Thursday, August 24, 2006

Sixty-One Words

Coffee in the Denver skyline mug, "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen covered by Jeff Buckley playing on iTunes (or it will be as soon as it has finished downloading). As you can see from the title of this post, I have 61 words written in the book. Coincidentally, it is the same number of words that are in this post so far.

Now 61 words might not seem like much of an accomplishment. One might think I slept poorly or awoke stressed and anxious in the wee hours of the morn. Those who think that are clearly glass half empty people. My glass, on the other hand, is totally full. The 61 words I wrote are not just any 61 words in the book, they are the first 61 words of the book. Getting started is the hardest part. Finding your voice, setting the tone, tweaking the content; once all these things are done you are ready to rock. So I slept like a rock and woke very late--just in time to help J get ready for school and get the spaniel to the groomer (it's his first time for a professional bath and trim since we got him--I hope he doesn't come home with a bow on his head...).

And let's be fair. Yesterday I didn't sit down at the computer till after 4:00 and only got to write till 5:30. The rest of the day was spent filling all three kilns and letting them rip. Today I am writing all day. If I end the day, the first full day of writing, at 132 words it will be time to panic. Let the letters begin!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congrats on the start! Starting something is often the hardest thing to do, and especially for a momentous task like writing a book.

Wishing you the best.

-JYK

Brenda Griffith said...

Thanks Julian,

And thanks again for the pointer to Parallels desktop. I used it again yesterday to review the publisher's filemaker pro database on images for the book and it is just so sweet! Perfect windows and windows applications all running smack dab in the middle of Mac OSX.

Anonymous said...

I wonder how far you've gotten, by now...?