Does it count?
Writers often get fixated on word count. I have a daily word count target. It is an average really. I may have days where I write five-thousand words (humble brag, I once wrote 7,500 words in one day). Others where I write none.
My only rule is to keep track of those words. More for statistical reasons, than anything else. It is interesting to track what my most productive days are (Sunday and Thursday).
I guess the point is that I don’t obsess about it, but I do keep records. In the last 365 days 676 words a day. That was with whole months of not writing after my mother’s death.
It will get done. As long as you write down the words when they come. It doesn’t even matter if they are crappy words. Write now, edit later. When the words aren’t coming, I try to find something else creative to do.
If you aren’t writing, what are you doing?
I don’t know if you have read ‘The China’, but I am illustrating it for re-publication on my site (coming soon). Most of it is made of photos I have taken and old maps.
I tried to capture what traveling on foot through Wyoming in late October might be like. I also tried to capture a world and a people ravaged by the climate crisis.
It’s the little things…
‘The China’ asks some interesting questions, the most urgent being what is important to a person when they are displaced.
I started thinking about the story in March of 2018. I put cursor to word processor on December of 2018. I didn’t really have an outline, just an opening line:
During the great fires, she insisted they take the china. When the coast became untenable, she insisted again. It had been in her family for generations
The China – December 7th 2018
That didn’t end up being the opening line, but a story was born. Characters formed, changed, motivations became clear, and the protagonists found a goal.
The idea for the climate refugee crisis came after I started thinking about how to write ‘The China’. I didn’t really think too much about what would happen in a vast sea of people in motion. The story I wrote is about people in the back of the caravan. They struggle to keep up and are potential victims for the things that lurk in the night.
As I have been creating a more appropriate landing page for ‘The China’, I started getting other ideas. Ideas about other people in the middle of a slow-motion climate crisis. Five stories to be exact. The caravan has become a living organism in my head.
What’s next?
I am continuing to illustrate and do some minor edits to ‘The China’. Hopefully I can share it with you soon. As for the other five stories, I don’t when I will get to them.
I have a novel I am working on, queued up at word 15,804. It’s not necessarily about word count. I keep track of it. I have averaged 0 words of writing this week. Not that I stress out about it…
If you are interested in the other stories, drop me an email. I am still doodling around with the ideas right now. I have thought about serializing something for a while, maybe selling a subscription to it at Patreon. Again, drop a comment or contact me to let me know what you think. I can kind of gauge what you all like as well.
Remain Lost 