Padding for Gold

I had been feeling slightly less cheery. About the Job-versus-Me word count exercise. Over these past couple weeks I'd noticed two issues.

Firstly. Every day, when I knew I'd written more for me than for the job, and knew I'd beaten the workday count, I slacked off in the evenings, usually didn't scribble much more. I'd mosey over my notes for Joe. Or that NaNo outline. Like I was whiling away my afterhours at the mall, window shopping.

I don't need phud after my name (um...Ph.D) to know where my head was at. Atop my shoulders where it customarily bobbles, Head, and I, of one mind, oh'yes, had decided we had done enough. There were numbers to prove it.

No matter. That's no huge problemo. Slacking will go when a deadline nears.

The second issue. I didn't like the feeling a lot of the scribbling wasn't much different from padding.

I was scribbling about anything and everything. The thoughts of the moment. Even the I'm tapping out words to be tapping down words starter, with variations, and goin' on from there. For however long the words kept coming.

And the words kept coming. A lot of the scribblings resemble journal entries. Fine. I'm glad the moments have been recorded. I might learn something from them someday. I also jotted down bits and stretches of stuff that will make fiction. Thrilling wee scenes that materialized in the space after breakfast (possibly digestion-related).

So, bring on the padding, I say. There's gold in them thar...words.

Round 1...Goes to Me!

I did it. After last weekend's promise to myself that I would this whole workweek just over write more for me than for the day job, I did it.

It wasn't at all difficult to do. Starting during breakfast every morning, in the hour before heading out the door to work, I scribbled down whatever I was currently mulling over. Whatever of the night's dreams still lingered behind my eyes. Story adds or maybes or dialogue-bits. The workday to-do list (or wish-to-do list). I wrote down anything and everything I could think on.

I call these 'scribblers'. I do these in e-form mostly, in a PC, or laptop, whichever's handy. I'm saving trees, and light-bulbs, is how I'm seeing it. My scribblers should probably properly be called tappings, or some such. Um. No. Scribbler accurately describes what it's supposed to be: just some non-paper place for recording...whatever, quickly, and edit-optional. It doesn't haveta be pretty.

My breakfast count averaged a few hundred words, every morning this past week. That put a spring into my step. I felt miles ahead, by at least a few hundred words, of anything the workday might have waiting for me.

I started a scribbler at work every morn too. An email draft, actually. I added to it through the day. So I only stretched my lead on whatever the work day dropped before me. I felt I could clear every hurdle. My day-end counts showed the proof.

I won't bore you with the numbers. Most folks don't swoon over spreadsheets, or go potty over pie-charts, or gaga over graphs, no matter how nice the colours. But my daily wins put a grin on my face, daily. Or nightly, yeah.

One funny observation: I'm remembering more of each night's dreams. Maybe I'm remembering more because I'm showing renewed interest in recording them. I used to fill 3-ring binders with dream records when I was a kid. It was a great writing exercise. I'll keep at it, of course. Wouldn't want to scare them away.

Sunday Fight-the-System Mini-Film-Fest

Spent Sunday mostly watching DVDs. Retreated to my fortress of solitude, here in the oft-unappreciated south of metropolitan Vancouver. Alone with a fistful of fave flicks and my thoughts.

Yes, after washing out some socks, I grabbed a milk tea, and settled in. Sunday afternoon, through evening. Recharged myself for the writing week ahead. I even managed some jottings and spontaneous scribblings during the numerous intermissions this mini-film-fest Sunday.

Sunday's word counts, just for marking them somewhere. Outta-nowhere jottings and spontaneous scribblings: 823 words. Day-job-relateds: zero!

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Mini-film-fest line-up:

Bladerunner: Man versus the System.

District 9: Mutated man versus the System.

Moon: Being human and fighting the System.

Hair: Hey, Maan, fight the System.

I'm about to roll Tristram Shandy. A little ridiculousness before bedtime. It should keep the upcoming week in perspective.

Words Count

In my ghosting around the triple-w, the worldwide web, I've noticed real writers on their real blogs sometimes display a sidebar daily word counter, to show themselves as well as interested others how they're doing, daily word-count-wise.

I've been wondering how mine would look. One day's worth. So here's a sampling of my writing word counts. Friday's. Because I'm not free time-wise to fulltime work on my many projects I'd be only too happy to work fulltime on, I'm counting in the wide range of writing opportunities Friday presented me: jottings, notings, emails at work, and the grocery list.

Friday morn dream notes: 56 words.

Editing Last Joe, Chapter 7, during breakfast: 116 excised; 48 grafted in; -68 words. Um. Yeah.

Day-job emails: 616 words.

Roughing-out this blog, Friday night: 109 words.

Friday night's grocery list for Saturday morn: 42, including pictograms.

Pictograms? Aye. Instead of, say, Hot Sauce Herring in the 100 gram tin, I'll scribble HOT, and sketch a fish. Pictograms are great. Pictograms and words, together, are like a full-brain wow. Left and right brains handshaking across the corpus callosum. I'm a firm believer even the humble grocery list can, perhaps should, become a full-brain exercise. For warding off urban zombie-ism.

But back to the topic. I wasn't surprised most of my Friday's writing wasn't spent on the make-believe worlds inside my head. I only wish I was thinking about Last Joe, or anything, other than those work emails totaling 616 words, late Friday night.