Day 31 (End of Month One)

11:00

Okay, I've got some serious shit to do today. Unfortunately, there are other things I have to do as well, but this is my last day of the month: and the stats don't look as good as I had hoped. I'm really going to have to concentrate and plough forwards to get to where I need to go with this script.

15:15

Right. Back from everything I needed to do. Worked out another nice snippet for my script. Need to get some lunch and then keep on working!

21:00

Having a really difficult time of it putting this fucking thing together. I mean, really difficult. The geography doesn't work, and I've got a lot of characters who come into the story very quickly: it's difficult to give them all individual arcs to make them interesting.

00:45

Finally made my word count. I am finding this story exceptionally difficult to write - I had so many advantages in my last script - it needed little research, it was set now, and in an imaginary town. The hoops I'm having to go through to get my characters to actual places in Syria and Turkey is turning into a fucking nightmare.

But, it's done now. And so, it's time for my first end-of-month round up.

word count: 2,110
hours writing: 4.5

End of Month Round Up

In this first month of trying to write a screenplay a month, I've succeeded in as much as I finished the first draft of one screenplay.

But since I finished this first draft - just over two weeks into the month - I've found it increasingly difficult to keep my momentum going, and have found myself more and more easily distracted, inclined to take breaks or time off.

I've also failed in keeping to my two primary tasks a day: to write 2,000 words, and write for four hours. These averages were completely scuppered when I had work for a week down in Leeds - and the setback to my overall numbers was such that I became significantly discouraged to not really attempt to catch back up.

In becoming obsessed with the numbers, and trying to catch up on my word count, I put the 'novelisation' of this first script above plotting the new one. Although the 'novelisation' was an extremely effective way of re-drafting the manuscript, it was too time-consuming in the framework of everything else I have to do. So I did not manage to complete a second draft - a proper 'polish' of this January script, that would make me happy to show around.

In short, the numbers have proved that I can work a lot harder and go a lot quicker than I thought, but only if I constantly keep myself in check, banish all distractions, and don't cheat my own rules by banging out 2,000 words a day on 'novelisations'.

The Numbers

scripts written: 1

words written: 57,412
hours writing: 109

average daily word count: 1,852
average hours per day: 3 hours 31 minutes.

What I've learnt so far

I've been amazed by how much more positively I view my writing since I've started on this project. I still really dislike sitting down a lot of the time and doing it, but I feel a lot better about myself and my projects: they don't seem as much like hopeless, go-nowhere dreams.

The momentum of working every day on something has affected other areas of my life, too - I'm trying to be more organized and work through other things quicker and more productively.

But I'm also getting grumpier when I can't write, when obstructions and delays that normally don't bother me at all come along. This isn't so positive: never before have I looked at the clock and actually resented time itself. And I find myself obsessing over things I'd like to do when I try to write: like going to the cinema or playing computer games, which is really pretty lame. In my defence, sitting in a dark room typing on a computer all day may increase my nerdishness.

When it comes to writing technique, I haven't changed much - but I've studied screenwriting and plotting methods for quite a long time. What I've learnt is more about my own psychological state. And the only insight I've had in the last month is this: I think that I, and a lot of people I know who want to be writers, are addicts. They are addicted to not writing. And that addiction can strike at any time, and lead you on month-on-month binges of not writing, which leave you feeling really bad about yourself.

I think this addiction takes many psychological forms: mainly, perfectionism, self-hatred, idleness and excuse-making. One example of this is that I've always put off projects when I come to difficult parts in the story, believing that I needed more time to think them through, or I'd end up writing something poor. This has led to months of not writing and often, me entirely ditching the project because I can't think of a way forwards. But what I've realised over the last month is that, if you sit down and don't allow yourself to do nothing else, the solutions to the problems you're facing can come remarkably quickly, and they're every bit as elegant as the ones you spend a year faffing about.

Being a little bit hard on yourself - treating yourself like a not-writing addict and not allowing yourself to give up on something - really does create better work than letting these voices run your life.

But, beyond all the blabbering above, the main feeling I've associated with this month is one of increased confidence and contentment with what I'm doing.

Which is an unusual, very new and welcome thing for me.

See you in February!

Day 30

15:00

Woke up at one thirty today, with a cracking headache. Man, I'm a loser.

I'm determined to start at this earlier today, to get what I need to do done, and not just fuck about for hours.

Why is it so much easier to be responsible when you're not at home, when you're not surrounded by the distractions you create for yourself? If I want to write so much, then why is it that I set myself so many traps around the easiest place to accomplish what I want to do? Why am I so naturally anti-productive?

Going to work now.

02:45

Feel happy that I've moved through a really difficult plot point at the beginning, but a shit-load still to do. I've written pitifully few words today, and didn't even make my four hours fully.

But I think I've worked out a way forwards: a couple more insights into the plot and I'll really be able to start powering through the middle section.

It's always the way with the beginning. It's much more of a delicate process than the rest of the story, and if you rush and take a wrong turn at the beginning, everything else that follows is deformed. It's like an early cell mutation that ensures the organism can never grow or live.

I'm getting some pretty extreme stuff into this script - there seems to have been no barbarity that the Franks did not experience or (more commonly) mete out to others. I really want to get this sense of brutality across in the story.

Anyway, onwards and upwards. I can only be more productive tomorrow.

word count: 556
hours writing: 3.5

Day 29

12:45

Woken up a little later today - about midday. Feel determined to do better today with my work. I've really got to start mapping out the next story, and quickly. As it is, it feels about half-formed now in my head - and I'm treading a fine line between forcing out something before the thinking is finished, and indulging myself by not working hard enough to actually finish this off.

We'll see.

02:30

Made my word count today. First time on an original project since the 18th, so that's real progress.

I'm also so tired my eyeballs ache. So I'm going to go to bed now, and try to be a more diligent writer - and blogger - tomorrow.

Also I saw Frost/Nixon today. I was really looking forwards to it but was a little bit disappointed. It's a good film, but there's little dramatic momentum at its heart. It is not a clash of the Titans; it's a Titan and a minnow. There is very little of the dramatic sparring I thought would occur, and in fact Nixon's admissions towards the end are suggested to be something he decides very consciously to do, rather than being trapped into an admission through days of Frost's brilliant debating. And Frost seems to set up a David-Goliath confrontation solely by ignoring his researchers to go drinking, partying and to attend movie premieres - in other words, his underdog status is only achieved through his own dilettante behaviour - which really doesn't encourage us to sympathise with him.

