“You must write every single day of your life… You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads… may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”

― Ray Bradbury

Like any manufacturing plant, here at the Story Factory, we value quantity over quality.

More words, more hours, more stories. The goal is 52 stories at the end of the year. Wednesdays, we will report production and celebrate the little victories.

Wednesday 7/14/2021 Production Report:

Words through 7/14/21 – 202,955

Hours through 7/714/1 – 856

Stories 20 out of 52 (this may not change anymore)

Just for fun, that is 237 words per hour. A bit down from last week, but we went camping, and after the 4 1/2 hour hike in the 90% humidity, I napped rather than wrote.

Analysis:

Not quite the numbers I was hoping for, but I am working on writing habits. The worst of which is putting down the pen and moving the mouse to something pretty and shiny on the internet. This, of course, leads to attention switching, and then it takes a good five minutes for me to remember where I am in my work. I am trying to do my first drafts by hand for exactly this reason. So the next step is to move the notebook and pen to a room or place with no computer, phone, tablet, or wifi. Someone should invent a lockbox where you can put your devices and it will not open until you can scan in 500 words. Alternately, you can hook up an AlphaSmart or some other non-internet device and download your words. But it has to be able to tell the difference between handwriting and printed materials. You can’t scan in a chapter of a Stephan King book to save your devices!