Opalescence

182,500 and Doctor Who February 22, 2011

So, for those of you not yet in the know, I’ve made a resolution for this still-young 2011 involving my writing.  I call it 182,500, which is the number you get if you can, on average, write 500 words per day for the entire year.  (365 x 500)

(Note: anyone who’s seen me tagging tagging this resolution as #187,500 is correct, that’s a mistake.  Everything henceforth should be 182,500, though I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to hit the larger number if I keep on task.)

That’s the number I’m aiming for, though if I manage to pass it at a relatively early point in the year, I don’t stop writing.  I keep right on plugging along, because the point of this particular resolution/exercise/extra thing to do is that I get myself into the habit of writing significantly, every day, no matter what I’m doing or how busy I am.

If you think you’ve heard this from me before, you’d be right.  I’ve attempted 182,500 several times in the past, and always failed hard, miserably, and early.  In fact, with it being mid-late February now, I can say with at least some pride that I’ve managed to maintain a 575-word daily average so far into this year, and I’m still going.  I’m already much further along than I’ve ever come in previous years.

Here’s how it works: every day, I am to write at least 500 words.  They can be from various projects I’m working on creatively, be they fiction or nonfiction.  They can not be from work (where I actually do quite a bit of writing), or in the form of mere Twitter posts or Facebook status updates, but they CAN be blog posts (this one counts, actually!).  If I miss a day, I can make it up by writing a separate 500-word project in addition to the one I must do for the current day–this keeps me away from the temptation to “put it off til tomorrow.”

I can NOT write a 1,000 word project and count it towards the missed day; while that will balance out the averages, the point is to write EVERY DAY, and each project represents that effort.  If I write 1,000 words on a daily project (it occasionally happens), great.  But it only counts for that day.  I still have to work on a project for the current or missed day.

Finally, each project can be a smaller part of a larger work.  For instance, I wrote a five-page Nighthunter comic script that was about 1,500 words in one evening recently.  A week later, I wrote another script, but only 2 pages in, totaling about 700 words.  I wrote the remaining 3 pages a couple days later, filling in another 900.  Those projects (the 5-pager, the 2-pager, and the 3-pager), each counted as separate projects, even though they may have produced only two “finished” works between the three of them.

Frankly, I don’t think I’d be able to keep this going if I couldn’t work this way.

So, that’s what I’ve been doing with a significant portion of my free time this year.  182,500.  And somehow, I still manage to find time to play WoW, have a great relationship with an awesome girlfriend, and (oh yeah) hold down a full-time job.  I’m actually pretty proud of coming even just this far, and am hopeful about finally conquering it this year.

One of the projects I’m working on for 182,500 is a Doctor Who fan script.  If you read this sparsely-posted section of the web, you probably know of my recent though abiding love for this show, which has inspired me to play in its sandbox, regardless of whether it ever sees the light of day.

This particular project has taken me a while to get to, mostly because it intimidates the living hell out of me.  I love the writing on Doctor Who, and am trying to hold myself to the very high standards of the BBC’s writing staff.  I’m constantly looking at it and thinking, “No way.  It’s meh, okay, but it really doesn’t pop like the show!”  You can imagine how depressing that gets, so it’s not always fun to write.  But I do keep trying; I soldier on.  After all, that’s what editing is for.

(182,500 side note: editing does not in ANY way contribute towards word count.  If I do that [and I do and will], I’m doing it IN ADDITION to any writing I have to do for the day.)

The second reason I’m so intimidated is because of the focus of this particular fan script.  I chose a topic/person who is pretty well known to fans of the macabre or weird, and writing about that person’s life and world presents its own set of challenges, from having to do lots of extra research to making sure I capture the spirit of that person’s life, world, and works.  I’m grateful I can break this particular project up into 500-word chunks, because otherwise I’m pretty sure I’d collapse underneath the sheer enormity of it all.  Still intimidated.  Still soldiering slowly through it.

Anyway, I’m into the second act of the script, which will contain a disclaimer, teaser, and five acts total.  Any Doctor Who fans who read this are welcome, in the name of keeping me on task for this year, to ask at later points in time how it’s coming along, when it will be finished, etc., so I can be damn certain that at the very least, I get this script out of this effort this year.

I won’t put it up for viewing until it’s done, so don’t ask.  I have to finish it.  Consider this a way of helping me make sure I get it done.