I wrote an extra thousand words on top of my compulsory two thousand yesterday which brings the total up to 17023. It's hard going, I must say - for the most part I don't find writing particularly pleasurable, which makes me wonder why I want to do it at all. Why would you want to work at something you don't really enjoy? It's odd. I like elements of it, I suppose, and there are sometimes when the writing is easy and natural. But most of the time it's a struggle. I made the mistake of taking a peek at the early pages of my draft (one of the rules of the six weeks challenge is no editing) and was alarmed to see how much the narrative tone has drifted since then. Oh well, I suppose that's what redrafting is all about.
My dear friend Ms Radford had her baby yesterday - a boy, despite Thieu and I being utterly convinced that it was going to be a girl.
Oliver Ivon, weighing in at 7.9 pounds.
Another arrival yesterday - a book by someone in my writers' group (Cassandra Austin) was launched last night. Readings was packed with people and Cas gave a fabulous speech and talked about the process she'd undertaken to write the novel. She and a couple of friends, after hearing that Faulkner's As I lay Dying was written in six weeks set out to do the same thing. At the end of the six weeks they each had a sizeable draft... which I think was then worked on for the next year. But still, it's inspiring and I've decided to undertake the six weeks challenge myself. I started last week and have 14 thousand (very poorly written) words so far. I can't seem to write more than 2000 words a day, and this takes about 1 and a half hours, after which I'm exhausted, but I'm still kind of enjoying it at the same time.
reading William Gibson's blog and thinking (with much trepidation) about the upcoming U.S elections
thinking about what a pleasant Saturday afternoon I had, cycling over to some friends' house with a bottle of champagne and then cycling back again (a little wobbly, it must be said)
wondering if I should be hassling by freelance clients to give me the copy for the site
wondering if I'll continue to write the 2000 words a day I've set myself on my rough draft of the Vogel script
contemplating the chances of Thieu, on his day off, visiting sofa shops (we still don't have one.)
