Last night I wrote on my notepad “YOU MUST WRITE TODAY. A LOT.” And I left it on top of my phone on my bedside table, so it would be the first thing I saw when I woke up today. Now I’ve written about 1,300 words of a new short story. I don’t know if that meets the definition of “A LOT”, but it’s certainly a good day by my standards; especially right now when the play and the new relationship are taking up a lot of evenings.
I still feel a lot of gravitational energy drawing me towards prose. As I read more about the economics of self-publishing, especially e-books through the Kindle store; the more I think there could be something promising and viable here, potentially even a source of small side income. I am sitting on piles of ideas that I’ve long talked myself out of writing in screenplay form, just because they would cost a small island nation’s GDP to film and, since they are based on original ideas and Hollywood just doesn’t do that unless you’re Christopher Nolan cashing in one of your chits to make Inception, it would make a lot of sense (and not cost me anything but writing time) to road test them in book form. These short stories – besides building me towards a sufficient portfolio to self-publish a small collection – are a good form of exercise for making novels seem more viable. This story I’m working on now is already feeling more substantial than my average short work – we’re probably looking at 4-5,000 words at least before we’re through.
I guess that means, considering what a sizable chunk of that 1,300 words represents, that I can say I wrote a lot today. Time to shut down work mode and treat myself to a movie.