Tasks

A post from facebook. I am spending the day doing various kinds of house and writing work and giving myself breaks to go on facebook or blog.

Breakfast was the usual: coffee, toast and English marmalade. The radio is on to MPR. Patrick is about to go out. I plan to do a load of wash and actually write. I was reading a Neil Gaiman essay on Terry Pratchett. Back when he had a day job, Pratchett would write 400 words every night. One night he came to the end of a novel after 300 words. So he put a new piece of paper in the typewriter (typewriter?) and began a new novel. I wonder if I could do that?

I managed 800 words, though I had a rough draft of most of it. I've gone back to my old habit, which was doing the first draft long hand in a notebook. The advantage is, I don't have to carry a computer everywhere. Even a netbook is heavier than a notebook. And I may think better in long hand, especially when I use a fountain pen with colored ink. My two options right now are purple and turquoise. Then, when I input what I've written, I do a lot of revising. Not a bad technique. So my 800 words are inputting + rewriting.

And I have the great pleasure of buying nice pens and notebooks and using them, and then the even greater pleasure of ripping pages out of my notebook after I input them. There is something so satisfying about this. Words into the garbage!