On Friday my idea for the thesis title story solidified. I put a new ink cartridge into my fountain pen and spent a little over an hour before dinner sitting at Baskin Robbins eating strawberry cheesecake ice cream and writing the first four-and-a-half pages.
Today, between roughly four hours at a coffee shop, the library, and home, I used up that ink cartridge and wrote another eight-and-a-half pages. Now I've got a thirteen page rough draft of a story which was intended to be titled "All the Pieces," but might not be. We'll see how that goes once I get the story typed up and a bit more fleshed out.
I'm not usually a writer who gets out high page counts, so 8+ pages in one day is extremely productive for me. The last time I wrote that much in one go was a number of months ago when I was still cranking out a new chapter of Oracle every month for the group. I'm pretty excited about the way today went. Every now and again I hit on a story that coalesces in my head more or less complete. Then, as I write it, it just unfolds for me, accordion-style, and I can write it straight through, time-allowing. I love those stories.
Right now I've got four stories (including today's) which I'm pretty certain will be in my thesis. Three of them had this type of clarity to them. I'm taking that as a sign I'm on the right track. Now, since I'm an optimist, I'm going to plan to get one more thesis story (maybe even two more, but that's probably pushing it) written this week.
Spring break = lots of free time = me not knowing what to do with myself = a lot of incentive to write stories. In short, my friends, nothing is so good for my writing as boredom. It's not poetic, but there you have it.
2 comments:
You can title the story All the Pieces of Birds that Fit Through the Eye of a Needle. See? I can compromise. You don't have to do the whole thesis...
I agree with the comment about boredom being necessary to writing or any creativity. Staring at your navel kind of thing
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