Tuesday, May 17, 2011

How many?

I have this crazy idea that I want to finish my first draft of my entire fiction story by the end of June.  Yes.  The entire story in first draft form by the end of June.  I am thinking that is a good idea.  It seems like a good idea.  It is such a good idea that if I wasn't in front of my laptop now I would be writing it down on an index card so I would remember this good idea and do something about it when I had time.  It's a good think I AM in front of my laptop now and not writing it on an index card.  I only say that since I have recently written ideas on index cards that I originally thought were good ideas but after re-reading them at a later date I found they weren't good ideas at all.  I'm hoping this isn't the case.
But of course I couldn't leave it at that.  Saying I would finish by the end of June doesn't mean I could finish it by the end of June.  So.  I started trying to make some type of statistical, mathematical problem out of how I could finish it in that amount of time.
I have more than 38,000 words so far written.  I had researched fiction book lengths and most first attempts are approximately 70,000 words.  That would mean I have less than 32,000 words to go to finish.  I have about 6 weeks until the end of June.
Can you see what I am doing here?  Yikes.  I hate math, yet here I am putting it all down in numbers.  So what does that come out to?  That would be a little over 5000 words a week for six weeks.  Now I am thinking it can't be done because the numbers are just too high.  But then, what if I broke it down a little more?  What if I broke down the number to five days a week and not the full 5000 number total for the week.  Oh my.  That would be about 1000 words a day, five days a week for six weeks.  What if I miss a day?  What if I miss two?  What if I have a day I can't write more than 300?  Will I be putting myself in a catch-up situation?  Will it cause me to think too much about the amount of words and stop me from finding them when I need to come up with them? What if I can't creatively come up with all the words?  What if I miss too many days and too many words and too many...
So, what if?
I have this crazy idea that I want to finish my first draft of my entire fiction story by the end of June.  I know it's a crazy lot of numbers.  But I am thinking that it is a good idea.  It's a good idea to try.  No matter what the number might be.  I hate math. 
But I love writing.
TT

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