Daily (w)rite

Writing a 1000 words a day is no joke, and yesterday I wrote 2000. I was ecstatic, I was beyond happy.

I liked what I’d written after a long, long time.

When I started on my 1000 words today, I was stumbling, and finally ended up in the direction of 500. I realized torrential writing is not an everyday affair.

When I went to save it, I realized one more thing: I had not saved the 2000 words I wrote yesterday.

I went for the first session of my creative writing course yesterday. After much searching, my husband found the place for me, and the sweet soul that he is, dropped me inside and only left after making sure that the class was on.

The teacher is a bookstore owner who also runs a small publishing firm. I already knew most of the basic stuff we talked about yesterday, and the exercise we have for the 10 week, 20-hour course is common enough as well.

Write 1000 words a day.

I am sure this sounds familiar to all aspiring writers.

But the interesting part is that these 1000 words have to be deeply personal stuff, an exorcism of inner demons, a purging of whatever has been bothering us. Being intensely private, we are not required to show our writing to anyone, but the teacher tells us that if we are honest with ourselves and wake up early each morning to write a 1000 words, it would make a difference.

This is supposed to be useful in a few ways:

• We can use this later as a resource for our writing (somewhat like in method acting where you call up a particular emotion from your experience for the camera), when we have to write about an intense emotion in our characters.

• It is somehow going to unlock the doors, and unleash the writer within us.

• It is writing practice, a way to develop a habit of writing consistently everyday.

I am not sure how this will work, or if it will work at all, but I have decided to take this seriously. Even though I was late waking up today I did not get on with the day till I had finished the 1000 words.

Somehow, they were surprisingly easy, less than an hour and I was done.

I am not sure I can keep the discipline for 70 days, but there is certainly no harm in trying very, very hard. I am traveling early in the morning tomorrow, but of course I plan to wake up earlier than required and finish the 1000.