You can believe what you want politically (and I'm sure you're grateful for my permission), but fair is fair: If CBS wants to accept an anti-abortion ad to run during the Stupor Bowl, then they have to accept a gay dating service's ad, too. Because if morality ever enters into advertising, they should have refused those cigarette ads until the government forced them to, they should stop running ads for alcoholic beverages, they should cancel the Victoria's Secret "fashion show" that airs every December, and they should unquestionably refuse every single ad that every politician running for every office wants to buy on every station. The airwaves are a public trust regulated by the Federal Government--network licenses are issued by the FCC. They should not get the opportunity to impose their view of "morality" on everyone else. That's all I'm saying on the subject. Fair's fair. Be fair.
Meanwhile, back at crime fiction publishing: There's a thing about writing 1,000 words a day that's liberating, and there's a thing about writing 1,000 words a day that's limiting. I can't figure out which makes a bigger impact.
I'm currently on the 1,000 word a day diet on a new MS, and it's going well. I'm pretty sure (you can never really tell until you're finished). And once I get into the rhythm of doing it, the diet works nicely. I know I'll write that 1,000 words (at least) before I got to bed that night. I wake up the morning confident it will happen, because it always has before, and because I'm much too worried about hitting my deadline to ever take a day off.
See, I know me: If I take one day off once a book is in progress, I'll take two. Then three. Then five. And by the time I get back to the task at hand, I'll be a month behind. That's fine if you start with six months to spare, but I never do that. So it's fear that drives those 1,000 words. And that's okay. As long as they get written, I'm not going to quibble over motivation.
But the thing is, once those 1,000 words are written, I'm apt to quit for the day, even if I'm on a roll. Now, sometimes (like on Saturday) I'll go longer. I wrote 1,300 words Saturday. Probably could have done more, but time was a factor. We had company for dinner.
Sunday, I was teaching from noon to three in the afternoon. And I had a few other tasks (including writing this post) to complete. So it was almost exactly 1,000 words, and they were written in a very short period of time. It's okay, I'll start tomorrow by going over them and making sure no major mistakes were made, but the task does get a little, um, tasking when you take it like that.
The other thing is that once you've finished for the day, there's a real feeling of accomplishment--you've progressed to the point you'd planned, set out a task for yourself, and completed it.
But then you wake up the next morning with the same task. Motivational, or depressing? Hard to say during the winter, since pretty much everything seems depressing when it's 19 degrees out.
Nonetheless, 25,000 words down, 100 pages written, and there'll be another 1,000 on the books (as it were) when this day is done.
Such is the life of an author.
LP Archival Project Update: Went from Crosby, Stills and Nash (pre-Young) to mid-Fleetwood Mac this week. With stops at Billy Crystal, Dream Academy (anybody remember them?), Jonathan Edwards, Duke Ellington, Cass Elliot, Eagles and the Electric Light Orchestra.
CSN (and sometimes Y): Great debuts on the first two classic albums, a little shakier later. Never learned that even though you CAN harmonize to a stupefying level on every note, you don't HAVE to. But Stills can play an acoustic guitar like few others, and the harmonies really are amazing in spots.
Mama Cass: One of the great voices ever. On her own, not the best taste in material. But man, she could sing.
ELO: Started out great (nobody ever thought of playing Beethoven during "Roll Over Beethoven" before?), mid-period some of the catchiest, best-produced pop music made in a while. Later on, you could hear the boredom, and Jeff Lynne's ego ate large portions of the planet. Eventually became stupid. A pity, because there was some good stuff in there nobody remembers on account of the stupid parts.
Ellington: What is left to say?
Next up: More Fleetwood Mac (I've been dreading Tusk, to tell you the truth), then Michael Franks.
