Results of 5,000 words for Father’s Day
As far as meeting this goal, I failed. I did not reach 5,000 print-quality words in one day. However, I did learn something very important. I am simply not meant to write all day. I am glad that I can no longer blame my non-productivity on time constraints. In fact, I actually work better given 2-3 hour windows. As you can see by the time-line below, the day started off quite well.
| 10:08a | (1 word) | first word (The), first cup of coffee (Soy Chai Latte with an extra shot – It’s like beer: start the night with something exotic so that when you are drunk later you don’t care what brand you are drinking). |
| 11:08a | (570 words) | went to the bathroom, took in a chapter of Saramago’s The Stone Raft, and gave the dog a treat. She’s been really good about not killing me, considering I am not a daily occupier of this house. |
| 11:22a | The headphones already hurt. Time to try listening to Bohren und der Club of Gore through speakers. Less ear pain, but too much outside noise mucking up what is supposed to be a way of isolation by sound. | |
| 12:05p | (958 words) | 2nd cup of coffee, this time black. 1,000 words in 2 hours. Things are not looking good. At this rate, 5,000 words will take me 10 hours, which I simply don’t have. Boooooo to goals. |
| 1:16p | (1,496 words) | I said I wouldn’t, but I’ve got to get out of the house. I may slowly be realizing that I am just not meant to “go under” when I write. Could I be a normal 2-3 hour max/session writer? |
| 2:44p | (1,496 words) | Notice the word count has not moved in 1 ½ hours. I drove to get a sandwich, then decided to drive home to finish the day. My wife has taken our kid to a friend’s farm for naturey stuff. So, I should have a couple more hours to at least round the count to 2,000 words. |
| 6:04p | (1,731 words) | I’ll call these last 3 ½ hours a break, even though the duration really constitutes forfeiture. During this time I ate a couple donuts, drank some coffee, bought two Jose Saramago books (and learned that he has two posthumous English language translations forthcoming this year, Little Memories, an autobiography which I assume will be prepared for publication even considering his recent death, and Elephant’s Journey), and also a few Moleskine notebooks (which I learned is pronounced mol-a-skeen’-a, and not mol-skin as I had been doing for years). But I did come back to writing, and I did manage to pound out a few more words. |
| 7:19p | (2,041 words) | I’m getting a shower. |
What to make of this? As much as I would like live the romanticized writer’s life, I simply do not have the constitution to do so. My apologies to anyone who gambled incorrectly on this outcome. My advice is that next time you wager money on someone’s likelihood to meet a goal, don’t use me if your choose the affirmative side.
Honestly, I find your results refreshing, as your schedule looks a lot like mine. On days when I do this, I find that I can only write about a solid hour at a time, no more than probably three times per day. On those focused days, I can usually count on 400 words. A couple weeks ago I mustered 750 and almost hit my head on the ceiling. I felt like calling up exes. Maybe next time try it without the computer and books at all, just your pen and notepad and sustenance. Though I find that the more I read in a day, the more I write.
We both have several friends who do the binge thing, and it works for them. I’m just glad I don’t have to read any of it, though, because it can’t possibly be good. It would probably take me two weeks to polish those 5000 words enough for presentation, which would certainly become more like 3000 words (though I’d still be delighted with 3000 words in two weeks). There’s an expression I often use: “When you HAVE all the time in the world, you’ll TAKE all the time in the world.” And I bet you could achieve these same results in an evening at home if you gave yourself a deadline or made it feel like you were sneaking the writing in before some other upcoming familial obligation.
Don’t feel bad Caleb. I find “going under” is a horrifying and unproductive experience. I prefer stolen words. I did NaNoWrimo once; the results of that experiment might be readable by someone’s standard, but I would rather be eaten by dogs than show those words to anyone.
Oh, oh, show them. Start a blog. Use a pen name (Freddy Mercrappy is a good one).
I’ve been wanting to do some binge writing, so I’m really interested to see what happens when different people approach it. Thanks for posting this!