Monday, November 07, 2005

Lessons Learned

First of all, I could do this. Given a day without a day job and with priorities in place, I can write a chapter a day easy and still have time for errands and lunches with friends and other things. A chapter a day equals roughly a novel a month. A rough draft of a novel anyway. Figure another month (maybe, I haven't tried this out yet) for re-writing and maybe a month up front to plan and outline, that's three months for a complete novel. Stay on that schedule and that's four novels a year. A guy could make a living off that, assuming they were publishable. I certainly have enough ideas to stay on that kind of schedule.

I also learned that the idea of one, special Writing Place probably won't work for me. It was incredibly helpful to get out of the house and go somewhere to write, but I'd start to go stir crazy about two-thirds of the way in to every chapter. I'd need to change something, even if it was just moving to another seat in the same coffee shop or going for a drive to clear my head and then coming back to finish.

Out of the three coffee shops I tried, Barnes & Noble was the most comfortable and conducive to getting things done. My laptop has plenty of battery power to allow me to get a chapter done before taking it home to recharge.

So, yeah. I can do this. I didn't get a chapter done yesterday and that bothers me, but it's not a disaster. There's plenty of time left in the month to finish the draft as long as I keep at it every day. Today will be a big test because I'm back at work and on a tighter daily schedule. We'll see.

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