ampersand

... and now, for something completely different.

Think of it as limbering up. Stretching. A jog before the marathon. A test of endurance. Just to see if I still have it in me. I've been gone for so long, I'm not even sure if I can do this anymore. This is me running up stairs. This is me punching meat in cold storage.

Only, y'know, with words.

By the end, expect me to be broken bruised forgotten sore. Expect me to be drained. Don't even expect me to win. The fact that I'm even strapping up and putting the gloves on is a win enough. Encouragement, it seems, goes a long way.

I've never believed I've had a novel in me. Or a feature. Or anything that requires anything like an attention span or motivation. Even now, as I write this, there's washing waiting to be hung up, shopping waiting to be ... shopped. And A Nightmare on Elm Street is playing on the TV. Multitasking and I have never really been friends. Here we're about that line between those things I'd rather be doing, and the things that I should be doing. Once upon a time, writing was one of the former. Now, I believe it's moved into the latter.

Direction. Ambition. Motivation.

We've talked about direction - the where are we going? Ambition - the where do we want to go? Next in line is motivation - the what we have to do to get there?

For a time, I had confused Motivation with Opportunity. If Ambition is having the want to move in a Direction, surely one has to wait for an Opportunity to get there, right? Well, what happens when Opportunity comes and passes you by. When it doesn't know your address, or even where your door is? What do you have then?

My problem is, I've been looking for the carrot, not the goal.

And thinking about it now, I should've probably noted what time I started this.

Last night I pasted all of my journals from when I first joined SG back in July 2004 through till October 2006 into Word and ran a word count. It came to just over 80,000 words, give or take some formatting issues and passages hidden in spoilers. Unfortunately Word doesn't run on the adage that a picture is worth a-thousand words, because that probably would've put me much closer to 100,000. Alas, boring photo update Mark doesn't count for much.

50,000 words didn't sound like a lot. As someone explained, it's only really just over one-thousand, six-hundred and sixty-six a day over thirty days. Most of my uni assignments were two to three thousand, and most were written and completed in the wee hours before due date. But even now as I write this, I'm switching from numbers to words, hoping that is going to count for something.

Desperation. Not a scent that suits me.

Learning to make mistakes. Learning not to edit on the go. Learning to leave the crap stuff in. That is going to be the hard part. Cause usually, the crap stuff doesn't even make it to page. Usually the crap stuff is edited well before the keyboard. The problem here is that it doesn't lead to any output. If you're not writing it down - whether it's good or bad - then you're not writing. And that's been the problem.

Four days to go and so far I don't have much to go on. There is an idea. A basic plan for structure and format, but nothing remotely close to what you'd call a 'plot'. I do however have a title, and two character names. The two things that are often the hardest things for me to come up with. I call this a victory, albeit a small one. Granted, these things may change between now and November first, but for now, juices are flowing and words are coming.

But I can't help but be discouraged to find that all of the above only equates to just over six-hundred words. Under half of what has to become my daily quota.

Oh well, I've always been better over short distances.

This was really designed to say anything in particular. It's more an exercise is seeing what will come when I start typing. And even now, as I round the corner of seven-hundred, my wrist is starting to cramp and my fingers are sore. So out of practice. So unfit.

Realistically, I know I'm probably not going to make fifty-thousand in thirty days. Sure, I can ramble when I want to. Seem to be doing a really good job of it right now. Ramble ramble ramble. Could do it for hours. And hours. And hours. I do have the knack for ramble, that's for sure. And it's also true ramble is a great way to boost word count. And it sure does make for a pretty paragraph. But it doesn't really mean you're actually saying anything.

And that's my problem. I don't write ramble. I write short and sharp. To the point. Minimalist.

Short. Sharp. Sentences.

Which doesn't really help the cause at all.

Setting myself up for failure? Probably. Possibly. But it's the trying that counts, right? Right? Yeah, I'm gonna need some coffee. And perhaps a lot of speed. It's gonna be a long month.

Eight hundred and eight-three. Fuck.


disclaimer: in the spirit of the exercise, the above has not been edited or even really spell and grammar checked in any way. Unless it had a squiggly line under it, it went in. Grammar nazis, please be kind.