Writing Busily in Many Directions

Little did I know when I made an offhand remark about 12 paintings and 12 stories in the last post, that it would soon be closer to fact than fiction.

It has seemed in the last two or three months that my writing has taken a back seat to many other things. I have, truth be told, considered myself a slacker in the writing department.

Why? Because it has been easier to read other people’s writing or to paint than it has been to write.

Yes, I have kept up the Daily Writing Exercise and yes, I did only miss two days in March, one of which was a travel day.

But I haven’t done any focused work on the current rough draft of Perfect Opportunities and that has been, up until now, my measurement of writing productivity. It seems that should be my benchmark, since it’s a completed rough draft and shouldn’t be that difficult to finish, right.

Toward that end, I have written reams in analysis and in trying out new versions and I have made progress there, but that story still eludes me, so I think I’ve been lazy when it comes to writing.

In looking at my word count worksheet, though, I see that in spite of the days I’ve missed doing any writing at all this year, I’m averaging nearly 900 words per day on the Daily Writing Exercise and 1,510 words per day overall as of April 2.

If you’re at all like me, you’re wondering where all those non-Daily Writing Exercise words are going. And that brings me to the statistic that tells me I may need to reset my benchmark.

On January 1, 2009, I had three stories on the worksheet. Parting Gifts, Perfect Opportunities and Fine Lines. It also included the Daily Writing Exercise, a document for random scenes for the year and another document for random writing journal notes. Six documents in all.

On April 3, 2009, the worksheet has four additional stories on it, three of which are alternate versions for Perfect Opportunities and at least one of which could be a very good novel all on its own.

So now, we’re up to ten.

I also just concluded a 40-day prayer journey dedicated to writing and have found, the further I went on that journey and the more I read of G. K. Chesterton and George MacDonald, the more new and old ideas raised up into my consciousness.

So a day or two ago, I started a new worksheet titled Current Stories and the purpose of that is to track when ideas appear, when the first scenes are written, when organization begins and so on. It’s basically a writing version of the same worksheet I use to keep track of the portraits and paintings I’m working on at any given time.

That worksheet started out with nine titles, only one of which is on the word count worksheet. Of the other eight, three are old ideas from the mid eighties resurrected for new work and the other five are ideas that have arisen during the course of the prayer journey.

Today, I added another.

And I sigh as I write that because as much as I enjoy writing for the sake of writing, it would be nice to actually have something finished or finish-able in the near future.

But then I go to my studio and see twelve paintings ranging from a simple dog portrait just started to a large, complicated harness racing portrait nearly complete and am reminded that I nurse them all along simultaneously, working on the ones that are most urgent or most interesting until they have to dry, then moving to another.

Granted, the stories do not have to dry, but there does come a mental break with every writing and when that point comes and I have to let it germinate, I either have something else to turn to or I start something new or I don’t write at all.

I don’t want to start the habit of not writing at all and I don’t want to put myself into a position of needing something else to work on and having no ideas, so we write scenes and develop ideas and characters as directed and, have faith that sooner or later, I’ll reach the end of the journey with one of them!