keeping disciplined
¶ by Rob Friesel
(75.1%)
Looking at the 60k-word mark and thinking about how close I am to wrapping up feels like this impossible contradiction. Another 20 pages could do it, right? (I ask myself.) What’s 20 pages? (I guess about 20,000 words.)
There’s so much discipline involved in this endeavor. It’s difficult sometimes to image that I’ve made it to this point. I reflect on the two projects I completed at St. Mary’s and wonder how I even managed to do it then when I actually had the time built into my schedule. It can be so easy to get side-tracked – – to want to go back and edit or else find any other little thing to do. There’s this constant looming threat with each new sentence – – am I going to be cliched right out of the box? am I going to make sense? is there enough? is there too much? will anyone care? do I care enough to finish it? (The answer to the last question is always an adamant yes.) That said, the act of committing words to the page (spiral-bound, loose and lined, drawn with pixels, whatever) is this tremendously heroic act. Just getting over those silent mocking giggles of phrases bravely jotted down. (Stupid post-modern education.) The first draft is blood-draining enough.
Twenty days to go to the end of the year.
I won’t hold myself to it but it’ll sure be nice. Just need to stay focused.
currently playing: Acumen Nation “Dreamheart/Crush’d”
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