It's still a good film - well made and very well acted. It's the dramatic structure of the film that is lacking - a Rocky-style build up with no Rocky-style denouement. And in the end, it does the opposite, I believe, of what it intends: it makes Nixon's opponents seem to be flighty and shallow hypocrites, while the president himself becomes a grand, sympathetic, and tragic figure. My limited understanding of U.S. political history suggests he was a brilliant politician but a completely corrupt man, and that we should have more sympathy with the victims of his policies (especially the Vietnamese and Cambodians) than we do with him. In this aspect, the film fails. I left the cinema hoping he would have succeeded in rehabilitating his image, rather than being pleased that he failed.

Anyway, that's my two cents. Actually, that's probably about four dollars' worth of two cents.

Head and eyes hurt. Going to bed.

word count: 2,012
hours writing: 4.5

Day 28

18:15

Let me just start by saying how much I hate fucking computers.

I woke up positive today and rearing to go and now all I want to do is kill myself.

Along with the many other ways my Macbook Pro has, over the years, decided to fuck me, now it won't burn dvds.

And it's not even broken - it's just some bullshit software/firmware issue that apple have never got off their asses to fix.

And because I can't afford to buy a new one, I've spent literally four hours trying to install updates and then roll them back and hack firmware and all kinds of shit to no avail whatsoever.

All so I can burn out some dvds to give to people I'm not even on speaking terms with.

I would have made better use of my time repeatedly punching myself in the balls.

Man, fuck computers.

23:30

Watched a movie this evening called Sharkwater. Watching it reminds me why I consciously avoided An Inconvenient Truth. It's a depressing, depressing film. But you should really see it - it's very good, in a kind of, 'we're destroying the planet and we're totally fucked' kind of way,

Meanwhile, I've been working on plotting out the film, working out exactly when and where each event takes place, which is a difficult thing to do properly.

While I've spent at least three hours researching, I've only spent a further hour and a half actually writing, so I'm going to fall short on my word count again, most probably. But I know how fatal it is starting a screenplay without a detailed roadmap to the end, and even if I slip on the word count for the next couple of days, it's good to be getting away from the 'novelisation' - which I'm going to complete but that has really started to feel like hard work - and lay the groundwork to successfully completing a second screenplay next month.

So, here I go, back at it.

01:45

Done some successful thinking on this, worked out a little more of what is going on. I feel bad that my word count average is dropping massively, but good that I'm concentrating on what's important: the next script, the next outline, the next story.

As a result of sitting down and really looking at the maps, I've realised that, realistically, a lot more of this film will be in the Taurus Mountains than in the desert of Syria. And it won't be set in 1099, when the crusaders took Jerusalem: it'll probably be set two years later, with the kidnap of Bohemod of Taranto outside the Turkish stronghold of Malatya.

But I'm shattered now, so I'm going to go to bed.

word count: 633
hours writing: 3.5

Day 27

01:30

Spent the day not writing, part by choice and part by circumstance.

Got up at 9.00 to go to Ikea. We are lacking a few basic necessities in our flat (like lamps and enough shelf-space for all the shit we have). Got back about mid-day, grabbed something to eat, then had a meeting this afternoon about some possible teaching gigs.

Then I came back, read for about five minutes, then played a computer game for four hours. Then made some dinner, watched a little Colbert Report, and went to see another film with my girlfriend - Role Models - patchy at the start but then very funny. Then we came back - about an hour and a half ago - and realised we've got a landlord's 'electrics' inspection in the morning, so have spent the time since trying to make the place look presentable.

In short, I've been a lazy frickin' asshole today. But it's made me feel quite good - I'm going to work now, probably only for a little bit, and it's going to be on my crusaders script, and it's going to be because I really want to do it.

I've made this quest to make my daily word count become something that gets in the way of me trying to tell a story, and that's not good.

03:00

A very profitable hour spent working on a new beginning to my crusader script. I'm really glad I had a break today. It made a big difference to what I was able to think of - a completely fresh idea, and a feeling that this is actually fun, and not just slog.

Going to go to bed now because I'm apeshit tired.

word count: 802
hours writing: 1

Day 26

09:00

Ugh. Feel fucking horrible. Five and a half hours' sleep just isn't enough for a guy like me.

Got a bit of a schedule today. I'm fed up missing all the good films at the cinema: I'm really not going to let these movies go out of the cinema without me seeing them:

Frost/Nixon, Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, Valkyrie, and (being a huge Fincher fan) Benjamin Button. The Wrestler. Maybe The Reader.

But I think I'm going to see Role Models before any of them. I'm that kind of guy.

But I've got to be smarter about working these things into my day without having to stay up to three in the morning to make my word count. So I'm thinking about a matinee.

For the first time in a few days, I really enjoyed working on the novelisation last night, but I really want to get back to the new script. I started the year with a half-finished plot outline, which turned out to be a huge advantage. I'd really like to get that kind of head-start for the new script - especially since February is such a short month.

We'll see what happens.

23:00

Long day. Still feel horrible. Went to see Valkyrie today - I thought it was very good, despite the lukewarm reviews. Singer has an excellent sense of composition, and when focused, an excellent sense of visual synedoche: a heel crushing a cigarette, a set of steps outside the Fuhrer's aeroplane, a glass eye hidden in a box, telling us about the hiding and the strategems, the decisions and the little things on which world events pivot - I thought it was very effective.

Have made my word count, again through the novelisation, and have only written for two and a half hours. I feel extremely bad today. And I have shit I have to do tomorrow. Ugh. These days are not getting easier, they're certainly diminishing in productivity, too.

23:30

I'm going to read more tomorrow - get more inspiration for this damnable screenplay. I'm looking at Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy at the moment (Penguin Classics Edition), and it helps me feel a tiny bit closer to the mindset I have to familiarise myself with.

And on that note I think I'll read in bed.

word count: 2,466
hours writing: 2.5
hours researching: 1 (I know this doesn't count)

Day 25

13:45

Up at midday. Going round to see my parents soon - it might be difficult to get writing done in the meantime.

I've got the urge to track down the movie Glengarry Glen Ross and watch it again: I'm not sure why. I just want to see Alec Baldwin yell: 'ALWAYS BE CLOSING!' and, 'COFFEE IS FOR CLOSERS!'

Man, the character from that film would make the best dad ever.

