“Once I started sitting at my desk all day writing, my energy level gradually declined, and I started putting on the pounds. I was smoking too much, too, as I concentrated on my work. Back then I was smoking sixty cigarettes a day. All my fingers were yellow, and my whole body reeked of smoke. This can’t be good for me, I decided. If I wanted to have a long life as a novelist, I needed to find a way to keep fit and maintain a healthy weight.”

— Haruki Murakami.

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 7/121/2021 Production Report:

Words through 7/21/21 – 209,422

Hours through 7/21/1 – 904

Walking Time through 7/21 – 313 minutes (starting 7/15)

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

Just for fun, that is 232 words per hour. That is down five words an hour since last week.

After reading N.A. Turner’s article about Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, I thought about how I used to run marathons several times a year and was quite prolific writing while running 6-8 miles a day (about 60-90 minutes.)

I am not in marathon shape at the moment, but I have decided to re-read the book this week AND start tracking the time for my daily walks. Maybe there is a correlation between 60-90 minutes of moving and writing quantities.

Analysis:

While the word count is a bit low, I did a lot of reading this week. Also, furniture rearranging, a creative act in its own right.

I did pull out my copy of Murakami’s book. I bought it second-hand back in February of 2017. The book came with some boarding passes (Swiss Air) for someone who traveled from San Fransisco to London via Zurich. When I first received and read the book, I didn’t notice that old William, whose boarding passes I now have, had written a woman’s name, email, and phone number. So, Natalie, if you are reading this, let me know if he ever called! There is a story here, you know?