The writing of my first novel

What I am doing, and why:

I propose in this space to document my progress at getting my first novel written. I am in the planning stage at the moment, but have set June 1st as my start date. My objective is to work every day (but if I get 6 out of 7, I'll be happy) and to write 1,000 to 2,000 words each day. Each day that I work, I'll post the word count here, and if I don't post.... well, you know.

The big idea is to have the psychological pressure of having a couple hundred other people checking my progress to spur me on. Some people don't work well under pressure, I know. But I have the feeling about myself that it will make it a little harder to hide from what I know I should be doing. (Yes, I realize a couple hundred people may not be interested enough to look; maybe nobody will. But as long as I think they might be looking....)

What's in it for you:

I have read countless writing books, articles, attended classes and seminars, and heard a lot of good advice. (Thanks, Uncle Jim, for the wonderful thread you have going here that first attracted me to this site.) And yet... I always am left wondering, but what is it really like. Just the dumb mundane stuff about how you sharpen your pencils, and when do you stop for lunch. And not just to hear a general answer, but to see it applied day by day by day. Most things we learn best by watching someone else do them. But how do you watch someone write a novel? Well, here's a small attempt to make a contribution to this line of inquiry. No, I have no credentials and do not claim to be the least good at this or even to have much idea what I'm doing. But, speaking for others like myself, I think the real mystery of novel writing is just--how do you finish the thing? Well, for starters you can watch me try.

See you tomorrow!

Day One

Thank you, friends, for your encouraging wishes. It is exactly what I was hoping to hear, and now it is my job to make them bear fruit!

You know how it goes--just like all the motivational speakers tell you: concentrate your intention on the Universe and invisbile forces will begin to arrange things in order to conform to replying to your intention with a big "Hell no!"

I went along with my coworkers at the office yesterday in asking for a flex-time arrangement in which we would work an extra hour four days a week in order to get Friday afternoons off for the summer. Having to get into work an hour earlier this morning gave me a few second thoughts, though.

And then it turned out that today was the long-awaited "clean out the storeroom" party we had promised our employer. Fortunately we were able to get started at 4:00, which meant we finished not too much after 6:00, but it made for a long day.

Dashed home for some quick eats and liberal use of the bottle of ibuprofen and then, of course, writing! "Honey," my wife said, "I got these movies out of the library, and won't you watch one with me?" Well, sure. After all, she made the dinner, and rhubarb pie, and even writers have hearts, or, at any rate, stomachs. Besides, it's just coming up 8:00, so a short movie should be done by 9:30...

Of course we were just five minutes into it when my mother stopped by to take our older son along on her nightly bike ride. Back to the movie. Then Mom came back, having stopped home to pick up the amended tax return she is working on. Would I be so kind...?

Having finished the taxes but before the movie could start again, my brother, who calls maybe once in two months, was on the phone. We had a nice chat. Then finally got into the movie. It was moving along and starting to wrap up when I noticed that my wife had left the room, in fact had gone to bed, and there were two boys in need of bedtime...

But the upshot of it all was that I learned a lesson about perseverance and incidentally how to write something (anything!) quite fast because you promised that you would.

Words today: 1,178 Cumulative total: 1,178

Day 2

Thursday night is my club night, and tonight I was scheduled to play a match for our club team in the inter-city adult chess league. Yes, chess is my sport, and I am probably one of the very few members of this board who actually already owned a copy of Logical Chess, Move by Move before reading Uncle Jim's recommendation.

So the normal program for the evening, would be commute, change into comfortable clothes, dinner, maybe a chance to hit the couch for 20 minutes or so before heading back out to the club. Then three hours of a difficult game and home somewhere the other side of 11:00 more than likely.

Now, how to fit writing into a day like this? Well, I grabbed takeout from the Chinese nearest to my work, went back to the office (doesn't that phrase make the hair stand on end!), and tried not to get any fried rice on the keyboard as I got on with the novel.

I realize I've said just about nothing about writing as yet and talked about every other element of my day, but that is the story so far--and the challenge, I would imagine for anyone reading this who isn't a seasoned pro (or seasoned amateur)--how to make the space in life to fit the novel in.

Words today: 1,410
Total so far: 2,588

Day 3

Thanks, friends, for all your good wishes. Also thanks to all who have stopped here just to view the thread, as it is knowing that you came by and were interested enough to see how I was doing, that helps me keep on keeping on.