00:30

Okay, so I fucked up. Got back a couple of hours ago, after a pretty tiring day. Needed a little break; now it's half past midnight and I haven't done a frickin' thing.

Will have to just put a couple of hours in now, then try to catch up over the next couple of days.

I am definitely finding this harder at the moment.

02:30

Two hours writing. Word count made, only through working entirely on the 'novelisation'.

I've got to do better than this - get my head back in the game. I've been getting lazy and have spent too long playing (and thinking about playing) computer games when I should have been writing and researching. There's a lot of irrelevant crap that, in the long run, does me no good. I've spent the most part of my life putting that in front of creative endeavours, so, Jesus Christ! I can put this at the front of things for a single year.

What do I need to get my ass in gear? A fucking Rocky montage?

Going to bed now. Will definitely kick more (or at least some) ass tomorrow.

word count: 2,112
hours writing: 2

Day 24

13:45

Got up at midday today. That's more like it.

Feeling a little more positive. Really want to work on my crusader script today, rather than just elaborating on the screenplay I've already written into prose.

It worries me slightly, because there's so much that I don't know about these people. I close my eyes and try to imagine the story, and the image I see is only half-exposed. But I'll start writing, and do my best.

Mind you, I really feel like playing computer games today.

15:15

Done an hour of plot points. Still at the very start. Feel good. I think I'll stop for a bit and play computer games. No, God damn it! Keep going, you fucking loser!


Maybe I'll play computer games for a bit, then write. What could go wrong?


00:00

Only 3 hours writing done, a lot more staring into space.

I'm proud to have written a thousand words of plot-points for my crusader script, which is the first time I've managed to break that barrier with something totally original since I finished my script a week ago. But it's slow going, and difficult to work out where to go - the possibilities of each scene and character are still untapped.

Hungry. Haven't had dinner yet.

01:00

Stopped for an hour, had some burritos and watched a bit of the movie Wanted. It's pretty good. Now I've got to make my word count.

02:30

Resorted to working a little more on the 'novelisation'. Man, it's a piece of shit. But it keeps me writing every day, when I could easily start slacking, and when I'm too early to force out a whole plot for my crusade story.

Still, it's very late now, I think I'm going to go straight to bed.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: must try harder.

word count: 2,218
hours writing: 4

Day 23

12:30

Up for a couple of hours, have been tearing through the painful process of rendering movies into image sequences, so I can work on colouring a short film I made last year.

Have had a great time reading snippets of my crusading books while I wait for things to finish.

Don't really feel like writing, though.

Pull your finger out!

14:15

I found this awesome online resource to hone my screenplay (can you tell if I've started writing yet?): it's called the word frequency counter, and I copied my whole script into it to find out the words I used, or over-used, the most.

Turns out I used the word 'the' 1594 times. That's okay. You can't do very much without the word 'the'.

But I used the word 'looks' a staggering 257 times. That means, on average, someone 'looks' at someone else in my script every two paragraphs. And these are script paragraphs - normally only two or three sentences.

A couple of other overused words I discovered through this device.

Man - 194 times
Down - 144 times
Walks - 140 times
Door - 126 times
Eyes - 56 times
Black - 41 times
White - 25 times
Silence - 19 times
Darkness - 13 times

And, bizarrely,

Moustached - 12 times.

I used the adjective 'moustached' 12 motherfucking times? I don't remember using it once. I don't even know how I'd put it in a sentence. Apart from, perhaps;

'What a magnificently moustached fellow he is'.

Anyway, maybe I should actually do something now And try not to use the word 'moustached' more than five times.

22:45

I feel pretty pissed off about today, in all. All of the renders I did came out wrong, then my machine stalled, and I'm going to have to entirely re-do the five hours of work that I put into my short film and not writing.

I really haven't achieved very much. I'm going to try to do another hour, and then call it a day.

00:30

Finished for the day. Have made my word count, but only through writing the 'novelisation', which I'm worried is becoming less and less readable.

Must do better - must do more creatively - tomorrow. Haven't felt like any of this today. When I woke up this morning, I felt like the whole world was ahead of me. Now I feel like it's run off after having kicked me in the balls.

Still, there's always tomorrow.

word count: 3,241
hours writing: 3.5

Day 22

10:30

Wake up feeling pretty groggy. I've got to start writing earlier.

21:30

Wrote for a couple of hours between the morning and the early afternoon, and I liked it. I can see why a lot of authors go for writing first thing.

The problem is that my first thing is normally early afternoon, by which time the rest of life starts to intervene. If I put a rein on my night-owlishness, I might actually get more done.

It would be a good feeling to finish my hours and word count before it was dark. But that might also have something to do with Scotland in mid-winter.

Also, I feel pretty good tonight, because my beautiful girlfriend just told me that she read the whole of my blog today and really enjoyed it. There isn't much in this world that could make me feel better than that.

Can't let it make me cocky, though. Back to work.

11:15

Finished for the day: my earliest finish in a long time. I feel like keeping going, but I have other stuff to do, and feel pretty positive. For the first time today I started to get a handle on what I want to learn about these crusading characters before I write about them.

It's very easy to read a lot of books with a pen and notepad next to you, jot down little observations and generally get very frustrated that you're not really finding out what you want. I realised today, I have to know what I want, then find out - relatively quickly - what I can, and make up the rest.

It seems very simple, but I've spent days trying to get a handle on the main characters without very much luck. So I decided to write down a list of questions and try to answer them: what did a crusader look like? What and when did he eat? How did he fight? What were the Palestinian villages he raided like? Suddenly, I know what I want, and the process of researching doesn't devolve into some kind of pretentious, never-ending quest to understand everything. And I find out little details that I can add to individual characters.

I also managed to write out the next couple of scenes from the 'novelisation'. It still feels tedious, it also still feels useful. I worked out today that, at the rate I'm going through the script, that this 'novelisation' will run to about 50,000 words - or about a month's writing, by my count. So I'll have to stretch it out over fallow periods (I can feel that there might be a few of those around the corner...) Still, the fucker feels like homework, there's no getting around it.

But then, doing my homework dilligently is what got me here today. Which is: mostly unemployed, living in a one-bedroom flat in Glasgow.

And on that note, I think I'm going to reward myself with a bath.

word count: 2,683
hours writing: 4

Day 21

22:00

Long day, unfortunately with no writing done.

Spent most of the day editing together a new showreel of the work of me and some friends, to try to drum up a little work.

It's very frustrating getting to this time of the night and having still not achieved anything. I'm almost certainly not going to get my four hours in, damn it.

