Snap Back to Reality (with apologies to Eminem, and a coda from Maya Angelou)

Back to reality, pulled out of the writing, reading, and relaxing hours of a holiday weekend by the inexorable gravity of, well, the work week. Thankfully I was able to keep to my #BoNoProMo schedule with the help of those extra weekend hours, and with only three days left in the month, I believe we will soon be successfully concluding the experiment.

Now the research committee, also known as my inner critic and personal noodge, begins its questioning. So, Mr. Dorneman. You say you've written every day this month, for ten hours a week or more. What exactly do you have to show for all that time expended?

Good question. But first let's look at the project charter. It says here (if I may paraphrase), that BoNoProMo isn't supposed to be about the output, but instead about the process, and about instilling good writing habits, and understanding what does and doesn't work for any given writer.

Well, on the process front, we shall see how much of a habit I've instilled. I have learned that ten hours of writing a week while working full time and dealing with my ongoing pain issues is likely four or five hours too many. I gave up at least a couple of hours of physical exercise each week for writing, and I'd like those back. (The lost television hours, not so much.) But 30-60 minutes per day is looking very doable.

I also found out that given more time to write, and by that I really mean closing the web browser and giving the butt more time in the chair while staring at a blank Word document, that the words will come.

This was never guaranteed, and comes as a rather pleasant surprise.

During the month I've already completed multiple-draft versions of two short stories, both around 3,000 words (10 pages), and multiple drafts of a 350-word flash fiction story. I've written thirteen pages, let's call it a chapter or two, of a new long-form project (The Text That Cannot Be Named). I've started three stories that went nowhere after a page or two each, and a fourth that is the current project, now at four pages and counting. That's a lot of words, at least for me. 

(I'll let others be the judge of their quality.)

Oh, and the weekly blog posts. They count, too. With bonus Transformers pictures.

You remember the official #BoNoProMo writer Transformer, of course:

Well, the picture below is of the above writer's best friend, now turned mortal enemy (or is it the other way around?), a.k.a. The Critic Transformer. Note how the pen has been replaced by some serious cutting equipment.

Let the epic battle begin.

Thanks for Reading,

Stephen

“History, despite its wrenching pain,

Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage,

Need not be lived again.”

Maya Angelou, 1928 – 2014.

(From “The Rock Cries Out to Us Today.”)