A Thousand Words A Day

A writing journal _____________________________ PROFESSORBLOG@HOTMAIL.COM

writing: _ Christian Writers _ _ NaNo _

reading: _LibraryThing_ _ BookCrossing _ _ My local library _ _ Another nearby library _

blogs: _ Lorie Rees_ _Itinerant Iconoclast_ _ Rita's Ravings _
My Photo
Name:
Location: Columbus, Ohio, United States

Reader, writer, podcast listener, and TV watcher. And real nice guy.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

What This Blog Was

I started this blog nearly three years ago, when I was figuring out what to do next in my writing. I had heard enough about the "Thousand-Words-A-Day" rule -- the impetus was Carolyn See, but the concept is all over -- that I thought I would give it a shot, and since the name was still available for a blog, this site was born.

At nearly the same time (within a few days of each other), I signed up for NaNoWriMo '02, and used this blog to post by writings. This was perfect, as the competition requires MORE THAN 1000 words per day, for a month. Sweet! I tried to keep it up for a few months after, then drifted away for a time until NaNoWriMo '03, where I used it again to great value. But I skipped NaNoWriMo '04, and this faded away as a priority for me.

The problem was that I felt the legalism of the rule press down on me -- if I couldn't do 1000 words a day, I wouldn't do it at all . . . I poked around at LiveJournal, where some from my first writing group people had pages. And this just withered on the vine.

But . . . . I think it's time to try it again, with some revisions and changes. I'm thinking about what this site should be in it's 2.0 incarnation. Don't know yet, though . . .

4 Comments:

Blogger David Meigs said...

A thousand words per day? Those are lofty goals. My head would pop. I have had those 50,000 word-long weekends, but if I had to come up with a thousand words just because I had to. Man, now there’s a prescription for writer’s block.

David

1:17 AM  
Blogger Alan said...

I originally used this for National Novel Writing Month, which is 50K in 30 days, so a thou-a-day seemed OK. But on an ongoig basis, I'm giving myself a little more grace in the area of wordcount.

11:56 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I used to do a thousand words a day (or at least shoot for it). Lately, what I've been doing is trying to get 500 ``publishable'' words a day.

I typically have two hours to write each morning. I can easily knock out 750 to 1000 words in the first hour if I'm on a roll. The hard work taking that 750 to 1000 and getting 500 in some order that I don't mind showing to people. Today, I spend twenty minutes on my lunch hour rewriting some of this mornings efforts. Sometimes it take three or four complete retypings to get something that I like. I heard that people who write for bread (as opposed to fun) will rewrite twenty or thirty times. I imagine this is an extraordinary number rather than the norm, but still...

1:02 PM  
Blogger Alan said...

"The hard work is taking that 750 to 1000 and getting 500 in some order that I don't mind showing to people" --> now that is the truth! writing is re-writing!

3:02 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home