The Lenten period has come to a close and Easter’s just around the corner. I kept my promise and wrote every single day.
Right off, I discovered I don’t have room in my life to be an effective father, work full-time, take on life’s curve balls, write a satisfying amount, AND keep up with a game like Genshin Impact. (So Genshin had to go.)
In fact, I only briefly played a few video games during Lent, to the point where “Not playing video games” may as well have been my promise. I also stopped snacking. Being disciplined with writing seemed to be contagious to other aspects of my life. Now that I think about it, the same thing tends to happen with exercise.
What does 40 days’ worth of writing look like?
I had just one blog post I created here during that time period. On that particular day I wrote so little fiction that I decided to stop blogging until the end of Lent. (Maybe I should’ve communicated that decision here, but I was busy writing, so I figured you’d forgive me.)
I reached Act II in The Machine, and ran into trouble because I need to figure out the appropriate roles for my “Five Man Band”, and make many other small decisions that will help guide me in writing the middle of the story.
This is a common problem for me. I have the beginning and end figured out, but the middle is too muddy. I’m going to need several epiphanies before I’m able to move on.
In the end, I wrote about 5,500 words’ worth of content for The Machine, and a lot of that will be cut from the final product. My unspoken goal was to have this short story finished by the end of Lent, but I segued into another project instead.
The other project is currently unnamed, but it flowed like water. It’s almost complete and is currently clocking in at 23,910 words, edited and fully polished. It has a beginning, an ending, and most of the middle written.
An intriguing mystery popped up while discovery-writing that kept me obsessed with the project, and I couldn’t help but write it to near-completion. The only problem with this project is… I don’t think I’d publish it under this pen name.
BUT, I am now strongly in the habit of writing every day. And it looks like, when I focus, I can clock in about 30k words in 40 days. That doesn’t seem bad at all.
Nick Enlowe 