10,000 Words Down . . . A book to go

I realized this morning that I have a month to finish Seb and Neely.

Last week that sounded like plenty of time. But last night I threw out the better part of a chapter. And so I'm in the hole.

I've also got other commitments this month. Seb and Neely and I, sadly, do not live an in vacuum. We have taxes, we have articles, we have wallpaper to scrap off (remember the wallpaper?). We have paint to choose and walls to scrub, and we have blogs -- like this one -- to write.

So this morning at 6 a.m. I got up and set to work.

I wrote three articles today. I wrote four blogs. I sorted and added all the expenses columns for my quarterly taxes. I'm too fuzzy minded to add them tonight (I do know my limits). But I still managed to sort them.

I figure that today I have written -- conservatively -- 10,000 words. If I could write a book at that rate of speed I'd have it done by Friday.

Hahahahahahahahaha.

What is it about non-fiction that is so darn easy to write? I guess it's that you've got facts, building blocks, as it were. And while you have to make it make sense and sound like someone over the age of four wrote it, you aren't obliged to make up the motivations of everyone you're writing about.

I can't tell you how restful it to write 10,000 words none of which has anything to do with motivation -- at least not any motivation that I'm responsible for. It's positively liberating. I love it. I know if I did it every day, I wouldn't love it at all. I'd feel worn down by it.

But right now, I'm feeling really accomplished. As if I've scaled a foothill and dumped half a dozen rocks out of my rucksack on the way up. It's pretty much me and Seb and Neely now for the rest of the month (once I add my columns of figures).

Wish us luck!

If you write, do you multi-task? I mean, of course, most of us do to some extent, but do you like to multi-task? Or do you like to focus singlemindedly on the story at hand? I'm usually a multi-tasker. But there is such a thing as being toooooo fractured. That was going to be me if I didn't have a day like I did today.

Whew.