Prolifity

I spent all day yesterday in front of my computer. I had two things that I wanted to get done. I knew I wouldn't do both so I let myself choose.

#1- Get some writing done on the first book in a series I'm working on. (Escaping Death: The Lythian Kennett Chronicles... futuristic, dystopian, space drama, with vampires, zombies, and flying cars. It's so much fun to write. I can't wait to see what people of think of the finished product.)

#2 - Design and Upload my new website. 

I have managed to design the website in my head. That's an important first step. Figuring out what I want it to look like is always the hardest part for me, but I didn't get anything down on paper, metaphorically speaking. I spent the day working on my novel. 

This is good, and also disheartening. I don't write very quickly. I'll be lucky to churn out 250 words in an hour. The most I've done in a single day (before yesterday) was about 1k. They aren't easy words either. They're hard, wrung sponge for a brain hard. A couple hours of that and my head hurts. There's a reason for it, I don't draft. When I write, every word comes out exactly the way I want it on my first try. It might take me longer, but I don't have to do much editing later. I can just move around a couple of sentences, maybe reorder some paragraphs. 

I got online yesterday afternoon and found some numbers. 1k isn't bad for literary fiction writers, however, 3k-15k seems to be the standard for genre. I decided that I needed to step up my game. I googled ((you would think Google would have added that verb to the spell check dictionary for their Chrome web browser)) writing speed to find some more stats on average daily production for writers and found a cute little site where people  posted the writing quirks of different famous authors. Evidently, all writers are obsessed with their speed. I found one mention of a man who would pull his hat down over his eyes while he was typing so he couldn't read what he had already written. Why not?

I fetched a scarf from my bedroom, put in my ear buds. I like to listen to eerie, atmospheric, wordless, goth music while I write. Then I tied the scarf around my eyes. I spent a minute giggling at the silliness of it, then I wrote 1300 words in an hour. They aren't perfect words, but neither are they bad. In fact, the darkness, coupled with the music, helped me see my scenes more clearly. I'm gonna try it for a few hours this morning. Hopefully I'll be able to get to the point where I'm disciplined enough to just keep my eyes closed. I'll post my results before I go to work tonight. Wish me luck.