Today my coworkers and I realized the fruit of our sacrifice of an extra hour every morning. Today when the barred doors slid open at noon, instead of just slinking out for a quick sandwich and then dragging back for the always-fatiguing afternoon session, the inmates ran free out into the light and the world.

So today time was not an issue, as you can tell by this being my first post not time stamped somewhere the other side of 11 pm. Now I can take a breath and say a little about my technique. Not fictional technique, of which I plead complete innocence (check back in 60 or 70,000 more words and I may have learned something!), but just a little trick I am using to produce words.

I got this idea from another interest of mine, running. In training to race, a popular workout is to do intervals, where you run at a fast rate for a set short distance, take some recovery time, and then repeat. I am now writing in intervals. I write as fast as I can for a short time (usually 3-4 minutes) then pause to count my words, pace the room, etc., then dive in again.

Here's why I think this helps: just as someone said above, you don't want to sit down thinking about writing a whole novel, because it's too intimidating. Since at this point I am very easily intimidated, sitting down for Two Hours of Writing still seems like a daunting task. So I don't do it. I sit down to write for four minutes. Then another four minutes, and so forth.

So far, it's working.

Words today: 2,319
Total so far: 4,907

Day 4

Thanks again for your encouraging words and page views!

Pencilone: 6,000+ in a day! And I was impressed with my 2,000...

black winged fighter: Yes, I would be very happy if anyone reading this thread were to find that it helped move them to get a few more words written.

Here's the other idea I had related to writing in intervals--I play a little game of musical writing chair.

My 3-4 minute intervals are actually timed to pop songs. At the moment I am using a CD by the Polish singer Irena Jarocka. I find the tunes pleasant, and since I don't understand Polish, the lyrics are not a distraction.

This is what it looks like. I start work each day by writing a brief beat outline of what is going to happen in the next several pages of the book. Then I stand next to the CD player on a table behind my desk. I form a picture in my mind of what is happening in the book, and prepare the next sentence or at least the first couple words. Then I push Play and plop down at the desk and start writing fast as I can.

When the song ends, I pause the CD and stand next to the player letting the next picture and next few words form, hit Pause and I'm off again. I've found so far that I'm able to do 100 words or so during each song. The CD has 18 selections, and if I get through the whole thing, I'll have 2,000.

Words today: 2,310
Total so far: 7,217

Day 5

The importance of having your CD player across the room--

I got this from one of the classic writing manuals by Dorothea Brande or Brenda Ueland. The idea is to only sit at the desk when you are writing. If you don't know what to write, you get up out of the chair and go across the room, until you know what you want to say. Then you get back in the chair and write it, and hopefully keep going.

I think the point is to associate the activity of writing with being physically located in the chair. If you sit there while the words aren't coming, staring at the screen or daydreaming, then the chair is equally well associated with those activities, and sitting down to work the next day make signal your body that it's time for a little daydreaming.

So this idea is built into my 'musical writing chair' approach, since I don't release the pause on the next cut of the CD until I know what I'm going to write next.

Words today: 2,550 (revised, had the font set wrong for counting)
Total so far: 9,767

Day 6

Thanks for stopping in, and for your encouraging words. I am getting a lot out of doing this, so I hope that it is providing some value in return to any who take the time to check in.

Today it was back to doing the 9-hour stretch in the stirrup-buckle factory. I come home with a headache and wanting a nap, and doesn't that sofa in front of the TV look good. But I'm committed; I'm a writer now, and a writer is someone who writes.

More and more, with several scenes behind me, I am getting these nagging little thoughts of "that needs to be changed," and "this is inconsistent," but I am fighting them off. I am looking forward to rewriting, actually, because I think it will feel good to have something to rewrite. But for now it has to be press on, looking neither left nor right, but head down and words moving forward.

Words today: 1,140
Total so far: 10,907

Day 7

Adjusting to my new hours at work, I was able to get to bed early last night and got up a bit earlier and was able to do 600 words before leaving the house. Made the day's quota a lot easier when I returned.

I would prefer to write in the morning every day, but with the earlier schedule, it's debatable if I will be able to move my waking time back far enough to do the whole day's work in one shot. I know it's easy to say, "just set your alarm earlier," but lack of sleep is already documented as a major health concern in this country, and I personally have suffered from a stress-related illness, so even if it seems more difficult to fit writing in after the work day, it is in other ways easier for me, for now.

Today concludes my first week on the project. I stated at the top that I would be happy with 6 sessions of 1,000 words as a week's work. I managed to double that this week. I am sure there will be rougher times ahead, but I am encouraged so far.

Words today: 1,550
Total so far: 12,457