That Tuesday count again
Oct. 17th, 2006 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceFor those of you who haven't been following, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
davidbarnett and I found ourselves at the start of this month more or less the same distance into our respective books, with more or less the same deadline (end of this month) and absolutely the same agent to deliver 'em to; so we declared a race. Other people are joining in, and welcome all.
Tuesday at noon is declaration-time, how far we've got this last week. So:
Or, in pages (my preferred measure):
Which means I've written 48 pages in the last week, or 14,580 words. Which are no bad numbers, so it's a little odd to find myself dissatisfied. It's not unusual, I am your classic malcontent with self-contempt as my baseline default position, but I do think it's odd, and therefore interesting.
Partly, of course, I just think I could have written more: hell, I wrote eleven pages on Saturday, so why only two on Sunday? Etc. It's the curse of the freelance, to treat a peak as a target.
Also, I'm anxious that the book is going too talky on me, that too many of these words are redundant. That can be sorted out later (one thing that's clear, it's going to overrun its original targets; I've already bumped it from eighty to ninety thousand, and it's not going to stop there. This is an elastic kind of race, they keep shifting my finishing-line way beyond David's), but it's an anxiety now.
Also, I've had a fairly clear week to do this work in, apart from one evening out and a dose of ill health; that doesn't apply hereafter. The week ahead is going to be a nightmare, work-wise, I have other things scheduled for every day, and it's making me uneasy already. The late stages of a book are a time for focus and intensity; I want to go into purdah, and I can't.
So, all of the above. A good week's work, I just wish it had been better, because next week I'm going to slip behind. In the race, and in reality: they are the same. S'funny how much the racing really does help, though. Any incentive will do, and writing is after all a competitive sport (strange to learn that, after so many years of saying the other thing). Even this morning, I have errands to pursue but I've stayed stubbornly here until now, just to get one more page in before the deadline.
But now it's nearly noon, and I shall save my nearly-finished next page for next week's count, which will need it more. And go into town and buy cat-toys and drugs and whatever the other thing was if I can remember it; and then hope to get some more work done this afternoon, before I have to go and see Hank Wangford. Wheezingly.
davidbarnett and I found ourselves at the start of this month more or less the same distance into our respective books, with more or less the same deadline (end of this month) and absolutely the same agent to deliver 'em to; so we declared a race. Other people are joining in, and welcome all.Tuesday at noon is declaration-time, how far we've got this last week. So:
| |
80,190 / 90,000 (89.1%) |
Or, in pages (my preferred measure):
| |
248 / 300 (82.7%) |
Which means I've written 48 pages in the last week, or 14,580 words. Which are no bad numbers, so it's a little odd to find myself dissatisfied. It's not unusual, I am your classic malcontent with self-contempt as my baseline default position, but I do think it's odd, and therefore interesting.
Partly, of course, I just think I could have written more: hell, I wrote eleven pages on Saturday, so why only two on Sunday? Etc. It's the curse of the freelance, to treat a peak as a target.
Also, I'm anxious that the book is going too talky on me, that too many of these words are redundant. That can be sorted out later (one thing that's clear, it's going to overrun its original targets; I've already bumped it from eighty to ninety thousand, and it's not going to stop there. This is an elastic kind of race, they keep shifting my finishing-line way beyond David's), but it's an anxiety now.
Also, I've had a fairly clear week to do this work in, apart from one evening out and a dose of ill health; that doesn't apply hereafter. The week ahead is going to be a nightmare, work-wise, I have other things scheduled for every day, and it's making me uneasy already. The late stages of a book are a time for focus and intensity; I want to go into purdah, and I can't.
So, all of the above. A good week's work, I just wish it had been better, because next week I'm going to slip behind. In the race, and in reality: they are the same. S'funny how much the racing really does help, though. Any incentive will do, and writing is after all a competitive sport (strange to learn that, after so many years of saying the other thing). Even this morning, I have errands to pursue but I've stayed stubbornly here until now, just to get one more page in before the deadline.
But now it's nearly noon, and I shall save my nearly-finished next page for next week's count, which will need it more. And go into town and buy cat-toys and drugs and whatever the other thing was if I can remember it; and then hope to get some more work done this afternoon, before I have to go and see Hank Wangford. Wheezingly.