Interests 48 through 53
Where did we leave off? Ah, yes, my interests include:
48. Wet flagstones
49. Library books
50. The local production of Dante’s “Inferno! The Musical” I saw when I was eight
That last one is important because this is An Author Newsletter and that musical partially inspired the Handsome Murderer Trilogy I’ve been working on. Fun fact: that project was also inspired by Ira Glass. Have you ever heard him talk about “the gap”? The gap is between what you want to be able to create (what you know to be good work) and what you are capable of (with your beginner’s skillset). The gap sucks. The gap feels mean. A personal slight. But you can close the gap, Ira says, by doing “a huge volume of work.” Little baby writer Hanna heard that and thought: “I will write a trilogy. That will be a nice big project that will help me close my gap. It will be fun.”
The year was 2017. (You’ll recall I am still working on said trilogy.)
Are you guys writers? The thing is: word flow varies from project to project, season to season. I used to write in big chunks. 2000-5000 words once or twice a week. That hasn’t been it for me lately, which meant I wasn’t writing at all. (Turns out that’s even less productive.)
My new system is to write 300 words a day. That’s all. It’s not a lot. But every day I get closer to the end of A Big Thing I Wanted To Do. And I’m enjoying the process. I’m a big believer in enjoying things. And that the small stuff adds up. So I light my little candle and I write my silly, Earnest newsletter. I walk my not-so-little dog and roll out my yoga mat to lie on the floor. I make ice in a mold that’s really square because I like it better that way.
(51. Shapely ice
52. Glasses with a satisfying weight
53. Beverages, generally—really great stuff)
I inch the gap closed and it is fun.
You know who has a great line about the gap? My man Walt Whitman.
“The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections, They scorn the best I can do to relate them.”
I mean. Nailed it.
Hanna
