DAY TWO

Well I made the daily word count on the novel this morning - just - but in a way which I sometimes feel is cheating. 

Of course revision and redrafting and editing are very much part of the process, but I always think that should come when you have worked out the kinks in a scene or plot point and produced something which even if rough, is a roughly finished piece of writing. But instead by the end of today's session I was revising and reworking some older scenes, adding in a line here, a few words there, simply in order to make the word count. The overall result was probably better than where I started, but half those words may well come out at some point in the future.

That's 'bad' enough, (though no reason for self-flagellation), but there is a sense in which this is doubly cheating, I feel. 

On the principle that every word written should move the story forward in some way, my aim with the daily word count is to do just that, to add a fixed number of words which add something to the whole, which move it on. I can only say that for about half of today's output.  

All in all it's a day for celebration though: I have written words for a novel AND a blog post TWO DAYS IN A ROW.  Remarkable.

 

Everyday Creativity

I wrote yesterday about my eclectic tastes when it comes to creativity. Later that day I found this topical example of the sort of thing I mean. Doesn't matter what the motivation might have been, whether to please a small child, keep up with the Joneses, or display some community spirit, someone invested the time and trouble to make something original. 

 

Yes, we in the UK have eschewed our formerly modest Halloween traditions and now have to suffer the Spielberg/ET inspired abomination that is 'Trick or Treat'. And yes Halloween has largely become a three month long marketing campaign and paean to pester power. And yes, there are only so many recipes requiring a mutilated pumpkin. But so what? Someone made something. Roll on Bonfire Night!