Enough of the whinging. On to work.

01:00

That was not fun. Spent this time working on the 'novelisation', more because I think it's the only way that I'm going to make my word count than it's something I really want to do.

However, having said that, it really is an excellent tool to revisit characters and really examine their reasons for doing what they do. I've managed to add a couple of really important lines of dialogue, and I know that I simply wouldn't have thought of them, reading through the script with a pencil. So this examination, though long and a little tedious (and, I'm pretty sure, not creating a manuscript that will have any hope of being published) has nevertheless raised a couple of really interesting questions about my characters and story in a very different way, and has already added way more to the start of the second draft than muddling through it with a pencil would.

Still, hopefully I can start a little earlier tomorrow, and thus work more on my crusader story. It really hasn't made much progress yet, and I'm itching to get on to it.

We'll see what happens.

word count: 2,165
hours writing: 3

Day 20

13:30

Okay, I fucked up. I slept for thirteen goddamn hours. I must have needed it, though.

So this is what I'm thinking: I'm going to try my utmost to write 2,000 words a day, and write for a minimum of 4 hours.

BUT - So long as I write 50,000 words a month, and write for 100 hours every month, I'm not going to beat myself up too badly if my word count drops for a day or two - it will, it's simply inevitable.

I know I wasn't going to make up any more rules - that was one of my rules, in fact - but I think this one is reasonably fair, and also represents the dawning of reality into my crazy screenplay year.

And it reflects the main thing I've learnt so far - how day-in, day-out work requires a different level of alertness and discipline from the occasional batshit-crazy all-nighter that I'm used to. I've realised over the years that there are many things I can do when I'm tired. I've never directed or acted in anything where I wasn't borderline narcoleptic from the lack of sleep tallied up from last-minute pre-production disasters and mindfucks.

But those are fundamentally different pursuits to writing. Yes, they're as tiring, they certainly need the same level of concentration - but they need, in many ways, less concerted and continual self-discipline. You direct and you act with people, in front of people, and there's a huge communal force surrounding you that wills you to do well. You have little breaks - you walk around a lot - you ask other people what they think and what they would do. And they look after you, probably better than you deserve. All this can delude you into thinking you're a lot more capable than you would actually be if you tried to do these same things on your own.

And when you're writing, you are on your own. And when you go beyond a certain level of tiredness, there's almost nothing you can do to continue. I've tried a couple of times after the long days' work last week to sit down and force myself to write - and have stared dopily at the screen and typed virtually nothing. I managed less than 200 words in an hour - a word every twenty seconds. We're talking about a sentence as short as this one taking more than 5 minutes to write down. And that's not a good use of anyone's time.

So, that's how I'm going to try to stop being disappointed in myself for not meeting my word count for 6 days out of 19.

Anyway, I'm going to pull my finger out and start doing something.

19:45

Done three hours of writing - spent it entirely on the 'novelisation', which I'm now kind of enjoying. It's a nice way to revisit the story, try to explain it a little more, and see if it's working. It's also cheating. I mean, I've made my word count already, but I haven't worked on anything actually original yet today.

I have a couple of little business things to do, then I'm going to work on my crusader's story.

02:15

Those other 'little things' took longer than expected. Still, I got a last hour of work in on my crusader story - writing down little things about the characters on their own 5" by 3" cards.

I'm finding it difficult to feel like I'm making much progress with this new story. But I think that, in a lot of ways, it's going to be one of the toughest - there's a lot of research to be done, and I know that a lot of the first draft will turn out to be inaccurate. So I'm holding back from launching into a plot-line just yet - I still feel like the characters are place-holders and my understanding of what they've been through is very limited.

I'm reading an excellent book, 'The Crusades through Arab Eyes', by Amin Maalouf. But every useful nugget of information I get from it reminds me how little I know about the period. I realised this evening, for instance, that I had no idea about the kind of weapons any of these characters would be carrying - which is a pretty big thing, considering they would have used them to spend two years hacking through the middle east.

Anyway, it's late and time to go to bed.

Will try harder tomorrow.

word count: 2816
hours writing: 4

Day 19

07:45

Up and packing. Got to catch the train in an hour. Going back home.

Sunny Glasgow awaits!

19:45

Back home. Cold, and pretty shattered. I spent the day on the train, working on a little project I'm doing for my grandfather. He wrote an autobiography a few years back, and it exists only in a few versions of bound photocopies - I'd really like to get it printed in proper book format from a company like lulu or blurb for his birthday.

I came across a passage in it when he's explaining about one of the first essays he wrote in Armidale's University College (in New South Wales.) His professor said it wasn't very good, and told him to remember that;

"Thinking is also research"

This made me think about my constant attempts to up my word-count over the last day or so. What I don't like about it, is that it doesn't feel like it's helping my thinking about the screenplay or the story.

So while I work this evening, I'm going to think long and hard about a better way of gauging those important days at the start of a project in which thinking takes precedence over writing.

Here goes.

23:45

Went to have a 'nap'. Absolutely exhausted. Have to go to bed. Will return to this in the morning.

word count: 52
hours writing: 1

Day 18

11:30

This is my last day in Wales. After a huge storm last night, I think I'll go for a quick walk, before deciding what to do today.

13:15

Got back from my first strenuous run of the year. I feel so unfit at the moment that I can't help imagining my organs looking like one of those cellophaned packs of fatty meat.

Cut me up and sell me to the supermarket.

02:15

Wow. That was hard. I just made my word limit, and only by trying to write some character monologues, some research, some notes, and the terrible beginnings to that first script 'novelisation' I was talking about yesterday.

I'm going to have to work out another way of making my word limit when I'm researching and planning these scripts: in a very practical sense, I'm nowhere near ready to write my second screenplay, which is set in Palestine in 1099 - I simply have to do a few days' worth of research. If I force myself to do 2,000 words a day at times like this, I'm worried I won't get enough thinking done, which may effect the end quality of what I write.

But on the other hand, it would be easy to start letting the word count and the hours slip, and within a few weeks, stop updating the blog, and then the whole thing altogether.

It would be too easy. I've got to find another way.

word count: 2,023
hours writing: 5

Day 17

13:10

Now, that's more like it. Waking up just before sunset. Sitting in front of the word processor without another care in the world...

First, a little exercise, and some lunch.

14:15

Just found a very friendly ferret rummaging around the bins outside. Lis has decided to name him Fergus. I've never seen one bef0re - he's a damn-site more charismatic than the cat.

