This seemed like a good challenge to me. Can I write 500 words per day for 31 days? Do I really have the discipline to sit down, come up with the necessary idea, or ideas if it’s a really good day, and actually create that kind of volume? OK, so 500 words aren’t really that many when you look at some of the great writers through the ages. Look at Shakespeare’s phenomenal accomplishments, and he wrote with a quill and ink. How many millions of words have authors like James Patterson written, never mind how much more has been written by his collaborators?
The next question is going to be what time is going to be the best time to write? I’m not a morning person. By that I mean that I don’t have anything against morning per se, I just have a lot of animosity towards my fellow members of the human race, and I use that term loosely, who not only manage to rise but actually shine in the morning. I rise. I do not shine. There has to be a certain amount of caffeine buzzing around in my veins before I am willing to communicate with the world. There is a reason we invented answering machines and voice mail.
Actually, morning might be a good time to write. Once the coffee is brewing and the cat has been fed, although not necessarily in that order, it would be a good time to deal with all the random thoughts and voices that ping around inside my skull when I wake up in the morning. I’m sure most are a leftover from dreams that aren’t worth recalling, but there are always stray scraps of conversations with characters that have yet to be released from my computer. These are the voices, not the kind that urges a person to go out and commit murder and mayhem, or fashion a tinfoil hat and go and sit inside a pyramidal structure. Then there are various opinions that have developed while reading the exploits of the aforementioned human race on the morning news on the internet. Some of those might need to be heavily censored before being released to the general public, as my personal opinion is that the word ‘civilization’ has come to mean far less than it once did.
Yes, morning is looking better and better. During the summer I can escape to the serenity of my garden with my laptop and cup of coffee. Of course, there will be a few interruptions. The hummingbirds get very territorial if I choose to sit too close to their favourite laurel leaf willow tree, and the cat sees no difference between snoozing on my desk in the office and attempting to snooze on the keyboard of my laptop. The first will require moving my chair a judicious distance from the tree, and the second can be handled by draping the cat around my neck, which is his second favourite spot to sleep.
Part of the winter is spent in the cold country of Central Alberta where the morning routine could consist of the laptop, coffee, cat and the couch and part of it could consist of a wide open door, and watching and listening to the Arizona birds squabble over their bird seed.
Yes, I believe 500 words is definitely doable before the world intrudes for the day.
Canadian by Choice 