Weekend Stockpiling

Once upon a time, I ran writing groups.

I ran a few here, and those became unwieldy. So then I ran a few on Facebook, and those were better, though still a lot of work. I realized that I can run a writing group, or write, but I can't do both without going nuts. So I'm not running them for the foreseeable future.

Still, I learned a few important lessons. The first was write every day. Every day you are away from the work is a day to lose your place. Every day you are writing -- even frustrating days where you only write two sentences -- is a chance that you might find your spark.

Paradoxically, the other lesson I learned was that some days you shouldn't write. I learned this from having writing group members with families and children, who wanted to keep those weekends sacred. As a solo flier with no children, I literally hadn't even thought of this. But I quickly realized how important those two days were: not just to recharge the batteries, but to stockpile raw materials for the week to come.

So, this weekend I've been trying to follow my own advice, reading and taking notes. So far, I've read two articles about Blerg City's fish market. Tomorrow I'm going to dive into my scanned sources and find out all I can about the city's porters and bearers. And then, come Monday, it'll be off to the races, I hope.

I've got an ambitious goal. I'll need to blow well past my usual 500 words a day to make it happen. But so far, so good.

This is going to be the least relaxing summer ever.

Throwing Down the Gauntlet

I have slightly less than 2 chapters to write this summer.

By odd coincidence, one of my M.A. students has pretty much the same feat to accomplish for their thesis. I wrote my student to inform them of this interesting fact. And I issued a challenge: Shall we do this together?

I'll let you know if xe accepts.

And... just as I was about to post this, I got a reply: turns out xe only has one chapter left to go... but also the intro. So we're on for racing to the end of our respective chapters.