The Next Month

December is normally a very unproductive month for people. The shopping, holidays, parties and all other assorted demands on time get in the way. For me though that shouldn’t be the case, especially for my writing. And all because I don’t have my language lessons for this month.

With a month off between semesters, I have time again. Time to pursue things that I want to. But in this case, as mentioned many times before, I want to write. Rather than trying to do too much and achieve nothing, I’m going to focus on developing a habit. And only one habit at that.

I mentioned making writing a habit in my last post. And now is the perfect time to do just that. My days are entirely my own and I know what it takes to establish good behavior. 30 days, doing something every day and I’ll be set. I did it with going to the gym. Of course in that case I had little else to do and needed an outlet for my energy.

But if I can approach writing with the same discipline then I’ll achieve just as much. To begin with I’m necessarily going to set myself a word count. It’s about sitting down and producing something first. With time, maybe the latter two weeks I’ll add in word counts to try and push myself further. Ultimately, and again as mentioned before, I’d love to get to writing 10,000 words a day. Something I think is entirely feasible.

I do have plenty of ideas and some that could lead to other longer projects. But for the first couple of days I’m going to concentrate on two particular ideas. One being a three to five page comic script, the other being a summary and a couple scripts for a small video series. Both are designed with the goal of cooperating, though neither is guaranteed to go any further. Still it’s nice to write something that someone else will at least take a look at, no matter how good or bad.

I joined a writers group for the first time in a long time last month. They meet every Friday and while I’ve only been able to make a couple so far it’s been fun. It’s nice to meet up with some different people who also like writing and to share and critique our work. What makes it really nice is that the group produces a great variety of work. It’s not all poetry or “literary” fiction but includes fantasy, sci-fi and everything in between. Though that’s likely to take a break like everything else will over the holidays.

So now that I’m nearing 600 words, do I get to count this blog post as my writing for the day? Yes and no — it’s a bit of a cheap shot but it’s still writing. Though I will go off and work on plotting out that comic script now, so I’ll have something more to write tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll also be writing more blog posts this month as part of my drive to write every day.

The only thing that’s likely to cause me trouble and disturb my writing goes by the name — The Poodle. Also known as Ash the Cat. If I’m home and in my room he will sit outside the door crying/meowing until I come out. Which is just as disturbing as you can imagine. And if I work at the kitchen table or sitting in a chair he jumps in my lap and pushes his way between me and my laptop. Cats are ever the considerate creatures.