A Log Jam of Ideas

Just got a look at Spouse's tentative schedule for next week and it does not look like I will be getting ANY writing done in the first week of November. Spouse will be home during the day all five days during the week, and Son will be home Sunday and the following Saturday. This means no uninterrupted time for writing. I might be able to sneak in a little here and there, but not much.

Having nothing better to do with my time last evening I went through the files on this computer, listing all of the writing projects I could find, when I last worked on them, what their word counts were, and if they were finished projects. Don't know if the numbers are impressive, but I'm impressed. The past twelve months have been the most productive twelve months ever in my non-illustrious writing career.

Here are some of the 'cool' numbers, dating back to October of 2008.

• Total Projects Worked On: 146
• Total Projects Finished: 112
• Types of Projects:
• ..... 1 Editorial
• ..... 1 In Remembrance
• ..... 2 Plays
• ..... 9 Hero Stories
  
• ..... 15 Exercises
• ..... 26 Novels
• ..... 30 Short Stories
• ..... 62 Poems
• Finished Projects just in 2009: 107

NOTE: Monthly word counts are taken from the last date a project was worked on. Projects ending in April, May, and June, were not written solely during those months, but do fall within the 12-month span. The September and October projects, however, were begun in September and October, and the July and August projects were begun in July and August.

• OCTOBER Words Written: 85,096
• SEPTEMBER Words Written: 78, 527
• AUGUST Words Written: 18,452
• JULY Words Written: 2,886
• JUNE Words Written: 235,673
• MAY Words Written: 300,838
• APRIL Words Written: 146,300
• MARCH Words Written: 9,016
• FEBRUARY Words Written: 2,920
• JANUARY Words Written: 6,205
  
• Average Words per Day: 2,721
• Average Words per Month: 81,622
• Total Words in One Year: 979,461

Since I'm only 21,000-words away from One Million, if I were to add all the words from my blogs, and from drafts which I didn't include, I easily wrote more than One Million Words in the past 12 months. I guess that makes the fact that I may not be writing much at all over the next eight days all the more significant.

Probably the most significant number of all is the one that isn't displayed on the list, and that is, How Much Money Did All of That Writing Generate? A big fat ZERO.

I don't earn anything from my writing, but I keep on doing it. Guess that's how it goes sometimes, isn't it? Well, I've always said it isn't about the money. I think those numbers kind of support that statement.

The past 12 months have been very good for my writing, although I have (literally) shed many tears over it. When I am writing I am happy. When I stop and look back at what I've accomplished I am filled with a feeling of loneliness I can't explain.

I don't know how much longer I have in this world, but I guess I have created a legacy of some sort. That's assuming this computer doesn't crash like the one before. I lost a LOT of work when that happened as my backups proved to be faulty. What I wish is that I could afford to at least print single copies of what I have, as well as back it up digitally, so that the legacy will survive me. The poems and exercises are what they are, but the stories could all possibly be beat into shape.

Twenty-six novels in one year. I suppose that doesn't mean a lot when one considers that only four are finished.

Probably the number which surprises me most is the Short Story number. Thirty listed, but the Hero Stories are technically short stories, too, so that makes 39. I never saw myself as a short story writer before, but all 39 were begun in the past 12 months, and 30 have been finished.

But there's a lot of work in this archive. Nothing of what I've written is fit for publication, And maybe that's what makes me feel so lonely about what I've written. I don't know. It just seems a shame to have 34 stories not being read except by perhaps one or two people.

Meanwhile, my mind is already preparing to add to the short story and novel lists, and there will be other exercises I attempt, and the poems just come when they will.

Oh, and I've also written 1,107 posts for Blogger in the past year, too - not counting those I deleted.

What if I Find My Place in the World - And It's in a Corner Off the Beaten Track

Today is Other Works of Fanatasy Day. The idea being I am writing other things besides Swords of Fire. The truth is, the biggest fantasy I have is that I actually have a life worth living. I'm pretty useless, actually. What I contribute nobody seems to want. What people want are things I have no desire to contribute.

I should have been born when it didn't cost so much to do things. That way it wouldn't be so cost prohibitive for me to do the things I want to do. Our public television station often runs shows depicting people who have made big successes of their lives starting from "nothing". I guess "nothing" requires some kind of definition, because after watching a host of these programs my response is these people hardly had "nothing". They all had tens of thousands of dollars at their disposal, which led others with hundreds of thousands of dollars to loan them more in order for them to get going. I've got tens of dollars.

Now I grant you that $50,000 is not a lot of money when it comes to starting up a business. Just to open the little bookstore Spouse and I like to dream about would run about $150,000. That's what we're estimating anyway.

Starting a business is not easy. Or cheap. One must have property and/or cash to get going, and if the business fails, one loses said property and/or cash. And some businesses are subject to greater risks than others. Restaurants are notorious for not making it past the first year. The rule used to be that a restaurant had to last at least five years in order to truly establish itself.

Retail isn't much better. In this small town of less than 5,000 people we have seen dozens of businesses come and go in just a few short years. They're like bubbles in a pond. They pop up - and then they pop out.

Sometimes it's a question of location. Others it's just that there isn't enough of a market for the business. With forty-seven shoe stores in the mall, do we really need another? There's a McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's, Dairy Queen, and Culver's in town, and you want to open a burger palace?

It can be that way with writing, too. We who write with passion generally write good stories. But if there's nothing to distinguish our story from the host of others which beat us to market, why should anyone take it? But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. I lived in a town where an upstart burger place put McDonalds out of business. (Not across the nation. Just in that town.) Their burgers were better (not that hard to achieve), and they provided a service and atmosphere McDonalds couldn't/didn't. There were no cheap plastic toys for the kids, but everyone enjoyed being there.

There is great value in writing something to fit what's missing. You are filling an obvious need. Some writers (Authors) are very good at doing that. They examine what's available to read and recognize something is missing. So they write that. In a way I envy these Authors. Not just because they get published and I don't (although that certainly comes into play), but because they somehow seem to be able to control what they are interested in.

I'm interested in what I'm interested in, and although it changes from time to time, it doesn't change that drastically as a rule. I've always loved fantasy. And history. And nature.

I look at what's available to read and see lots of holes. But in my mind, that's good. The missing subjects are quite B-O-R-I-N-G. And even when someone else writes about it, and I sometimes endeavor to read what they have written, my opinion of the topic does not change. Of course, they just got paid for being dull. I do it for free.