Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Writing Stuff

I have been toying with the idea of setting up a separate blog devoted just to writing pursuits, but I think that would be a bit premature at this point. Besides, at the moment I'd rather write stories (or running blog posts) than write about writing. So, I decided I'm content to just do the occasional post here on my running blog for now, especially since the story I'm working on is running related.

It's going well. Very well, in fact. The loose goal now is to write about 1000 words a day (which is 3-4 pages a day, depending on who's definition of a page you abide by). That's actually kind of easy to do at this point, now that I have the ball rolling. I might not hit it that number on the busier days, but I can always make up for it on the lighter days and weekends. It's just nice to have the idea well formulated in my head and I must admit, Scrivener is proving to a valuable tool, especially for making it easier to access research and notes.

However, what is challenging is of course work. Teaching tends to turn your brain into green jello by the end of the day. When Stephen King was a high school English teacher before he struck it big with "Carrie", he basically said the same thing. But going for a run afterwards tends to recharge the brain, and I'm also usually up between 3:30-4:30am and the early morning hours are a perfect time to write. And Kate is very understanding and supportive, which is also great. I'm marrying the right woman for sure!

I still expect the first draft to be done sometime this winter. There will be a lot of editing to be done in the following drafts, but perhaps by this summer I'll be ready to (gulp) publish. We'll see, but so far so good.

2 comments:

Robert Stuart said...

I remember you commenting that you're a Bernd Heinrich fan. Which one of his books has been a favorite of yours? I'm new to his work and trying to decide which book to start with.

Jamie Anderson said...

Why We Run is a great read.. he focuses a lot on the science on running how it has played a key role in the evolution of humans. But his other books on nature are equally as great. A Year in the Maine Woods was a great read. One Man's Owl is also high up on my list. Wasn't too crazy about Mind of the Raven, though that's a favorite for a lot of people.