Snowman On Fire

I’ve been reading much more than writing, having gone through about half of the sci-fi volumes ordered two months ago.

But: blogging is writing, and writing is a skill like playing a sport or musical instrument that requires practice, experimentation and regular exercise. In various email exchanges with Cory Doctorow I’ve asked him how he manages to produce so much content on a regular basis, and his response was simple – he writes every day, aiming to produce about 500 “good words” a day. On the surface, that sounds like very little output for very large input, until you try it. It’s one thing to zip off ten emails of fifty words each, quite another to fit 500 words into a story that’s evolving over a period of weeks. My limited personal experience in writing technical books proved this true. When it got down to it, I spent weekends holed up in my home office writing and revising. Half a dozen book ideas and two dozen blog thoughts are floating around at any time in between Mac sticky notes, notebooks, sheafs of paper, the back of staff meeting agendas (sorry, Don, but when inspiration strikes I scribble it down), and in one case, the border of a story title page from Asimov’s science fiction magazine. But without the desire and discipline to sit down and turn paper bits into oxide bits, nothing happens.

What uncorked the back log? Believe it or not, a really bad 3/4 round of golf (3/4 because I gave up after 14 holes, having incurred the wrath of the course marshals, the foursome behind us, and at least three woods-dwelling small mammals frightened by what should have been fairway drives). While golf is a contact sport bordering on one requiring protective helmets for me, I’m not usually that horrendous — just out of practice. As I am with writing. When you don’t write, the comments and the emails die down; when you don’t practice physical activities, the hoots and hollers increase.