Staying Focused

Writing is certainly a funny business.

I was struck by an idea for a long story in November.

I once wrote a book that had 85,000 words, and the first note I got from the editor was:

“It’s too long. Should be between 60,000 and 70,000 words.”

So, I normally shoot for that number, knowing that I have to pace the story, and land it, all in that range.

When I start a story, I plan on it taking me a full calendar year.

That’s unless I get supremely focused, and consumed by the characters.

I’ve never written so many words in such a short period of time, on this story, which I’ll be calling, ‘Perfect World’.

In just a little over a month I’ve written 45,000 words. It’s just kept flowing, as if I can’t turn off the faucet.

It’s that odd state of mind as well as I’m at the stage where I’m wondering:

“Is this any good?”

Now, I’ve done this for forty years so I have an idea of how it will land, but it’s never a certainty.

And, I bring this all up in light of what is happening in the world.

I’ve toyed with the idea of not bringing up political issues in the blog.

It’s difficult to read the news, and just shrug it away, and get back to the world that I’ve been creating.

Yet, that’s exactly what I’m going to try and do.

It’s not that I’m not paying attention to what is nothing short of a constitutional crisis in an effort to avert being identified as a pedophile.

There isn’t anything I can create that sounds worse than that, and in a ‘Perfect World’ we would get real answers.

One day at a time.