The Serials Section project:\u00a0 Write 12,000 words a month, free of outlines or rules and avoiding my GS habit of recycling old writing.\u00a0 A sort of long-form flash-fiction, if that\u2019s possible.<\/p>\n
I start with a title and four chapter headings, with each chapter split into no less than 3000 words.\u00a0 Of course, when the stories hit the front page here, they\u2019re chopped down to about 1500 words per posting\u2026 Sort of ruins the effect, I suppose.\u00a0 But my goal is to write.\u00a0 And not, necessarily, to write well.\u00a0 I want to hone the discipline of writing.\u00a0 To cure my chronic inability to just sit down and fucking do the task at hand.<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019ve always loved the long form.\u00a0 The Zen that comes with diving into a story.\u00a0 But as every writer knows \u2013 whether they\u2019re clumsy and mediocre or the Great and Powerful Oz \u2013 you always have to face the doldrums.\u00a0 A starving, maddening, life-threatening Equatorial calm.\u00a0 And not just in the middle of the story.\u00a0 It\u2019s an evil spirit that haunts every corner, and lurks behind every tree.\u00a0 It\u2019s what inspires procrastination and the pursuit of distraction.\u00a0 One reason why I\u2019m avoiding outlines for these stories.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to try and fool that evil spirit (and myself) by just sitting down and writing to the 3000 word mark.\u00a0 Then starting another related \u201cchapter\u201d and doing the same.\u00a0 And, ultimately, ending at 12,000 words.\u00a0 Using that as a goal if the doldrums do occur.\u00a0 So I\u2019m able to say: I\u2019m in it now, so I must continue.\u00a0 There is an end in sight.\u00a0 It can be done.<\/p>\n
Consequently, the storytelling may suffer.\u00a0 I was happy with Finzel<\/em><\/a>, despite a few dips in the road, but I think this second story has struggled.\u00a0 Largely because part of this project has started to pay off \u2013 the old idea machine is working again.\u00a0 Instead of trying to kill my mind and burn it away with TV and movies while sitting at my dead-end, sedentary job (which demands only about 45 minutes of focus out of a 7.5 hour day), I\u2019ve started thinking of all the stories I can belt out at 12,000 words.\u00a0 I\u2019ve planned titles and chapter headings well into 2011 at this rate, and more every day.\u00a0 I guess you could say that I\u2019ve started to have fun.\u00a0 And that has been the most elusive part of my writing (and this webpage) for a few years.\u00a0 I\u2019ve let myself become downtrodden, and infected by bad people — dark angels, diseased souls.\u00a0 I\u2019ve become too distracted by the pain<\/a>, and the strangely difficult task of being suddenly pain free.\u00a0 I\u2019ve not yet rebooted my life.\u00a0 Part of this Serials Section project is to do that.\u00a0 Awaken the creative spirit, and get myself thinking about other things besides my own petty problems.<\/p>\n