean, and my back is out so I am doomed to sit and relax and let the mind wander. Can I think of a single sentence to write for the three novels I should be writing; Max’s Despair, Gato’s Pride or Ecstasy: The Second Wave? Not a single sentence, not one witty retort for dialogue, nothing for description. I think I may be a bit past the whole pirate phase for the moment. It could be because I have so many other novels hanging over me waiting to be published. It could be aggravation with my current publisher or with fellow writers. It could e so many things. Those are all just excuses.

I know I need to keep writing, but did anyone say it had to be exclusively novel writing that makes that word count? So, I fall back on the blogging. I neglected this blog and other quite a bit. I used to have a very steady blog on Livejournal.com. I used to update my azcorsair.ning.com page. I kept the myspace.com blog rolling too. What happened? Was it Facebook, Twitter? I used to have nearly as many associates on blogs that I now have on Social Networking sites. The posts were much more than one sentence, typically. I will not deny the handful of blogs that were used for cryptic one liners meant to invoke a high volume text based pity party. The new sites are far worst in that department too though. One rarely reads more than a four sentence paragraph nor writes any more than. What have we become?

When working on a story the hard sell at the onset that reels in the reader and pulls them through to the end is often expressed as more important that the ending! A writer used to have a few pages to prove the story was a good catch. Now, fifty words; a page; the first paragraph? What does it take and how soon does the writer want the body? The most common critique of Blackstrap’s Ecstasy - my first published book and first in the Corsair series - is that it started out slow. I will not deny that and I will make conscious effort to avoid the same mistake in subsequent novels. There is something to be said for the style though. It has changes.

Before the age of television, fast-paced films, computer generated action, and give it to me now entertainment ideals, people read books and took time to get into a story. I am not in anyway saying I am any different, mind, but it is very true. Pick up a book from fifty to one hundred years ago. The story takes time to draw the reader in, to let him get to know the characters and the world he is about to enter into. It is a vacation, not a step into a war zone.

Is it better or worse though? Do we need to have a more bang in the book sort of ideal now? Should we return to the, dare I say it, good old days? With some stories, I think so. The pirate stories are among them for me. I am writing about a less fast paced time, about people who enjoyed the long telling of a good tale. When I write these stories I want to give the feeling it is told by a pirate, a sailor who has been there. Other stories beg for something very different.

I would never tell the Hell’s Belles stories with so much time on tedious details. They enter the scene, they blow something up, they leave. There is not much more to say about the characters or the story beyond the required explosive action.

For the moment my mind is in neither space, so, my three thousand word goal may not make it past 1,667 and it may all be strictly technical. And, today I may not even make it that far. I wish I knew what to do to stay motivated shy of putting a gun to my own head. I do not believe in writer’s block but this is likely the closest feeling to it. Nothing is coming to me on the stories I should work on. I have flashes of stunning ideas though!

I have some of the most obscure dreams! Dreams are great inspiration! I am not one of those false gurus who will tell you the key to success, sell you an idea and ned try it on his own. No, I really do keep a notebook beside by bed. I really do write in that book (three pages) every night, and work out the dream information as fast as possible if I wake with a good one. Writing down a dream can be damn near three thousand words if detailed and drawn up with care and attention to detail. How much of that dream do you want to capture?

Another device I keep by the side of the bed is my Samsung Galaxy S Droid. I will mention here that calling it a phone seems so much like a misnomer. My Droid is pretty shabby as a phone but it has so many options I am rarely on my Netbook anymore. I love to jot down story ideas. Prior to the Droid I was proud owner of a HTC Dash, it wasn’t the most amazing device but it did the job. I wrote one of my latest Science Fiction pieces via MMS messages to my Gmail account as I rode to Payson, AZ for a camping trip. Several thousand words tapped out on a teeny keyboard. Reading some of it back once I returned home was enlightening. It was not the best work I had ever done, but it was pure and in the moment.

We write, and gain inspiration to write in places that might not be the best for writing. How do you cope? The journal, or mobile device, beside the bed; notebooks stashed away in the car, purse, backpack; the napkin at the diner all are great! How about toilet paper? Admit it sitting there, with nowhere to go can be inspiring. I am still working out how to capture those words thought up while in the shower.

Anne Rice, among others, spoke of writing on the walls. If you live in an apartment or lack a space to just leave words hanging about this might not work for you, but I am a huge fan of magnetic poetry, chalkboards and dry erase boards. Even large poster paper or flip boards are great and most office supply stores have them at a decent price.

I am not certain how to keep that word count up for you, but there are a million ideas that I have tried. Some have worked really well others not so much. And, not every idea works all the time. I have felt lately that I need to step away from the technology for a time and get back to the basics. I am in front of a computer so often for work or school or the god awful Social Networking. It sucks the fun out of sitting down to write. The creative stuff, the raw story, it seems to come directly from the ink to the paper, much more readily.

So where are you at in your writing? How many words per day to you put to paper or screen (or wall, or toilet paper, or skin). And, how do you work out the issue of ideas in the shower?