Maybe I could get a ferret, and we could be pals. He could run across my writing desk (if I had one) and we could play in boring moments.

Or I could stop daydreaming and start doing some work.

02:15

I'm staring at a couple of words that raise conflicting emotions. It's page 129 of my script. The words sit below a trickle of print and above a sea of white: THE END.

I don't know what to do. I always find the last days of writing a story the most difficult: it's almost impossible to write a satisfactory ending in the first draft.

I find it relatively easy to start something off, make it intriguing, start each day in a new place. When you get to the middle, as long as you've planned enough in advance, it tends to progress smoothly, so long as you keep it sweet, concise, and you know with confidence where you're going. But the end, that's where suddenly, nothing seems nearly as powerful or dramatic as you thought it would be. You start by looking back over the last couple of pages from yesterday and thinking, 'No, that's all wrong.' You can start and end in virtually the same place, entirely disatisfied with just with what the characters say. These are the places where plots stand still, and you see who the characters really are. And they're just empty.

I think this certainly might be the case with first drafts, but then - even after five drafts, my first feature screenplay attempt still wasn't dramatic enough. The last twenty pages of a story always seems to slow me down, mire me in problems that sap my confidence in the project as a whole.

This might be tied to the fact that it's been days since I wrote properly, and it feels difficult for me to get back on my feet.

I realised something today: it's not difficult to do something hard when, every day, the proof comes back that you're succeeding at it. It's when you've spent a few days failing, that's when everything else in your life seems a better idea - more fun, more of a distraction - than the difficult thing that you've been doing.

I don't know whether today was a sucess or a failure. But I reached my word count, and that's good.

Oh, and in the course of writing this screenplay, I've listened to Jerry Goldsmith's soundtrack for Chinatown 58 times in its entirity.

I should find some more music.

word count: 3,384
hours writing: 5

Day 16

17:45

Finished work! Time to grab the train and get back to my lovely girlfriend...

23:30

Back in peace and quiet. Exhausted and not fit to write. Luckily I managed to jot some ideas down on the train, only a couple of hundred words but better than nothing at all.

I look at the work that I've missed and it's pretty fearsome.

Down by 6,800 words.
Slacked by 12 hours.

That's a lot of work to catch up on - I'll have to write an extra 500 words a day, and write for an extra hour, for the next fortnight to catch up.

I had no idea five days' work could set me back so much. But I can't obsess about these things: have to keep moving onwards.

And on that note, I'm going to bed.

word count: 308
hours writing: 1

Day 15

10:00

Still pretty damned tired. Been in work for an hour, looks like it'll be a long day, plus I'm going to talk to a colleague here about some new creative projects after work, all of which could mean I don't get to start writing till quite late.

This hasn't been the productive week of working and writing I envisioned. But then, you can only do what's possible.

Back to work.

22:45

Another long day and late evening. Had an incredibly productive chat with a colleague, Christian Knowles-Fitton, about some film and advert collaborations we should link up with and do in the future.

But I’m exhausted now. I’m worried I’ll only be capable of another 15 minute, 35 word washout.

But I’ll try.

23:15

Falling asleep at the keyboard. Have to sleep. Disappointed to see that my hours average has fallen below 4 for the first time, and my word count average below 2000. This won’t do.

I’ve also been wondering what I should do when I’ve finished my screenplay and am spending days basically revising it but writing no new words, and came up with a natty idea.

I could try my hand at a short novelisation of the screenplay, as I go through and revise it. This might be a natty way of ‘adding value’ to the idea, might be something I could sell (if I learn to write a little better) more easily, perhaps, than a screenplay. It might also be a good way of looking at ‘the big picture’, which is difficult when revising a screenplay.

But then, another part of me says, Jesus. Isn’t 12 screenplays ambitious enough this year, without piling a novel on top of it?

In the end, I think I might try my hand at it, when I’ve got some time and my word count is a little low, just because if it doesn’t work, if it’s embarrassing and stupid, well, I don’t have to show anyone, do I?

Anyway, aware that I have written far more words on my blog than I have on my screenplay, I’m going to go to bed now.

word count: 58
hours writing: 0.5

Day 14

08:45

Man, I totally fucked myself. I went to bed at about 03:00, but was so excited that I couldn't sleep: the last time I looked at the clock it was 04:45 and counting.

There's a lesson, here. If you feel like writing, write. Even if it's 3:30 in the morning and you've got work to do the next day.

I wish I'd stayed up and continued working.

22:30

A long day today. Ridiculously tired.

I will try to get an hour’s writing in, then go to bed. I know that I won’t get much work done tonight, but I’m determined to do a bit, even if I don’t write more than a couple of words.

22:45

That's it. That's all I can do. I look at my computer screen and the words literally distort in front of my eyes. I'll have to catch up tomorrow.

word count: 35
hours writing: 0.25

Day 13

07:30

Up and about. Determined to do better today, though I'm realising I might have to be more realistic about my goals while I'm working.

19:45

Back at the hotel. Sit down in front of the word processor. Three days of doing less than normal, and I already feel rusty and apprehensive. Still, no time like the present.

21:15

So tired I can’t think. I have to have a nap: I can’t help it.

23:45

Awake and demoralised. Another night without writing – only a few hundred words. I’ll work for another half an hour, I just have to.

It’s amazing, just 8 or 10 hours of regular work, and when you sit down to write, you can’t think you’re so tired.

For the first time, I can see why so many writers with day jobs write in the early morning. I’ve always hated getting up early, but I understand: it’s impossible to put more than your haziest, least-focussed and most dissatisfying efforts in at the end of a day’s work – even if that day wasn’t particularly hard.

Still, back to work.

02:45

Well, I might have fucked myself for work tomorrow, but I made my hours and my word limit, and this makes me feel much better about myself and the project.

If I don’t get any more work done here this week, at least I know I worked hard when I could, and that I’m still trying my best.

I don’t know if it’s just that I’m getting closer to the end, or that I’m writing in a hotel room instead of the cosy nook I’d developed for myself over the last week, but I don’t feel like I’m writing as well as I have done. I’ve had the luxury of spending as much time as needed on the bits I felt were poorer, and not moving on until they were fixed.

Here, time is a luxury and I feel the constant need to move on: as a result, writing here is more like the old experience – a chore, something I make myself do. But then, maybe, it’s nearly 3am in the morning and I am making myself do it.

