Cynthia Harrison

Spent my 1000 words today on an essay for that
Chronicle contest I was talking about at Writer’s Digest.

1000 words a day, five days a week, is the goal Carolyn See set herself years ago when she decided she was going to grow up and get serious and be a real writer, not just a person who has written, not just a person who someday may write, but a person who does the work, every day.

1000 words is not a limit, it’s fine to go over. It’s fine to work six or seven days, too. But the minimum a writer needs to do, to maintain any kind of continuity, is 1000 words a day, five days a week. For me this is very do-able.

I usually don’t like to write on Monday, because I have a meeting early in the morning and then take a walk and have lunch with my friend Sue. And since I like to write first thing in the morning, Mondays just don’t work for me. But I can come home at 12:30 or 1:00 and, if I know I only have to write 1000 words, I can do that.

It might take 30 minutes, or it might take 90. There’s that thing where time goes away when you’re writing, so it really won’t matter.

See’s rule for revising is: no more than two hours at a time. I like that one, too. As I understand it, you revise for two hours and then take a break. Need not be the whole day, but just a nice break. Lunch and maybe a walk or a little bit of music or meditation or reading or whatever. And then go back to revising if you feel up to it.

I have two article queries to revise, but I’m saving that job until tomorrow, when I’ll also revise the essay. All of which should take me, you guessed it, about two hours.

I really should write Carolyn See a charming note one of these days. As soon as I buy the stationary without flowers…