Have I done more than I think?

I have done some 16,000 words or so now - in other words, about a quarter of my projected (guessed at) 60,000 word total. However, when I look at the script, it looks more like I'm nearer halfway through the story... or at least a third of the way through. Maybe it will be a novella rather than a novel. Anyway, there could be more room than I thought available for the non-fiction parts (movie trivia, historical notes and so on).

On another subject (slightly), I often listen to music when I am writing, unless I feel that it is distracting me or messing up the mood. According to this article, some scientists think music makes you smarter!

Well, that explains a lot... ;-)

Update

Have I really not written a blog entry since the beginning of the month? It seems like only a week or two. Hmm... well, I suppose it is only two weeks and a few days anyway.

Nevertheless, the writing continues. I have found that I have had more fly swatting to do and less time for writing, but that in fact it has not slowed me down by much. I am managing to do at least one scene a week as before, but in less time. I think that my system of trying to imagine the scenes in my head first - as movie scenes - simplifies the writing process for me. I get to sort out many of the details before I sit at the computer. I can go to a cafe somewhere and stare into space, and imagine my way through the scene.

This is similar to the way computer programs are to be written, some say. You only sit at the computer when you have already planned what you are going to write. If you try to write as you plan, you are likely to end up with chaos, or at least less efficient programs.

Fly Swatting

Sometimes it is just not possible to get on with what you want to do because dealing with life's distractions gets in the way. For example, this week I have done no writing on the book so far because, among other things, I have been figuring out how to approach literary agents. It is important in one sense, but it gets in the way of my current goal of writing too.

I call this kind of thing 'fly swatting.' Survival has to be dealt with, but it is in a sense an unimportant side-issue. What counts is not what we do to survive so much as what we can do that 'adds value' to life: the real business of life. All animals survive for their allotted span if all is reasonably well. Humans have the chance to do a little bit more. That little bit more is what makes a difference in the world.

Sometimes, some of the 'flies' can be more like hornets, but still they need to be swatted or, at worst, endured. And, like buses, they are perfectly capable of coming in threes! C'est la vie!