Man…I only wrote 807 words today. That’s a bit frustrating. It *was* a very solid 30 minutes of dictating…but I was quite dismayed when I saw the word count at the end of it. And there were quite a lot of corrections that needed to be made as well. I think I need to do some more precise tuning with the program in terms of character names. That’s where the big problem seems to be.
I don’t feel yet like my actual prose is improving with the dictation…but I also have to remind myself that it’s only been a week. ONE week. I need to cool me jets, take a breath, put my head down and keep barreling forward. I’m giving this a month, which might end up being an entire book, to see if I can make it work as well as I want it to. And if not by then, the keyboard is always there waiting for me.
Today was exhausting. The building took my entire day today. Sucked it dry. But…I got a shit-ton of stuff done. So, that’s good. A little bit more tomorrow (and forever into the future, to be honest – it never stops)…but I’m hoping by end of the week to be able to give more undivided focus to this whole writing thing.
It’s definitely been a challenge, you guys, making this switch to writing full time. I knew it would be going in…but then I seemed (or still seem) to forget that. I find myself wishing it was easier. But, it isn’t. It’s hard work, and it’s routine, and it’s focus. I’ve certainly trained myself to be creative and productive during the morning. My downfall is always the afternoon malaise, which then disappears into the evening when I feel like I should be getting some down time for a long day of work.
I’m not sure how to fix that, structurally. It’s always been a problem for me. At least as long as I can remember. Even at my best, I’ve always been 50/50 on those back-half-of-the-day hours. I’ve been able to pick up again in the later evening, after 9 or so, in the past…so that’s a possibility. I don’t know. We’ll see. I think it will depend on the WORK that I set for myself in those latter day hours. If it’s work that nags at me to do, I’ll do it. Ie- the more mundane tasks might be a good fit there, the ones with lower barriers to entry, the easier shit.
I watched the rest of Spectre today. It’s definitely better than Quantum of Solace, but it is not better than Skyfall. All in all, the Daniel Craig Bond films had one absolutely phenomenal flick in Casino Royale and set the bar pretty high in terms of classy looks…but otherwise his films rank right alongside most of Pierce Brosnan’s…which is to say, hit and miss, and often over-the-top. That’s why Casino was so goddamned good…it felt so REAL. Even the outrageous stuff felt grounded in reality. Not so much with Spectre.
Anywho…I also got my reading done. I’ll be done with Wool on Wednesday if all goes well.
Wish me luck.
Night!
Artwork tonight is from Todd Schorr