I’ve found that if I tick off a simple checklist of shit I need to do at the start of my writing day, that day is way more likely to give up the words than if I just sorta slouch into it.
I knew yesterday was going to be hard because I had three appointments outside the house, leaving me just a couple of hours in the middle of the day to scurry home and…
Do what?
Cos another thing I’ve learned is that although starting the day well is critical, it doesn’t mean piling up thousands of words in the first couple of hours. Kinda the opposite in fact. For the first hour, I’ll just go back over yesterday’s work, editing the raw copy and getting my head back into the story. I might even go backward on the word count if I cut more than I add.
Second hour? Not much better. A couple of hundred words, maybe.
It starts to pick up after that, with most of the progress coming in the third and fourth hours of writing.
But I didn’t have that sort of time yesterday. Made it difficult to get going, and in the end, I decided to shift focus to a bunch of smaller targets on other projects that didn’t require four to five hours of deep work to make any observable progress.
One thing I did do, was my ‘Fifteen Minute Project’. This is a weird little experiment I’m doing, working for just fifteen minutes on one project at the start of each day, every day. Even on the weekends. I’m just curious to see how much I get done that way in a month, or even a year if I can sustain it. Yes, it seems to clash horribly with the established truth of needing an hour to even warm up the story engine every morning. But for that reason I decided to work on a non fiction book for my Fifteen Minute Project. Nonfiction doesn’t need you to reinvent a whole world every day.
So. Yesterday that meant reading and trying to translate one of the first English language treatises on strength training, Sir Thomas Elyot’s “The Castel of Helth” (sic) from 1534. I came across this cracking medieval endorsement of picking up heavy things and putting them down again.
This thing is so necessary to the preservatiōn of helth, that without it, no man may be longe withoute sycknesse, whiche is affyrmed by Lornelius Lelsus, sayeng that sluggyshnes dulleth the bodye, labour doth strength it, the fyrst bryngeth the in cōmodities of age shortly, and the last maketh a man longe tyme lusty.
‘Longe tyme lusty’ is my favourite new phrase.
It’s almost as though yesterdays distractions didn’t happen to me, they happened for me, so I could find Sir Tom’s medieval gym bro take.
Venturing down a rabbit warren which ended up with the power of a black hole (so many hours lost!), I came across the poem Ulysses by Tennyson, which M quoted the last few lines in Skyfall. There is a part in the middle that has stuck in my mind.
"How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!"
In other words, keep on moving JB, keep on moving.
Its a interesting insight into a world I would never be a a part (being a writer) of so I appreciate the view. Good luck with the building on good habits. I hoping 2023 will be a completely precedented year.
I have it on good authority that Stanley Kubrick used this as a source when writing Full Metal Jacket.
In the first draft of the screenplay, the whore was supposed to say, “Me love you longe tyme lusty.” In later interviews, he explained that he shortened it to “me love you long time”, after discussing the motivation and back story with the actress and felt the new version was truer to her character.
Wrote 1300 words today. Felt like progress.
Venturing down a rabbit warren which ended up with the power of a black hole (so many hours lost!), I came across the poem Ulysses by Tennyson, which M quoted the last few lines in Skyfall. There is a part in the middle that has stuck in my mind.
"How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!"
In other words, keep on moving JB, keep on moving.
It's a cliche but these lines have been recurring to me since my early 50s
"Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’ We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are"
Its a interesting insight into a world I would never be a a part (being a writer) of so I appreciate the view. Good luck with the building on good habits. I hoping 2023 will be a completely precedented year.
"Dost thou even lyft?"
I have it on good authority that Stanley Kubrick used this as a source when writing Full Metal Jacket.
In the first draft of the screenplay, the whore was supposed to say, “Me love you longe tyme lusty.” In later interviews, he explained that he shortened it to “me love you long time”, after discussing the motivation and back story with the actress and felt the new version was truer to her character.
For the record, by on good authority, I mean me.
Good enough. Roll the presses!
This is the kind of due diligence that gains one a lofty position in any intelligence agency. I appreciate your hard work and patriotism.
Thou dost not obtaine these fine and lusty sinyews stroking domesticated felines.
A bit of ancient wisdom I recall often from the last century from my father....”Get off your ass and get busy your highness”
When you've nailed it let me know, for now I'm taking solace in the idea that even the best of us are susceptible to apathy...
How good is it feeling longe tyme lusty?