I hit a couple of notable benchmarks today.
This isn’t to be confused with hitting the magic number I mentioned recently. That’s a whole other thing. And not a good one.
Don’t confuse personal bests and personal worsts, people. It can’t end well.
No, this time the first benchmark, albeit the less significant of the two as I’ve gotten right around there before, is writing over 2000 words today. In the context of fiction writers, that’s not a ton–I believe author Chuck Wendig hits that pretty routinely, and has said that on rare occasions he’s done 10,000 words a day (though he didn’t recommend it)–but it’s also solid. Stephen King sets a goal for himself of 2000 words a day.
I mean… Stephen King’s 2000 words are worth a shit-ton more than my 2000 words. I know that.
Don’t rub it in.
Jerk.
The point is, since there are days when I’ve been dead on my feet or completely slammed when I’ve literally only written a couple of sentences in this project, just to make some… any… progress, 2000 words is pretty damn good. I’ve done it before, albeit not often, and I’m hoping to do it again.
It was also written in a mega-distracting environment: While my daughter was ten feet away doing virtual schooling and sporadically (yet often) asking me stuff and talking to me. That’s when I gently steered her back as much as I could to focus on what’s happening in her class. Which, according to plan, also let daddy get back to writing.
Two birds, one stone.
Simultaneous good parenting/aspirational career pursuit: I am one with you.
The second benchmark is bigger to me, though more happenstantial: At now a little over 23,000 words, this story is simultaneously about twice the length of my previously longest single prose story–take that, high school Creative Writing final project!–and a little over a quarter of the length of what’s generally considered a solid length for a first novel.
To clarify: It’s not the most I’ve written on one project. I’ve gotten several movie-length screenplays written and they’re all well longer than a scant 46-odd pages, but this is the most narrative prose I’ve ever written on one story.
And let me tell you, you think you know that writing a script and writing a book are of course going to be different, but it perhaps may not occur to you until you’ve done a number of one and then try the other that they’re, like, holy shit different.
Scripts are intended to be bare bones descriptions and actions, and they’re nicely spaced out. You can tell a story relatively quickly when it’s by a script:
MEGAN solidifies from the dark corner of the room, carrying her hand cannon.
She's beaten up and pissed.
ARMAND is stunned. He tries to find words-anything-and finally does.
ARMAND
H-how? How are you still alive?
MEGAN raises her huge gun at him and smiles.
MEGAN
What makes you think I am?
She pulls the trigger.
BOOM.
(Actually, you know what? That’s not bad. Note to self: Keep that segment.)
But yeah, a novel? Is kind of the exact opposite of that: Slow your roll there, writer-man. How is she beaten up? Like, with fists or claws? Edged weapons? Black eye? Ragged, torn skin? What?
And what about her clothing, is it the same he left her in? Are they cleaned and pressed or torn and bloodied (and ooo, is maybe the blood not all hers?)?
And she’s pissed? Sure, okay. But what kind of pissed? Probably more than run-of-the-mill pissed, yeah? And probably more than she ever has been at this guy who tried to have her killed? (Armands… always such dicks.)
And about him: Armand (dick) is stunned by her being alive at all, let alone showing up right where he is. What’s his thought process while he’s trying to form coherent words? Is he ready to beg for his life? Would he ever even do that, let alone with Megan (with whom he obviously has some kind of history, but I don’t know what that is at the moment because this is just me winging it)?
… you get the idea. Scripts = only needed details and made to be read quickly. Novels = as rich as you want on detail and emotion and recollection (which shouldn’t be so much as to bog the story down, but not so little it’s not painting an effective picture) to be savoured on a cold winter day by a cozy fireplace and with a cup of tea beside you.
Or scotch.
I won’t judge.
Writing a novel is a marathon.
Writing a script is a… I dunno… speed-walking race? What are those even called? Surely not something that wordy.
… man, I should’ve worked more on this metaphor.
In any case, suffice to say I’m really happy with how the story is going and the amount of work I’m managing with it, even if that’s not as much as often as I’d like.
It’s all progress, and progress is good.