1000 Words Every Day

June 28, 2018

I participated in #1000wordsofsummer, a sort of challenge to write 1000 words every day from June 15 to June 29. Jami Attenberg started it on Twitter as a thing with a friend, but it spread quickly on Twitter and Instagram, with hundreds of people playing along. It’s simple: Jami sends an email every morning with words of encouragement and advice from writers. And you write 1000 words every day.

When I saw the original tweet back in May, it seemed like a great idea. Totally doable (I wrote the first draft of two novels last year, not quite at a pace of 1000 words a day, but pretty close) and maybe even fun with a virtual accountability group of strangers. So I added it to my calendar, signed up for the mailing list, and then promptly forgot about it.

At the time I was working on the second draft of one of the aforementioned novels. I wasn’t thinking about a new project but struggling through the problems of the current one. I had reached a point where I had no idea where the story should end up. The book wasn’t playing, and I wondered if it was time to try something different.

Then I kept seeing the challenge in my calendar as the start date approached and, without thinking about it consciously, without planning it at all, a new idea began to brew.

I made some notes the night before and started writing the first draft on June 15. It sounds simple when I put it like that. But it’s an accumulation of what I’ve already done. It’s a different approach into a universe I’ve been writing in and thinking about for a while, something that finally feels like the beginning of something. It starts at a simpler place, at a point further away from where I’ve already been. Just to see where it goes. No pressure.

What’s become clear from this experience is that I’m all too eager to start new projects. The revision process is so difficult and, so far, uncharted. I have no idea what I’m doing. The process of writing a first draft, however, is familiar now. I know that I can write a novel-length project; when I sit down, the words will come eventually. At this point, that part is comparatively easy. What I haven’t figured out is how to take the next step, closer to the finished project. I don’t yet have faith that I am capable of editing a project to completion. And at this point it’s still scary enough that beginning a new project feels safer.

So far I’ve been able to avoid facing the flaws in the projects that are still in draft. I haven’t had to deal with the mistakes I’ve made, which means I haven’t been able to learn from them. After not having anything close to a finished product, that’s the next worst thing: I could be writing better first drafts if I were more intimately acquainted with what I’ve been doing wrong in them, by having to fix them in subsequent drafts.

My routine for the last two weeks has been the same as before: I write morning pages for about ten minutes first thing in the morning, drink a cup of coffee, and get to writing. I usually get the day’s 1000 words done in an hour. On a good day it’s more words in less time. On an imperfect day, I need another half an hour later in the day to make up for the slack. That’s the beauty of this challenge — without it, I would be satisfied with 300 or 500 or 700 words, but I have a goal to reach, so I put in some extra time to make it happen. Always it’s easier than I think it’ll be. Which doesn’t make it seem any less impossible when I sit down to begin.

Some of my favourite parts of the #1000wordsofsummer daily emails are Will Leitch quoting Roger Ebert — “The muse visits during the act of creation, not before” — and Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney talking about “the deeply unglamorous task of tolerating yourself long enough to push something out” and Hannah Tinti comparing writing to pottery because the failed creations recycled into the clay ages it like a fine wine and Ada Limon on silence being the place where writing begins. I almost never read the emails until after finishing my 1000 words every day, but they remind me of what I’m working toward and what I aspire to do.

If all goes as planned, by September I’ll have another first draft completed. So many things could happen before then! If I get there, it’ll be time to get beyond the first draft. It’s terrifying to face what once made you so proud but may turn out to be a pile of garbage. It’s not enough to be proud; you have to keep going. You have to figure out where you went wrong and how to fix it. So that’s my next step. After this one, enough of first drafts. Time to face it.

June 28, 2018

Long Walks in Spring

June 19, 2018

This spring I’ve been going for a lot of walks. Sometimes it’s a stroll around the neighbourhood in the morning before work. A hike on nearby trails on a weekend morning. A quick meander to a little garden behind a nearby museum before dinner. A visit to the local botanical gardens to see the new growth. Daffodils and tulips in April, cherry blossoms and magnolias and lilacs in May, irises and peonies in June. And now the roses have started to bloom.

A trail through the forest

In an ideal world, every morning I would get out of bed, pour a cup of coffee, and go for a walk. The temperature would be cool enough for a light sweater, the sun in its eternal process of rising, my neighbours quiet, barely any cars in the street.

I would let my bleary mind wander through the world of whatever story I was writing. As I walked I would reveal situations, deepen motivations, clarify meanings. And I would return home, coffee drunk, and sit down with my laptop to write, write, write.

Lilacs

But what happens instead? I pop in my earbuds and listen to a podcast or an audiobook and get swept away into another world. Someone else’s world. Or I put on music and look at houses and their front gardens, the insides of cars parked on the street, the birds on the wires and in the bushes. Or I get caught up in thoughts about everything but writing — politics, money, job, people, and all the ways the world is a horrible place.

What I want to do while I walk is immerse myself in the world waiting inside my head while moving within the physical world. Diving into an incomplete fictional world is scary and difficult, so the concrete nature of the sidewalk provides some stability.

Magnolia trees

Away from the screen, glimpses of other worlds come into it, little pieces that don’t fit the whole but somehow inform it. Shards of influence break into the wide blank expanse of what a story might be. You worry about everything you don’t know yet and fear that it’s all a mirage. At some point you can see it all laid out, like seeing every frame of a film at once and knowing in a moment everything that happens. It’s impossible. You are left with a memory of that glimpse, the universe within a second, but nothing of what it contained.

Somehow walking feels like part of the work. It’s a way to look at the story from a distance, away from the screen, and consider how it all fits. But I can’t seem to write a story without words. I can only get anywhere while I’m sitting at the keyboard, as though an accumulating word count is all that matters. Perhaps it is. There is no book without words. But there are no words without — what? What am I really looking for? Time to think? Space to imagine? Paths to wander? The words might disappear entirely if I don’t stretch my legs, look at the sky, breathe the imperfect air.

Cherry blossoms

Every year I forget that spring is my favourite season. A renewed love for bright green growth and tender blossoms creeps up on me as though it hasn’t happened every year of my life. There is a special energy as colour and warmth emerge after an eternal-seeming cold. It’s easy to forget how impossible it seemed to survive the winter.

I should expect no more from these spring walks than a breath of air in this stifling city, some fresh gleam of colour against the grey and brown, a step light enough that I can feel the earth press back against the bottoms of my feet, like a gentle nudge of acknowledgment, a squeeze of approval. I want more, of course, but perhaps that could be enough.

June 19, 2018