One Month

K.T.: Why must you all mock me so? Oh, right, I bring it on myself. Well, carry on.

***

V.P. has stated his intention to write fifty thousand words in thirty days. I hope he wasn’t kidding. I have to assume that they for the most part be different words. Though it would be the easiest path, “A A A A A A A A A A A A A” doesn’t make for the most compelling reading. However, I also have to assume because he hasn’t revealed what the great topic will be. For all I know, he may choose to write about typefaces throughout history, selecting the letter “A” as his example letter. In which case, “ A A A A A A A A A A A A A A” might become a bit more compelling. To be fair, I’ve never found historical reviews of typefaces that interesting. Regardless, more power to him. I hope he succeeds, because V.P. has that same itch I scratch, that need to get down and get funky with the pen and paper.

Now, in order to achieve this goal, V.P. needs to write one thousand six hundred and sixty-seven words each day. A single standard double-spaced page of text in twelve point font, Times New Roman, is generally around two hundred and fifty words. V.P. needs to produce just over six and a half pages of text per day to meet this goal. He’s stated that he will set aside two and a half hours per day to write, or one hundred and fifty minutes. This further breaks down to just over eleven words a minute, or one word every five and a half seconds. When you consider that this sentence here contains over eleven words and took about twenty seconds to type, you think that V.P. will meet his goal quite easily.

What will inevitably freeze V.P., and I hope that it does not, but it will, is the omnipresent writer’s block. What exacerbates the writer’s block in this situation is V.P.’s high standards for a sentence. Some people bang out their prose then edit at a later date. V.P. agonizes over one sentence, one word, until it comes out right. V.P. ponders his sentences, discontented until they feel right. V.P. mulls over his word choice, his sentence structure, molding the words until they work well. Clasping his crystal fountain pen, V.P. slouches at his desk, squinting at the page, crossing and re-crossing out his script, shifting his thoughts until the formation coincides with the music of the spheres. V.P. could become his own worst enemy over the course of his month.

V.P. wasn’t going to start until the arbitrary crossing over of this year into next, so he’s got three-fourths of a month to plan it all out. It’s a significant chunk of text, two hundred double spaced pages. A very short novel. One month. Robert Jordan wrote the first Wheel of Time novel in a month, though he was in a hospital and had nothing else to do. V.P. has work (Catgut collector? Gay rodeo cowboy? Computer programmer? I can never remember.), family obligations (all those little bastards running around. Tie your tubes.), and a life to live (though I suppose the life to live is wrapped up in all the little bastards running around). Who hasn’t tried to write fifty thousand words? I know I have several times. It’s not easy. I hope like hell V.P. has the wherewithal and inner fortitude to pull it off. And since he’s not updating his blog, I hope like hell this will lead to something that he can be proud of.