Monday, April 02, 2018

Mentally Composing at the Gym

Thursday.  Wrote like the wind.  Was lucky enough to have J.O. come by in the afternoon and keep me honest about writing (he finished up a short story sequel).  

Friday afternoon.  Felt stuck writing so I went to the gym.  30 minutes and 350 calories on the Nordic Elliptical.  (Closed my eyes and imagined various story settings and character interactions.  Now I've got to write them down....)  Downstairs 13x(30+50+60)lbs on the pec fly.  13x(30+40+40)lbs on the deltoid fly.  13x(60+80+80)lbs on the lat pull-down.  3x13 Roman Chair curls.  3x13x35lbs barbell curl.  3x13x40lbs on the triceps pull-down.  2x8x7lbs on side and lateral pull ups.

Saturday.   Wrote like the wind (sort of).   Got lots of words written, just not as many as Thursday. Went to Dave Bischoff's memorial at Tsunami Books.

Easter Sunday Morning.  Went to the gym.  30 minutes and 350 calories on the Nordic Elliptical.    Downstairs 13x(30+50+60)lbs on the pec fly.  13x(30+40+40)lbs on the deltoid fly.  13x(60+80+80)lbs on the lat pull-down.  3x13x35lbs barbell curl.  3x13x40lbs on the triceps pull-down.  3x8x5lbs on side and lateral pull ups.

More Writing Like the Wind.  Called various family members and wished them a Happy Easter.  Looked at the house and noticed that while it's not exactly trashed, there are a lot of things that should be put away.

Day finished with ~2500 new words, bringing the novel's total word count to about 38,000.  Editing will cut this down quite a bit, as there's a number of back-story scenes that are useful to have as research, but not so useful for the novel's story arc.  And also, there's just... warm up text or notes to myself.  So the novel may turn into a novella.  If I manage to write 10,000 words a week for the next lunar cycle, I'll get closer to the actual word count goal.

What the last four days as reminded me of:

  • my word count benefits from focused group-writing, 
  • I have a 4PM-ish slump (either a circadian rythem or else five or six hours of writing induced fatigue), 
  • I probably could happily write from 8 PM to 3 AM, 
  • my word count benefits from preparing maps of cities, countries, buildings, rooms before-hand,
  • my word count benefits when I write "[RESEARCH THIS]" instead of taking a quick peek at Wikipedia, 
  • I can churn out about 500 words an hour of OK first-draft prose, 2000 words per day is a limit I need to push against because I can double-that with the right prep / scene.  
  • there's something to be said for writing at a real desk/table.

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