Mile Marker #16: Thoughts on Hot Garbage
You ever have one of those days where writing feels like pulling teeth, and when you reach a stopping point you’re just totally not into anything you just wrote?
That was me last night. I had a pretty good writing day — about 1500 words in the morning, and another 2000 in the late evening. I’m very happy with that first chunk, but that second was — woof.
I think my biggest problem with last night in particular was that I was trying too hard to adapt something pre-written to the new draft. It just wasn’t working, but I kept forcing it because I felt like, “If I’ve already put in this much work, I might as well finish it.”
Now that I’m starting my Tuesday marathon, I think I’m going to end up scrapping that scene completely.
That doesn’t mean yesterday was a total wash (and I admit I’m keeping the scene in right now so I don’t lose 2K of competition word count). I really like what I wrote in the morning. I think the difference there is that the morning piece was entirely new drafting, and the evening piece was “editing” that just didn’t want to be edited.
I thought this second draft would involve a lot more direct transcription. (Well, line edits while changing POV.) Instead, I think a solid 30,000 - 35,000 of the 42,000 words in this draft are entirely new drafting. I’m not complaining, I just wasn’t expecting it, really!
I still feel good about my deadline. I’m averaging about 11,000 words/week. I need to be at 10,000/week to stay on target. Last week was rough with only 3073 words, but I’m already up to 8303 this week and I have my full marathon day ahead of me to finish it out.
(Note: I run my weeks Wednesday to Tuesday, because Tuesdays are my marathon days and I have class on Tuesday evenings. I used to go Monday-Sunday, but then I’d get weirdly mad at myself for not doing “enough.” I’m not sure why the switch to ending on a Tuesday has helped me so much. I think it’s because I’m more likely to push and get those last couple thousand words on a Tuesday than I am to push myself on a Sunday.)
I also started on my grad school applications yesterday, and by “started” I mean “made a spreadsheet and then got super overwhelmed trying to write a statement of purpose, so instead wrote a 5-page stream of consciousness rant about my life as a writer.” Hopefully there’s some good stuff buried in that pile of hot garbage.
My point today is that sometimes you have to wade through hot garbage to get to the good stuff. And even if you have a day that feels like it’s nothing but hot garbage, that’s still a good day because it means you cleared the hot garbage out of your word machine and can start fresh on the next page.
Look at me being all inspirational n’ shit. That’s not hot garbage!
Til next time,
Mags