“You should write a book, a humor book. After all, you like to make people laugh,” they said. I thought about it. I blog, so how much harder could it be? Besides, NaNoWriMo 2018 -National Novel Writing Month 2018- was on its way, I needed to shape up. One month isn’t very long when it comes to producing 50,000 words or more. That’s a lot of words each day!
Because a writer has to be in good shape of mind to write that much that fast, I thought I’d give it a practice run, that is, start a novel now and see how I do. I’ve been keeping a log (or diary) to critique my progress. Things may not always go that well, but at least I will know how I can improve.
My log entry for one day of this past week:
6:00 pm Sitting down to write. Goal: 3 pages. Listened to Fleetwood Mac’s Can’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow. Am really stoked. Going to make these three pages great, funny, whatever…
6:30 pm Still sitting here. Nothing. Creativity deader than a squashed frog. Will try to write some words down anyway. That might lead to something.
7:00 pm Mishmash of words on computer screen. Going to advise reader to read these three pages with lots of caffeine or other brain boosters to accentuate clarity of written word.
7:15 pm If I don’t get this mash of words straightened out, I will need drugs myself. Maybe six pack of beer will suffice or bottle of merlot. Make that two bottles.
7:45 pm Unable to write self out of a paper bag. It’s dark in bag.
8:15 pm Now more than two hours later. Words not talking to each other. Have written several sentences, maybe a whole paragraph.
8:30 pm Paragraph doesn’t make sense. Sentences tangled up. Words hate each other.
8:45 pm Words playing solitaire. How to go on to next paragraph when the first one doesn’t work?
9:00 pm First paragraph still fuzzy, not quite the way I want it. Almost there…so will go on to next paragraph.
9:30 pm Second paragraph much longer than first. Words disorderly. Won’t convey message the way I want. Words threatening mutiny.
9:45 pm Working on third paragraph. Pushing this through. Not funny. Looking for funny metaphor, none in sight. Brain depleted of funny metaphors.
10:00 pm Fourth paragraph in sight. Almost one frickin’ page completed. Found metaphor. Grabbed it by its big toe and jammed it in there. It’s funny now.
10:45 pm Getting tired. Working on fifth paragraph anyway. Almost one page done. Hole in paper bag. Lights are still on…outside of bag.
11:00 pm 5 hours to write one imperfect page. Having hard time writing funny. Looking for punchline for fifth paragraph. Think punchline just hit me in the face.
11:15 pm Trying to do word count. Words won’t sit still. Maybe should just count sentences and not drink entire bottle of wine.
11:30 pm Still writing first paragraph of second page. Maybe should write poem instead. Then would have good excuse for disorganized syntax.
11:45 pm Still considering poem. Could make it short. Might settle for Haiku and then go to bed.
12:00 Midnight Eyelids heavy. Feel like sandbags. Going on Twitter. Expect reading angry Tweets to wake me up.
12:30 am Tweets waste of time. Going to outline paragraph.
1:00 am Lost in my mind. Might be dreaming. Still looking for beginning sentence of new paragraph. It’s in there somewhere…
1:15 am Sat in chair asleep.
1:30 am Gave up. Going to bed. Need sleep to write.
3:30 am Insomnia. Transposing words and sentences in my dreams, I think that’s what I am doing.
4:00 am Finally asleep….maybe.
