FACING THE BLANK PAGE, WEEK 6

It was June 26, and I was coming into the end zone of my six-week Facing-the-Blank-Page project.

Sunday through Tuesday were spent in Connecticut visiting Daughter #3 and her family. Lots of catching up to do. Two adorable grandchildren, whom I don’t see often enough. My seven-year-old grandson’s martial arts graduation ceremony to view. An overnighter to Mystic to tour submarines, eat lobster, and watch my ten-year-old granddaughter shop for her birthday present.

My word count for those three days? Nada. But that was okay.

This vacation from writing and concentrating on my project must have shifted something in my unconscious. As I was falling asleep Tuesday evening, I found myself reflecting on another project of mine, one I hadn’t thought of in months. As I wrote on the train heading home from Connecticut the next day:

I had an epiphany yesterday, thinking about Required Reading.

Little off track here, Joan, aren’t we?

Required Reading is either (take your pick) a YA novel in need of revision OR one section of an adult novel in need of completion. The idea that came to me was a good one, involving some restructuring of plot and deepening of character in ways that would really improve the novel. I wrote 520 words sketching out the new idea—and this on a commuter train, where it’s difficult for me to write.

Was this epiphany a gift from my unconscious for all the hard work I’d put in over the past six weeks? Or was it a sly trick, an attempt to seduce me into dropping the Millay biography for now and get right to work implementing my revelation?

In either case . . . No, no, no. Focus, focus, focus.  File the idea away (not too far away) and get back to it when I finish the Millay bio.

Technically, the Facing-the-Blank-Page project was due to conclude on Saturday, July 2, but I decided to end it two days early, on the last day of June, before the July 4th weekend, when I’d be going away again and so wouldn’t get much, if anything, done. I could now think of my project as 40 Days in the Wilderness of the Blank Page.

So Thursday, June 30, became the day to look back and sum up what I had and hadn’t accomplished. Since May 22, 40 days ago, I’d managed to write at least something on 32, or 4/5 of those days, for a grand total of 25,000 words. This works out to an average of 625 words per day, easily meeting my goal. Even better, on actual writing days, my average word count was 781. Good-O and kudos to me!

One important thing I noticed was that in May, when I’d set myself a goal of 1000 words  a day, I’d averaged 995 on every day I actually worked. In June, when I still aimed for 1000 but decided to accept a minimum of 600, my word-count average dropped to 781 on my working days. Memo to self: don’t be afraid to set your goals high.

Now that I had those 25,000 words, what was I going to do with them? The remaining 760 words I wrote that day comprised my plans for Publish Before I Perish, my project for the next two months.