As is common in this challenge, yesterday's 1000 words went to the NBA. Today's thousand, however, are headed back here.
Writing a lot has this curious effect where it makes you think about writing a lot. For me, I was at work yesterday (tutoring English, but there weren't a lot of students) and started working on the above-mentioned basketball article. It was kind of a slog. Sometimes basketball writing takes a lot of time and effort, because it can't just be off-the-cuff ideas. It has to make sense: If I'm suggesting that two teams make a trade, the trade has to be viable, the salaries have to match, the players have to be relatively good fits on the other team, and their productivity needs to be taken into account. As such, I can't just suggest a trade in 5 minutes and write 300 words on it.
So yesterday, like I said, I was working on that article. People at work kept popping in to chat because it was a slow day all around, which led to me not getting the article finished by the time I left at 7:00. It's not ideal to have to finish at home, because that's reserved for quality wife-time. However, that's what needed to happen, so I decided I'd finish it after she fell asleep, as she has an earlier life-schedule than I do.
And here's the thing: I couldn't stop thinking about finishing the article. I had to get it done before bed. It wasn't that I wasn't sure if I would feel awake enough to do it once she was asleep, and it wasn't that I was concerned that I'd have muddled thoughts as the clock approached midnight. I simply felt like I needed to get it done.
That was a good feeling. It made me feel like a writer.
What doesn't make me feel like a writer is hitting a wall at 300 words, which has just happened. For as much as it feels like I can just write what's on my brain at any given moment, that's not always (or maybe even regularly) interesting. A blank slate is blank because there's nothing worthwhile to write on it. If the idea is good, the slate isn't blank anymore.
So with that, I'm going to stop this entry for today, well short of 1,000 words, and attempt to put the remaining 575 into a different venture. Perhaps it will see the light of day, perhaps not.
Writing a lot has this curious effect where it makes you think about writing a lot. For me, I was at work yesterday (tutoring English, but there weren't a lot of students) and started working on the above-mentioned basketball article. It was kind of a slog. Sometimes basketball writing takes a lot of time and effort, because it can't just be off-the-cuff ideas. It has to make sense: If I'm suggesting that two teams make a trade, the trade has to be viable, the salaries have to match, the players have to be relatively good fits on the other team, and their productivity needs to be taken into account. As such, I can't just suggest a trade in 5 minutes and write 300 words on it.
So yesterday, like I said, I was working on that article. People at work kept popping in to chat because it was a slow day all around, which led to me not getting the article finished by the time I left at 7:00. It's not ideal to have to finish at home, because that's reserved for quality wife-time. However, that's what needed to happen, so I decided I'd finish it after she fell asleep, as she has an earlier life-schedule than I do.
And here's the thing: I couldn't stop thinking about finishing the article. I had to get it done before bed. It wasn't that I wasn't sure if I would feel awake enough to do it once she was asleep, and it wasn't that I was concerned that I'd have muddled thoughts as the clock approached midnight. I simply felt like I needed to get it done.
That was a good feeling. It made me feel like a writer.
What doesn't make me feel like a writer is hitting a wall at 300 words, which has just happened. For as much as it feels like I can just write what's on my brain at any given moment, that's not always (or maybe even regularly) interesting. A blank slate is blank because there's nothing worthwhile to write on it. If the idea is good, the slate isn't blank anymore.
So with that, I'm going to stop this entry for today, well short of 1,000 words, and attempt to put the remaining 575 into a different venture. Perhaps it will see the light of day, perhaps not.
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