LadyLee's 40 Hours of FUNK!

For Miss Celie:) , Ms.blackliterature.com, and the Original Oldgirl Critique Team...

I had the best time off from work during Christmas Break.

I say that because I RARELY take time off. The Oppressor (job management) looks at me like I'm crazy when I request time off. I was off for 2 FULL weeks, and I haven't had that much time off since 2002, I believe. So five years was a long time to wait for such, but believe me, it was well worth it.

And it won't be another five years before I do that again.

Really though.

Now, I gave myself a challenge:

"I will spend 40 hours of my vacation writing new material."


I called it my "40 HOURS OF FUNK"


LOL!

Now, that seems like much, but it isn't. From the time I left work, at 3 pm on Friday December 21st to the time I went back to work on Monday January 7th is about 399 hours. So 40 hours of writing was essentially only 10% of my time.

(Yes, I calculated that ish. Yes, I am such a NERD, lol.)

Why did I do this?

Well, I have been a slacker with my writing. I was sick for most of December and I wanted NO parts of sitting in front of computer coming up with new material. When I got off from work, I would take my sick tail straight to bed. Plus, my writing class ended in October, so there was no reason to MAKE myself write. The most writing I did was my blogging, and I jotted down a few ideas here and there. But that's about it.

But I got an interesting gift from That Original Oldgirl Racer X, and I tell you, it left me quaking in my shoes. Literally, just shaking, my heart beating a bit faster than normal.

So needless to say, it lit a fire under my tail...

I was more than inspired, to say the least. It was more like using a blow torch to light a simple cigarette, lol.

Thus the mandate:

"I will spend 40 hours of my vacation writing new material."

And I don't mean, editing old material, rewriting stuff... Not starting all new stories, though, because I have at least 10 stories laying around. That was my goal: NEW stuff. True enough, I worked on old stories, but I was more interested in pushing those stories forward.

For one, I knew I had a 10 week workshop class coming up, starting January 3rd. So I had to get ready for that. I tend to crank things up a couple of weeks prior to class.

Anyway, I met my goal. That Sunday, the day before I went back to work, at about 10 p.m., I officially completed my 40 hours...

I tracked my progress in a spreadsheet.

The results:

I generated approximately 96 pages of new material.

Number of words written: 28,226

Average number of words written per day: 1764

Average time spent each day writing: 2.5 hours (which makes sense, since 40 hours total time). I spent at least 1 hour a day writing. The most I wrote in one day was 7 hours (broken up in 2.5 hour increments).

I worked on three stories during that time:

Leaving Jersey: This story is an offshoot of my Sweet Heat manuscript, and concerns a minor character from that manuscript. I think I may have written 10 pages worth of material, which brought that story up to about 80 pages, I believe. This story will be about 100-120 pages long.

Fancy That: I generated some character sketches sometime ago in preparation for my fall writing class, and posted them here on my blog. I think I wrote somewhere around 20 pages during my class time. Well, I cranked out the first 10 chapters during the 40 hour stint. This came up to about 65 pages or so. This could easily stretch out to novel length.

The Greyhound Blues: That funny short story I wrote for Tayari's birthday. Uh, the story didn't stop there. I wrote two other parts, and am currently in the middle of writing part 4. That story held my interest for some reason. Some of the Original Oldgirl Critique Team have read it, and it is NOTHING like they would have expected it to go, and it stepped away from being funny, and got a bit dramatic. I want to use it for an upcoming STORY WEEK here on the blog, but it is a bit long (21 pages worth, and that's only up to the middle of the story), so I don't know what I will do with that. Part of it will go up on the blog. But I think I will chalk it up to being good practice, lol.

This story had a couple of VERY interesting lines:

"The “ssssss” that flows from his lips is like that from the serpent that moved through the garden, and hung from a tree, convincing Eve that she could be all she could be. . .if she would just listen."

I have NO idea what THAT means... We were laughing hard at that. Cowgirl Cre kicked an especially hard eyeroll behind that one. An Oldgirl trying to be literary is not a good look, lol.

"But I know. And he knows. Even though wine mixes with tears, it’s not a good combination, as one weakens the other.
Wine made weak, and cleansing tears made strong.
Whoever knew that such coming together could be so wrong."

Ha! I know Miss Celie is going "WTF?" LOL LOL!!!! Chile, that ain't your character, and has nothing to do with you... not at all. Remember, you're just concentrating on getting to the Heavies concert. Keep driving that bus, girl. LOL!!

But that one had me doing the hard eye squint... Trying to figure out what it means, lol.

I learned a lot about myself during this time:

1. I HATE writing in the morning. Absolutely HATE it. I can't think straight for some reason, until about noon. Now, I can do my personal journalling and blogging in the mornings, but as far as writing fiction? NO! That part of my brain doesn't turn on until noon. Thus, this is why I like writing in the evenings. Best time: between six and eleven at night.

2. Editing time has to be different from writing time. I think I understand that now. During this time, I believe I spent 3 hours editing (not included in the 40 hours). This is the point that I wanted to get to. I've hated editing up to now, but don't mind so much these days. As a matter of fact, I've spent this month editing up all which I wrote during the 40 hour stint. I've also turned in 5 edited chapters of Fancy That for the workshop class I am currently taking, and will be reading from it in class in about 2 weeks.

3. Most important thing I learned: It is a MUST that I sit my butt in a chair and write, with no worry about how it sounds, or if it is totally junk. It simply doesn't matter. I've read this in several of my writing craft books, but I didn't have an UNDERSTANDING of such until I completed the 40 hour stint. I've learned that even if I write a a thousands words, a good fifty percent of it is usable. I will find out something new about the character or situation. And that's a GOOD thing!

4. I've learned that I must be opened minded about editing. I guess this coincides with number 2 above. I must say that I like my own writing, very much so, and as far as I'm concerned, no one has to read it but me. But in order for me to grow, I have to be ruthless with myself, and be my own harshest critic. With that said, my major goal right now is to "see" problems, then fix them. For example, the Greyhound Blues story I posted had about 20 problems. I listed them out, then went back and fixed them within the realm of the blog post. The story now has about 4 new problems, which I will fix. In the past, I really didn't give a damn one way or the other, but my goal now is to be able to "see" the issues, and fix them without hesitation.


5. I now have a good understanding of my writing patterns, and can now comfortably set my writing goals. I know one thing: after about 2.5-3 hours of straight writing, I start drifting and getting tired. I can take a break and then go back. I think my goal will be 10 hours a week of writing, and 2 hours a week for editing. I think that is good, considering my work schedule. I also like the idea of tracking my progress. It only takes a few seconds, and it is nice to have a record of what I am doing.

6. I can't stand working on one story at a time. Simply HATE it. This may be a good thing or a bad thing. I know that I don't like it. Hence here, I worked on three stories. I think that will be my limit.

So, I must say... I am growing. (Or at least I feel like I am growing, LOL).

But I am glad that I did this. Really glad.

Maybe next time, we'll have "80 HOURS OF FUNK".

Yeah right!!

LOL! !