We’ll see how it looks when I read it back.

Word count: 2,487
Hours writing: 4.5

Day 12

06:00

This is a different experience. Getting up in the morning. A four hour trip awaits...

10:30

Get to my destination at Leeds. Will have a full day's work here before I'll get to start writing. I really have to catch up from yesterday, too - which means at least a couple of extra hours writing this evening.

15:30

Get half an hour's writing in during a break- though late afternoon sleepiness seems to be more difficult to power through than late night.

22:00

Back to the hotel. Start writing again. A long day today, my first real challenge writing. I’m tired: it would be so easy to give myself the night off. But I just don’t trust myself enough – I’m so close to the end of my first draft now – maybe only a couple of night’s work. I don't want to spend a day not trying my hardest.

22:45

Too tired to work any more. I’m disappointed in myself, but I have to go to bed, sleep. I’ve spent over an hour, and written virtually nothing – just staring sleepily at a page. Hopefully, tomorrow will be more productive.

Word count: 274
Hours writing: 1.5

Day 11

11:30

Not exactly the early start I envisioned, but still two and a half hours earlier than yesterday.

A stormy day outside - I'm not used to how exciting this kind of weather is in the countryside - the wind really does whistle across the hills.

I'll be able to listen to it as I draw around people all day.

20:30

Started work 45 mins ago, just before dinner.

01:00

Only wrote for a couple of hours today. First day I didn't make my word limit, either. But I have to get up at 6am tomorrow, and I really needed to spend some time with my beautiful girlfriend, who I'm already missing.

I'll have to make it up tomorrow.

word count: 1,522
hours writing: 2

Day 10

13:50

Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ! Even by my own lapse standards, I probably just broke my own record of getting up at the time of day that only complete assholes get up at.

Two o'clock in the afternoon.

Loser.

23:30

A poor show, today. I've done a few pictures I needed to cut around for work next week, and I managed to help my girlfriend with her new website, which I'm pleased to have done.

But writing-wise, I'm just starting, at eleven-thirty at night.

03:00

Tried my best to catch up. And that's exactly what it felt like, to be honest. I have the feeling when I start to revise and rewrite, this little section will need more work than most.

It's difficult writing emotional scenes. Getting it sounding at all right is difficult - steering it in the right direction is difficult - and having to sit and work out hurtful situations for characters who have become people you care about - I find it verges on upsetting.

Now I'm writing a scene in which our main man realises his girlfriend, the mother of his child, can never love him again. He's done too much wrong. No matter what he tries, no matter how much he wants to make things right, they never will be. It seems impossible to write such a scene without stirring up all of the most painful memories from my own life as I try to imagine these situations.

I'll be much happier when my characters get back to killing each other.

word count: 2,065
hours writing: 3

Day 9

17:30

A dispiriting day. Woke around eleven - went for a nice walk, came back to find out that the shoot for my 'break-out' project - the internet drama 'Paperjail' - is being postponed. This is not a good time for production companies to self-fund projects - which I completely understand. But when someone knees you in the balls, it hurts, whether or not the movement was intentional.

On top of that, I'm having to spend about thirty hours drawing around people in photoshop over the next three days for my job next week. And while the money is keeping me in writing paper ad whiny blogs, drawing around people's hairy arms for twelve hours straight totally sucks.

But first of all, I'm going to forget about this shit and do some writing.

21:15

Tired and moody. Only written 500 words. Feel utterly out of sorts today, which is annoying - I know it's because of the bad news.

If I can't write because I'm feeling grumpy about something, I'm going to spend more days angry than I am writing.

22:30

Had to have a nap. Wanted to just sleep through till tomorrow, but I have to do better than this.

03:00

A difficult day - maybe the most difficult so far. A couple of horrible scenes to write: frustrating, poorly put together, difficult to make believable, let alone interesting.

I'm learning that sometimes, when I scene feels impossible to write, you have to finish it in whatever way you can and move on to the next bit in that same sitting. If you manage it, you feel a sense of achievement simply for not giving up. But if you don't, you can create a bottleneck - the kinds of bottlenecks that in my case, having obstructed me from finishing stories for literally years.

And while you wrote these bits, I was trying my best, but it really didn't feel like I was trying my best, or read like I was trying my best. And for the first time this year, I got the old sense I've always had when writing: of self-esteem-dissolving-away - of every word passing a judgement on your inability to create anything worthwhile.

But then - fuck it. It's only a screenplay. And this is a blog - not a psychiatrist's couch. Jesus.

word count: 2,166
hours writing: 4.5

Day 8

10:30

I've actually been awake quite a long time. Head still sore and lumpy from the crack I gave it yesterday.

15:30

Went back to sleep for half an hour, or so I thought.

Still, it's not all bad. I got my books delivered from Amazon today! A bunch of different books about the Crusades. This is going to be for the screenplay I start after this one - but I've got a lot more research to do before I can start writing it, and thought I should get it out of the way as soon as possible.

02:45

Little time to write today - lots of big intervals. Couldn't find the little bits of research I was looking for either - made me extremely grumpy. But the writing came easier.

Have to go to bed now - am keeping my girlfriend awake.

word count: 2,503
hours writing: 4 (barely)

Day 7

12:30

A second terrible night's sleep - going to bed too late, too much noise in the mornings.

I wasn't very happy with where I left off yesterday - I wrote fewer pages, and they felt more difficult. I've got to the part of my story where I have the least frame of reference: I'm worried it won't feel convincing enough.

I'm also amazed by how limited my vocabulary is. I have so few synonyms at hand for my characters' simplest tasks: looking, turning, running. It's also interesting to see how often certain synonyms come back to haunt you every time you try to find a word, and remind you of your shortcomings - for instance, I've tried to use 'barreling' for 'sprinting' at least four times in thirty pages. You end up cheating and looking in a thesaurus, and then every word you take from it - 'bolts', 'darts', 'hurtles', feels utterly false.

I'm going to have to deal with this over the coming weeks - in a lot of my screenplays, people are going to be running and looking at one another. It seems to be relatively easy to describe something exotic - much harder to write simple, universal actions in an unrepetitive way.

13:15

Going to start writing now. Wanted to sit down and start straight away, but a wren got trapped in the house. Clever little creature - didn't need much help to find his way back out.

