Friday, April 26, 2013

999,500 to Go


            To get good at something requires 10,000 hours of practice.  But it works a little different with creative enterprises, it is counted with words, and they put the target at 1,000,000.  A million words of practice can be done.  I write with a good bit of frequency, and could stand to put out more and more to further this mental cause.  Now rather than count the 5,000 words I wrote on finals tests this week, or my blogs, or really anything else.  I think I need to start now.  Each day I will write 500 words.  Sometimes I will miss a day and make it up later, but I will never have it take more than a week to catch up.

            So only counting the 500 words entries, I discovered how many days that counts out to: 5 years, and then 174 days past that.  So here is how I will regulate my goal.  500 words a day, not always on the same things, but I will push forward when I like it, and edit it when I want to make more of it.  Those edits will count for and against me.  Keep a tab.  And on October 17th 2018, I will consider myself done with practice.  And maybe I will make some art at some point in there.

            Having some ideas.  Though not clear or what to do with them  I feel a creative mist hanging around my skin.

            I was at Barnes and Noble's bookstore the other night for 4-5 hours.  It started out as killing time but it had been a long time since I had been in a book store and I always get an odd vibe.  Like I am literally breathing in the room.  Looking over cover after cover and wondering what that strange ethereal hunger in me is for.  I kept thinking swashbuckling, but I also wanting something dripping with very wet and sticky magic, and then I also wanted something simple and thin and easy to get through to a satisfying end which made me smile for a bit and left me geared up to read something else.

            I remembered that years before I had thought to read some classic science fiction authors to get some perspective on the medium.  And I read "Dune", "Ringworld", and "Ender's Game".  Breaking this up with "The Hunger Games", "MogWorld", and a reread of the 10th anniversary edition of "American Gods" (my favorite book).  I wonder if I should try something similar.  That I find a list of 3-4 classic mystery or horror.  Or I could find straight up pop-literature and read David Baldacci, Clive Custler, James Patterson, and Brad Thor.  It seems unfair for my reading to consist of Sci-fi, Fantasy, comics. and some classic literature.... Maybe I will ask for suggestions from those in my life who want to watch me be unpleased because that is where my best jokes come from.

            This is one more sentence, its intention is to bring this to five hundred.

1 comment:

  1. Your last sentence... epic. :) Out of curiosity, since we seem to like the same type of reading, have you read "Eye of the World"? A friend lent it to me a while ago. I put it on my bookshelf and, like some form of magic, instantly forgot about the book. I don't have anything to read right now, and was staring blindly at the bookshelf today, and realized that I have that book. I'm told it's GOT/Lord of the Rings-ish. I'll probably start it this weekend.

    I look forward to following you on your journey to 1,000,000! I need to kick start my blog again soon. I just don't feel like I have anything interesting to share with the world. I like your idea of 500 words a day... maybe if I just force myself to ramble, I'll come up with something interesting to say. Like now.. Okay, I'll stop hijacking your comment feed. :)

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