Days Three and Four: Just Getting It On The Page
Day (Three and) Four: (Wednesday the 9th and) Thursday the 10th of November
Apologies for missing yesterday. I was terribly, terribly busy. Well, yes and no. I wrote all day long. From sun-up to sun-down. I haven’t really got much to say about Wednesday except that I’ve reached the 10 000 word mark (in fact I’ve exceeded the 10 000 word mark), which I am overjoyed about. In the evening, James came here and we ate pizza (not just any pizza, the best pizza in the world [seriously] from Little Caesars in Mundaring, winner of the world pizza championships), drank wine and watched lame comedies. It was fantastic. Oh, I have my little cable thing now too, so I’ll try to put some pics up.
I haven’t done any writing yet today. Except for this. I attended a writer’s group this morning and produced a neat little writing exercise that I might turn into something decent. Everybody was very nice, but mostly poets, so I was a little out of place. It was fun to take a break from my story, though, and write a short story!
A group of friends from uni came up around 12, and we all sat under a tree and read what we’re currently working on. I discovered as I read part of my work aloud that it was pretty rubbish. Of course it’s only a first draft with zero editing, but I was suddenly aware of the fact that I really have just pumped stuff out to get moving. But that’s what you need to do sometimes. Just get the story down, just get the ideas out. Deal with style and syntax and expression in the second draft.
My friend Tiffany stayed around until 5-ish, and we chatted about our respective long projects. She’s writing a brilliant piece of West Australian history, so it’s always great to read something totally different to my own work. Tiff managed to restore my faith in my work; I read her a few things I hadn’t read out to the group, and I realised it wasn’t all as bad as I had thought. There’s some good stuff among the rubbish, like all first drafts.
Now I’m just going to try and get some stuff down, since I haven’t had the chance today. My goal is 2500 words, to bring me up to the 20 000 word mark. I’m very tired, so apologies for the general boringness of this entry.