02:30

Going to bed. Broke the 3,000 word mark for the first time, today. It felt good - I've got the feeling it won't be so easy from now. Tomorrow, I've got ACTUAL WORK to do, it's going to suck away a lot of this time. I might have to reduce my ideal word count and hours writing for the next nine days. But we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

Also slightly concerned that I've done my level best to write lean and honed material, to not over-explain or write anything extraneous - yet I'm only just 25% through my plot outline, but have written 50 motherfucking pages.

If I don't start crushing stuff down, repurposing scenes to contain more, this script is going to run to over 200 pages. And a 200-word script hasn't really been 'saleable' since the mid-70's.

So. We'll see what happens next.

Also, I cracked my head on a rafter today. And managed to wake seriously ill woman, who's house I'm staying in - and who's going into hospital tomorrow - at 1:30am this morning by cackling at The Daily Show too loudly.

Cosmo Wallace. The man. The legend.

word count: 3,151
hours writing: 5

Day 6

12:45

Not a good night's sleep. Day half gone already. Have to go out. Buy some vitamins.

17:30

Starting the day's work: my latest start yet. Kind of shitting myself about today, really.

03:30

A tough day. Difficult to write, difficult bits to get through. I know my girlfriend's still awake, and I've kept her up long enough, so I'll write more tomorrow.

No real insights today. Just slog.

word count: 2095
hours writing: 5

Day 5

11:25

Get up. Write a couple of e-mails. Sit down with a cup of tea. Can I write another twelve pages of script today? At the moment, I'm feeling pretty confident.

18:00

Three hours writing, 1,200 words written, the most dispiriting day so far. Nothing is working. Nothing is clicking. Everything lies there, wooden. Nothing seems convincing. Why the fuck are any of these guys doing this stuff?

I'm finding this very difficult. I think I'll take a short break.

00:15

Got to the first big plot twist. Stopping now, with the unsure feeling about whether I should maybe keep on going - but something is telling me this is the right time to stop. Then, I can get a feeling for this new part of the story from its beginning, tomorrow.

But I look at it, and I'm scared that people are going to read this plot-point and just laugh - say, 'This is absolute bullshit'. However, I've come to think this feeling of fear is actually a good sign - it's pushing something. You're scared because it's different. And different nearly always attracts attention.

I've realised today that there's an incredible fluidity in the amount of fun or hardship you can feel from one half-hour to another when you write. I've always had this - though it's far more apparent, and seemingly predictable, when you write day to day:

At the beginning of each morning (or in my case, early afternoon or mid-evening), I'm looking forwards to starting work. Half-way through the day, I hate the story, what I've written, everything I'm doing. At the end of the day, it has all seemed to be a piece of cake. Mission accomplished - I feel fantastic. I wake up the next day full of gusto. Then I start, and within fifteen minutes I hate it again.

Is this normal? Am I more of a psychopath than I think? Or is this just a daily moodswing - a tidal force in the creative chambers. I hope with a little experience, I can start to temper it.

And on that edifying note, I'm going to bed.

word count: 2689
hours writing: 5.5

Day 4

11:20

Up a little later, feeling a little groggier this morning. In celebration of having finished my step outline, I played my first computer game this year: Rockstar's Bully. At about two o'clock this morning, I got that familiar revelation I always get playing computer games into the early morning. You're a fucking loser.

Going to have to do things a little differently today. Up till now I've been able to be selfish, do nothing other than write. Today, I have to do a little work; next week, there's a whole lot more of it to go around. So we'll see how that impacts on this whole project.

But for now, a cup of tea.

16:00

Alright! Finished with work! I can finally do this.

Today, I'm going to go through my plan, worm out all the problems in it, and then start writing the script, first draft. I fed the whole story into an excel spreadsheet last night, listing characters, objects, and what they're doing in between the times we see them. This might sound lame, but it was only by doing this I realised that a suitcase full of cash just disappears out of the story after having driven the whole first act.

So, try to find the other plot holes, see if I trust it as a story, and then start on the beginning.

Only time will tell whether it's going to work.

16:30

I fire up final draft. Do the normal things; A4 page size, go to the 'document' window and take off the 'mores' and 'continues'.

I could spend more time staring at my character sheet and pondering as to whether or not it's a good enough story. Fuck it. I'll just write it.

02:15

That was a tough period of time to squeeze four and a half hours writing out of.

Wow - to write 2,000 words of screenplay requires you to write around twelve pages of screenplay. Twelve pages. It started hard, got a little easier towards the end, but: twelve pages. I'm really going to have to plan out every story I write - there's simply no way I'll be able to write middles and endings at that pace blind.

All in all, a frustrating day, and a late finish. For the first time this year, I really didn't think I was going to make my word count today, and it made me grumpy as hell. I did, and I feel better now, but it's nearly 2:30 in the morning, which is not a sustainable way to work.

Hopefully I'll be less of a douchebag, and more productive, tomorrow.

As always, time will tell.

word count: 2,230
hours writing: 4.5

Day 3

10:09

That's right. I got up at ten. Ten. I must be the most committed writer in the history of the world.

Today I'm going to finish my story, make sure it works from beginning to end. Set myself up to start writing the damned screenplay tomorrow morning.

I'm enjoying this.

13:10

Alright, it's only been a couple of hours of writing, and about 800 words, but I appear to have got to the end of my step outline: the end of my story.

It's not the satisfying feeling I expected. The words, the characters, the actions seem strange, unconvincing, unfinished. I have the urge to work on the whole thing from the beginning, but also feel like putting it away and not looking at it any more.

14:50

I sit down with a glass of water and a print-out: sixteen pages of plot points. I think the only thing I feel more apprehensive about than writing is reading what I've written. Still, no more time to put things off. I've still got twelve hundred words to write. I take out a pen and start looking through it all.

16:00

When I read my stuff, I always start out with the a similar sense of dread. But then, after a while, I think - it can't be that bad. There is promise, here and there. If I just change this, and that... Maybe it can still create that amazing story that seems so exciting in my head.

So, what's wrong? To start with, there are about a million characters and objects that appear, disappear and that never get resolved. Working them out is more like accounting than writing.

A bigger problem is the start: I want to introduce our first main character - and his situation - before we're launched headfirst into the plot and the first big twist. At present, this character-intensive introduction doesn't sit well with the sudden increase of pace at the end of the first act. It will have to change.

Then we have the third act. But we'll come to that another time.

Back to work.

22:00

Six hours of work today: 2014 words. That was a hard slog - in particular, because so much it was about tinkering.

