when i started this fiction project, i thought it’d be as long as the how-to-be-sober book (40,000). so i started to write this one, 40,000 words in 100 days, seems easy enough.
as i go along, i realize that it’s not easy.
but i keep going.
then i get to about the halfway mark (20,000 words) and realize it’s not long enough. Extend the 40,000 to 55,000.
sounds like being sober. started for 30 days, extended to 90, then ‘just a bit longer’ and today i’m on day 1,980.
ok, then i did some research on the length of fiction books? gulp. unless it’s a novella, regular length is 70,000 to 100,000. yeah, no shit. good thing i didn’t know that when i started or i wouldn’t have started. (if i think i’m quitting drinking FOREVER then i’ll never start, too large, won’t finish, too much.)
but if i start off heading towards 40,000, then extend it a bit, and now here i am realizing that there’s a big chunk of book left, that is still EASIER than any of the other options.
just begin. move the deadline. go a bit further. then you can SEE further out, and it’s not so scary.
ok, so that means i will not have a first draft of the novel finished in 100 days after all. i’ll have a big part of it done, though, 22 days from now.
don’t know how i’ll write it after the 100 days, i may keep going for a bit, or take some time off (a couple of days?). i know how that sounds though, even to me. it sounds like “if you have momentum, then keep going. it’s easier to keep going than to stop and start. yes, even if it’s christmas day. yes, even if travelling. yes even if it’s your birthday, yes, even if.”
and as tempting as it might be to say “i’ll just pause for a few minutes and then start again when I FEEL LIKE IT, you and i both know that ‘feeling like it’ is generated by ALREADY BEING IN MOTION. you don’t feel like it before you start. you feel like it once you’re underway, and you’re making progress, and you’re solving problems, and you’re celebrating milestones.
you know.
how everything is like everything.