D

[desperance]

And that, laz'n'gemmun, is five hundred pages.

And I think I've found a way to get to the end a little sooner, just by switching point of view earlier than I was expecting to. Watching from a distance, you don't get to see half as much; which means I don't have to describe it. Yay.

But it has to be said, I'm not impressed by my death-marchingness. Time was, I'd have been good at this; but time isn't, and I'm not. So far, I've hardly written more than I would have done anyway. My body's not helping - I'm chilly and wheezy and my back hurts - but these are thin excuses. What I'm thinking, maybe as well as having become (shock, horror!) a morning writer, maybe I've become a steady-as-she-goes writer too, and I don't have a sprint finish any more?

Comments

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!
Take the rest of the morning off: you have official permission to do so.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

maybe I've become a steady-as-she-goes writer too, and I don't have a sprint finish any more?

I'm starting to feel that way too, which is psychologically distressing: I *think* I can do death marches, only man, I just lose interest/focus when I'm trying it.

'course, I might just have pushed myself too hard the last couple years, too. Who knows?

Carry on, sir!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this, Catie. I thought people would sneer and mock, if I 'fessed up...

*carries on*

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Well, I do need to go rice-shopping. Not sure if I can drag it out all morning, though. Given that a sack of rice is, oh, five minutes' walk away...

[time-freak.livejournal.com]

A morning writer... you're such a grown up :-p x

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's just a steady-as-she-goes book?

Increased productivity through lateral thinking

[jeremy-m.livejournal.com]

> And that, laz'n'gemmun, is five hundred pages.

Could be more, with a bigger font.

Re: Increased productivity through lateral thinking

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Is true. Standard US format, indeed, does use a bigger font - 12pt Courier gets about 250 words to a page, where I get 320-odd. I used to get more, and it really was about increased productivity; with a set daily target of five pages, use a smaller font and you do get more words. So I used ten-point for a long time, before somebody gently hinted this was unfair on editors' eyesight. My current position is a compromise: 11pt Bitstream Charter. I like it, both onscreen and on the page. And three pages gets me a thousand words, more or less, and I can do three pages before lunch, most days. After that, everything's a bonus.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Oh how familiar that sounds, too. *laugh* matociquala often calls me the fastest writer in the West, and I have not felt at all like I've been so this year, and it makes me feel as though I'm somehow letting people down. Buh. :)

Carry on. :)

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

I have noticed some distressing issues with this age thing. Like, stamina. And I'm not even THAT old!!!

[athenais.livejournal.com]

Well done, that writer. Rice all around!

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

For the last who knows how many years I wrote everything in 12 point Times New Roman (probably because that was the face my first Smith Corona manual typewriter used [a creature of habit? Me?]) and recently changed to 12 point Courier as a result of some discussion over on matociquala's blog. Is she responsible for everything?

I'm trying to write in the morning and revise in the afternoon. Failing miserably.

Would changing back to Times New Roman make any difference?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Is she responsible for everything?

Yup.

Would changing back to Times New Roman make any difference?

Nope. But do it anyway, because we have to make these little gestures. I spent years (years? decades!) walking under road-signs, because I walked under a road-sign on the way home from the dentist and wondered vaguely if it was as unlucky as walking under ladders, and got home and went into the flat and the phone rang and it was my agent to say she'd sold my first novel. Sadly I can no longer walk under my lucky road-sign, they've taken it away; and everyday commonplace road-signs don't apparently have the same magical effect...

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

Ah, the mystical writing techniques of the secret masters. Or not so secret masters.