July 30 & 31 (the end)

July 30th.

This was another of those cases where, right before bed, I figured I'd jot down a few words, and wrote more than I had intended.  Which is fine.  You see, I have three projects I've been working on the last week or so: 1) typing up "A Mark on the Sky" from my notebook to the laptop, which sometimes involves writing new bits, 2) my YA novel/novella/short story in my notebook, which is not well-organized, and I just write random scenes for, and 3) a new project I just started on the laptop, but am much more interested in than the other one, and am writing linearly from the beginning.  This writing was on that third project, and what can I say, it's more fun.

Words Written: 533
Total Words: 16,381

July 31st. 

My favorite summer month has ended.  I was planning to go see DUNKIRK with that friend from work, but it fell apart, so I ought to write instead, right?  Salvage the night, maybe at the library?

Alright, damn you, I went to the library, and stayed until they did their obnoxious announcement and flashed the lights.  I really wanted to get all of "Mark on the Sky" typed up, but I didn't make it.  I still have five or six notebook pages left to get down, but it's never just a matter of typing up my handwritten stories; there's always revising, expanding, and occasionally trying to figure out a better line or joke than what I originally wrote.*  Sometimes it's just trying to make heads or tails of my handwriting.  I really ought to work on that.  But I won't.

Words Written: 316
Total Words: 16,697

And there you have it, the end of July.  I wrote every single day, never cheating, never completely failing.  And that's something.  Still, look at those total words.  Not particularly impressive.

And if we look at the total words in February, we got 23,969, and the total March words were never tabulated, so, I guess that gives me a little perspective.  Or half a little.  Why I was so much more dedicated in February than July is hard to pin down.  Maybe I've been working more in July, maybe the hot weather kept my ambition in the shade, maybe the projects I'm in the middle of now are less compelling than the ones from a couple of months ago.

Nevertheless, I don't think I'm going to quit there.  Not entirely, anyway.  I plan on going to the family cabin for another night in a Friday or two, perhaps staying an extra four or five hours longer (or a second night, if I really want to stretch myself).  And yes, I'm going to write every day in August, and I'll TRY to keep up a word count, though I don't think I'll blog it every other day like I did this time.  Unless that's entertaining, I dunno.

Regardless, the month of July was a writing experiment that wasn't wholly unsuccessful, and there will be more to come.

Rish Outfield, Writer.

*For example, in the notebook today, I had a character exclaiming, "Holy god."  I had to decide whether or not to capitalize God (I did), and then I wondered if there wasn't a better expletive for the character to say.  I am ashamed to admit I wasted an inordinate amount of time on this, first changing it to "Mother of God," then changing it to "Jesus wept," and then trying to figure out a clever variation on "Jesus wept."  Jesus slept?  Jesus leapt?  Jesus swept? (that's the one I picked).  But then I thought, why not having it be something totally absurd, like "Baby Jesus' dirty diapers."  Was that funny, or just a mouthful, or more blasphemous than even I had intended?  I changed it back to "Jesus swept," but ended up dissatisfied with the whole thing.