More Writing Stuff

I’ve been rethinking my daily and weekly writing goals. On one hand, I need to push myself or I’ll latch onto any excuse not to write. For instance, I’ll sit down to write, get out a few sentences, and then realize that the clean towels must be folded RIGHT NOW! Unfortunately, these word counts are tainting the experience by making it something of an equation, like IF WordCount > WeeklyGoal THEN Yay ELSE set yourself on fire. For this week, I’ll try something different.

Instead of a strict number of words, I think I’ll just sit at my desk for a minimum of an hour each evening. I’ll try to work on the novel, but if nothing comes, I’ll do something else. Anything will count, as long as it is new material, not editing or market research. If the muse gets off his butt and all flows well, I’ll keep at it until I am spent. If not, I’ll pack it in after my assigned hour, have a Dr. Pepper, and play violent video games. I’ll count things at the end of the week to see if I made any useful progress.

By the way, I’ve decided that my muse is my imaginary friend, a rhino-sized invisible bunny rabbit with a saddle and matching scabbard in which I can couch my lance. He has horns, slavering poisonous fangs, a forked tongue and, thanks to his major attitude, he refuses to sprinkle his magic pixie dust on my word processor unless I put in a lot of work. His name is Phineas J. Snapplewharple, Thunderbunny of Doom and Muse to the Terminally Psychotic (a.k.a. Jimbo).

One final note – can you guess what I’ve found to be the hardest thing to sell in a story? It’s not length (although shorter is easier to sell), the wrong genre, or even too much violence (although even the most hardcore magazines tend to get squeamish when children and pets are involved). It’s humor, especially in the sci-fi, horror, and fantasy fields (most especially in the fantasy genre – “Mock my elf and you will pay the price.”) Some editors have even felt the need to go into caps lock mode when explaining this in their submissions guidelines, e.g. NO HUMOR OF ANY KIND WILL BE CONSIDERED. Sci-fi and fantasy fans are some of the greatest people in the world, but some of us take ourselves way too seriously.

Word dude, out.