Friday, July 22, 2011

FACING THE BLANK PAGE, WEEK 5

This week I finally started hitting my stride, at least in terms of word count. On Sunday, the 19th of June, I wrote the 1350-word entry that became the basis of this series of “Facing the Blank Page” blogs. From this point on on I focused on A Girl Named Vincent exclusively.

But I hit a snag here too. Monday’s writing stint began with these words:

The problem now with keeping to my 1000-word-a-day schedule and focusing on the Millay biography is that I’m at the point where I need to do research and take notes in order to have anything to write. But note-taking doesn’t count as writing. Also, I need to start doing some revising. Di Camillo halves her page quota for revision, but I think I’m going to keep my quota the same 600 to 1000 words, since it’s still rough revision and will include lots of new writing as well. 


I may be doing some restructuring as well. Maybe I will call the opening pages the preface, instead of Chapter 1. And leave Millay out of it.

This rethinking of approach morphed into an actual re-writing of the first part of the preface for a total word count of 1300.

Tuesday: 1100 words of good stuff for the preface (or Chapter 1), presenting Millay’s backstory up until the age of 20—who she was, what her life was like, what her motivations were.

Wednesday: a little cheating here. Six hundred words which are really note-taking (but rephrased in my own words) describing Millay’s hometown.

Thursday: real cheating now. One thousand words, but all notes on one of the earlier adult biographies of Millay, mostly on her family and early life.

Friday: researching the turn-of-the century era when Millay was a young girl—650 words of notes on various books about the period. The hell with calling note-taking cheating, I decided. It was what I needed to do now, so it would count.

Saturday: Only 100 words today, a vivid rewrite of the opening of Chapter 1 (or Chapter 2, if I decide to call the preface, Chapter 1) in the interests of heightening the drama, plus four lines of a poem I was working on.

Saturday’s output was small because I had to rush to catch a bus, the first leg of my trek to Connecticut for a five-day visit with Daughter #3 and her family. My granddaughter, who would be turning 10 on Tuesday and whose parents were taking her and her little brother on an overnighter to Mystic for a birthday treat, said she wanted her grandma to come along too. Couldn’t resist an appeal like that. So off I went.

Would I get much writing done? I suspected not. Wisely, I introduced an Orwellian modification to the rules: I would write at least 600 words every day, except when I had or was an overnight guest.

2 comments:

  1. You have to have some regular life in between the writing. It's a chance to refresh and renew in so many ways, and connections with people are what it's all about, anyway.

    I'm enjoying realizing, through your posts, that all writing, any writing, including blog posts and e-mails, helps us to keep in touch with our own inner voice; and that it does count as writing.

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  2. Yes, Annie, that's something I've been learning too. Writing is writing, in whatever form.

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