Last night I hung out with my roommate and our good friend Joe at a local restaurant and bar. The conversation was pleasant and revolved around literature and the new Jonathan Franzen book. I haven’t started it but both of my friends highly recommend it. Something about the conversation with my friends got me thinking and I left earlier than them to mull things over.
Labor Day is today and that is usually the sign that summer is over. I had my family vacation last week, and getting back to temperate weather here, summer does seem over. During vacation my family prepared most of the meals at the house we stayed at. Most of my family with the exception of my dad and I cook very well. So for this week I ate better than my usual diet of junk and fast food. Having delicious home cooked meals made me think of winter coming up. For winter I should pack my lunch and prepare the majority of my meals. Kind of hibernating in a way, but also living a simpler and healthier life. This past year I quit cigarettes and alcohol, so now it’s time to go a step further with my improvements for my health. So during vacation I thought of winter of going to the gym, skating when I can, but other than that hunkering down. The goal would be to live healthier and save money.
With this fresh on my mind, the conversation with my friends triggered off another goal for the winter. That would be to write a first draft of my novel starting in January. On my previous attempt I wrote about 130 pages in well over a year’s time. My process would be to write out a chapter by hand, and then type up the same chapter before going to the next. With this process I would write in spurts. I would write and type up 40 or so pages in a month, and then not work on it at all for several months. Since I stopped that attempt I think the on and off approach deteriorated that attempt. So what I learned is that the writing will need to be regular with self imposed deadlines. I also thought that I will simply write it all out by hand, and then take on the ordeal of typing it out. I think with typing out the chapters I read through the print outs too much, which resulted in me second guessing myself.
Here it is my timeline I’ve created for myself. I will write out the first draft of my novel starting in January and finishing by my birthday in early May. Now it is early September so I can start my outlines now, and start to make it happen. After the first draft I’ll take whatever time I need to revise and type it all out. This will be the same story concept as my earlier novel attempt, but I’ll start from scratch. I’m not even going to look at the old draft.
I think my hibernating plan fits in well with this new writing plan.
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