PROCRASTINATION!

Ok.

I've been stuck on page 427 of Hunters for the last...I don't know HOW MANY weeks now, so I'm going to make myself sit down tomorrow and finish the sucker.

Then at last I can begin the work of counting the Post-Its and categorizing the passages they mark.

No doubt the ENORMITY of that task is part of what has been holding me back.

The remainder, however, is primarily a natural reluctance to WASTE any more of my time on what I have come to see as a very, very BAD piece of writing.

Let us unite together in recitation of the Litany of St. Malory:

BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD!!!

A numbers game?

I guess for some it really is just all about the numbers.

How many words can you write in one day, how many books in a year?

How many different projects can you juggle and keep up in the air at once?

And how many books can you sign in one sitting?

Whatever happened to writing A good BOOK? Does everything have to start out as a trilogy or series these days?

I'm sorry, but there IS a relation between quantity and time and quality.

I guess I'm just a hand-tailored bug in an off-the-rack world....

A newfound respect: a brief note on writers and writing

It's still too soon to come to a definite conclusion on "writing by numbers", but I have found a new respect for authors who manage to write anything at all while holding down a full time job!

My hat is off to you all.

To "Mouse Moon" Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Chig-Chig Rodriguez

If you don't follow the Dune Novels BBS and have no idea what this is, don't worry about it!


Please accept this in lieu of an actual signature. When we meet at DuneCon I'll redeem it with a real one or initial your print out.

(There's a Truman Capote joke in there somewhere...but never mind.)

-SC


Addendum:

And here's another little something for a special friend, Mastah B:



Who else wants a piece of this?

Writing by numbers

I've stated elsewhere that I have never been interested in becoming a fiction writer myself...and that was no lie. Nevertheless, I am interested in the process of creative writing and have flirted with participating in the National Novel Writing Month (www.nanowrimo.org) contest since I first heard about it three or four years ago, just to see what it's like trying to compose something longer than the little parodies and silly episodic pieces I occasionally spin off.

In case you're not familiar with the contest, the goal is to write a 50,000-word novel (novella, really) within the 30 days of November. (By way of comparison, that's about two-thirds the length of Dune Messiah, and only one-fourth the length of Dune.) See their website for more information, if you're interested.

This year I'm particularly interested in giving it a serious go as a result of all the discussion on how hard writers work and the whole issue of writing with a definite deadline (especially in connection with the idea of setting daily quotas).

I got off to a bit of a slow start (only 107 words) on Wednesday and didn't feel like writing on Thursday, but Friday (the "Culture Day" holiday here) I wrote 970 words and yesterday managed 2,065...253 words over the quota for the day. To stay on schedule I have to write 1,802 words today. It's already past 5:30 and the total so far is...0. Ooh, ooh, the pressure!

I'll keep y'all updated on my progress through the course of the rest of the month.

And don't worry...I won't be forcing any excerpts on you!