Monday, February 16, 2009

i never loved nobody fully...always one foot on the ground

I wrote a ton today -- 5953 words. This brings my grand total for the three-day weekend to 15,786 words, which is approximately 70 pages. YAY. Of course, all I really want to do tomorrow is get up and do it again, when instead I have to go to work and slog through a bunch of meetings. That's too bad -- but it's good to know that I can make excellent progress on a book despite my day job, which bodes well for my ability to steadily produce books without needing to take leaves of absence to write them.

All of my output came in waves from ~10am to 7pm, with a variety of long breaks for a shower, lunch, a lovely phone call from Vidius Chandicus (aka the Chandlord), and a quick trip to the grocery store. I also stopped by Starbucks, with the intention of treating myself to a mocha (which I weaned myself off of in favor of lattes several months ago), but instead I decided to try their new chai tea lattes. My jury is still out; I think I'll try a different flavor next time before making up my mind about their deliciousness.

I was tempted to keep writing this evening, but I decided that it would be better for me to unwind a bit from this weekend's writing binge. I made myself some delicious veggie quesadillas, which were exactly what my tastebuds wanted after a weekend holed up in the apartment eating frozen entrees. Then, I spent some quality time on Travelocity, and ended up committing to Hawaii!! I'm going for a week in March; if I can write four hours a day, in addition to wandering around Maui and working on my tan, I should come very close to having a fully finished first draft of Madeleine and Ferguson's story no later than the end of March. If nothing else, I'm looking forward to the break -- it would be nice to have a week in the sun in which I only write, and don't have to think about all of the demands of my full-time job.

I ended the night by getting a head start on this week's writing assignment. We're reading Lydia Davis this week, whose writing is truly strange; the excerpts we were given were a mix of v. short short stories (some only two or three lines long), the beginning of a novel, and a couple of average-length short 'stories', one of which purported to be an analysis of a fourth-grade classroom's letters to a boy who was in the hospital. Again, I have no idea what I'm going to write in response -- but I do like totally ridiculous things, so I'm a little more confident this week that I can come up with something.

Okay, it's bedtime; I'm going to get up early tomorrow, go to work so that I can slog through all the email I didn't read this weekend, and then make it through the day so that I can keep my writing date with Terry tomorrow night. Goodnight!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

a mention!!!

Anonymous said...

Cool for you!! What island of Hawaii do you plan on visting, and have you been there before?

Anonymous said...

Hawaii? Hawaii? You mean you won't be in San Francisco to entertain spring break visitors like you did in Dublin? How about the Fourth of July? Will you be in SF then? DSM-California non-stop on sale at $99 one way. Fireworks in a bay fog could be something totally different.

Sara said...

@Anonymous/Vidya: congradulashuns!

@Anonymous2: I'm going to Maui, and I've never been anywhere in Hawaii. I've got a guidebook coming in the mail, and I can't wait!

@Anonymous3/Uncle Mark: I'm only in Hawaii March 7-14, but yes, that means that you can "visit" me in SF just like you tried to "visit" me in Dublin. I should be here around the 4th of July -- I suggest taking your chances and booking a trip! Fireworks on the bay are pretty cool.