Without the tinkering, this would be pointless, incoherent and utterly worthless It concerns me that I won't have the luxury of fiddling with other ideas as much in the coming months, after all, I gave myself a running start with this first project, in that I had half of a step-outline worked out.

Any new feelings today? A thought - at least.

Ending an idea you've been in love with for years is extremely unsatisfying.

Oh, and today, in Wales, in January, -1º outside: a big fat fly buzzed from nowhere and landed itself on the middle of my laptop screen. Talk about smelling out shit!

word count: 2014
hours writing: 6.5

Day 2

12:25

Jesus. I'm not getting better at this. I don't know if it's that the place is really hot, or really quiet, or that I'm just freakin' Goldilocks and nothing is ever quite right, but I've had two of the shittiest nights sleep in the most beautiful and serene places you could imagine.

And I've fucked up now - apparently, we've got to go out shopping.

Looking to the future, to further my writing career, I fear I will have to SET MY ALARM.

For a lazy, shiftless sleepaholic, this scares the shit out of me.

17:00

Finally starting work. Good and quiet, but I've gone past the ants-in-the-pants stage of needing to get this done, and feel slightly lazy about this all. I make myself a cup of tea and stare at the step outline.

I'm going to get this fucker finished today, I tell myself.

00:45

Not quite finished, but not far off. I've managed to set up and deal with the big confrontation between antagonist and protagonist, though it's by no means perfect. I'm now sitting at the moment where THE FINAL TWIST is revealed, and I can't quite work out how I'm meant to sell it without an episodic scene of moronic smugness: an 'M Night' scene, if you will. So, I think I'll close the computer down, and that these will be tasks for tomorrow.

It has definitely felt easier today: and I've written more words - 2,485 - in less time, - under 5 hours. This is good, because I feel it's necessary for me to to pound out about 500 words an hour if I'm going to succeed at this crazy quest throughout the year. For one day at least, I managed it.

What else have I been thinking whilst sitting here writing? Firstly, I'm going to have to get a better chair. If I'm getting a twinge in my back after two days, I'm going to be a wreck before the first screenplay is out, let alone by the end of the year.

Secondly, maybe all the successful writers who say that if you write every day it gets easier aren't just talking bullshit. But since my whole frame of reference is two days, maybe I better shut the fuck up until the day people pay me for writing.

Thirdly, I sketched out in rough form a lot of what I wanted to do today yesterday. That made yesterday's work feel a lot more difficult, but today's work easier; a little like loosening the earth before you shovel it.

But then, to me, writing out my ideas out often feels like shoveling something.

Off to bed. Maybe I can get up before sunset tomorrow.

word count: 2,485
hours writing: 4.5

The First Day

11.45am

I wake up 15 minutes before midday. What a fantastically productive way to start the year.

Christ, I better be refreshed and rearing to go. I think about the task ahead with apprehension and a little self-disgust. Another quixotic adventure. Another bite bigger than I can chew.

I load up an old story I started writing a step outline to. Stare at it.

12.00pm

Christ, what a mess. This is meant to be a step-outline. It's only half-way through, and its eight pages of plot points. At this rate, the film would turn out to have a duration of seven hours. I petered out at the first real confrontation between the protagonist and antagonist, a trap in which our hero realises he cannot escape the violent world around him.

I stopped at this point for a number of reasons. The first is that I couldn't work out a realistic way of the characters interacting at this junction: how the protagonist could escape, where he would go, and why this wouldn't devolve, like so many good-starting films, into a collection of tedious chase sequences. The second reason for stopping was that, from the start of the project, I imagined the first scene as the introduction of a shadowy character with a bandaged face. This ghostly figure starts the story off, and was more or less integral to the working of the plot, but I'd never been able to work out who he could be revealed as towards the end.

This was going to be my first job of the year. Save my main character from the clutches of a corrupt policeman, and work out who this bandaged idiot could be.

20:00

Eight hours later. I've written 1,435 words. I'm as out of sorts and restless as an unwalked dog. It was midday when I sat down, I don't know if I've spent as much four hours writing: I know for every moment I've written, an equal amount of time has been spent staring into space.

It's a curiously frustrating feeling: looking at the pages I've written, I suppose I've worked out who the bandaged man is, and how our hero gets out of that first situation. That was the plan. But now I've worked them out, they both seem so damn obvious, and there's still so much more to do before we reach the story's end. I suppose, however unrealistic, that's really what I set out to do today.

My step system sits in front of me - future events that I have to extrapolate on are written in GIANT CAPITALS below, the actual meat and bones that I've done so far lie above.

I decide I'll try to write for one final hour. See if I can write another 500 words. Jesus, I suck.

23:55

I finish for the day. Final word count: 2,055. That was a pretty difficult first day, but I suppose I did it. I suppose I wrote for about six hours out of twelve, maybe only five. Today I also spent time having a lovely walk in the frosty wilds of Wales with my girlfriend, and stopped for a delicious lunch and dinner. I also spent a way too long fucking around on the internet, and walking in angry circles thinking about a business acquaintance who ripped me off .

Still, six hours is virtually half the time I spent writing in December. So it's a success, in a somewhat pitiful way.

So what have I learned from this first day? That there will probably not be a single moment sitting down and trying to write that feels easy. And as soon as you achieve the goal you've set out for the day, you generally assume it can't have been a difficult enough task, and as much frustration can ensue as when you don't achieve that goal at all. Maybe this is something I'll deal with over time.

Secondly, I'm excellent at finding ways around rules, even if those rules are a single day old, and set by myself. I've already had to quell the urge to avoid cutting redundant words in the surreptitious effort to boost my word count.

Thirdly, although it's been hard, simultaneously it hasn't really felt like work. It's felt a more like pretending, actually: the same fantastic feeling I got as a five year-old, running around in my Spiderman pyjamas. There's almost a guilty pleasure to the pretense of writing. I spent the day doing what real writers did. What the best authors did. They sat down at a table like this and actually wrote stuff. Of course, scholars could note a couple of minor differences between their work and mine. But then, when I was five, I knew I wasn't really Spiderman when I put those pyjamas on. It was still a great way to spend the day - fuck what anybody else thinks.

So on reflection, all the time I spent 'researching', 'thinking', 'plotting' and 'gearing myself up' to writing over the past few years made the process feel like a lot more work, and a lot less interesting kind of work, than it felt today.

Maybe writing is just about making shit up.

Let's see if I can do more of that tomorrow.

word count: 2,055
hours writing: 5.5