Week One
Monday, September 11th – Sunday, September 17th

My original plan for my second 100 day project, as far as Novel X was concerned, was to post my daily writing to this blog.

I’ve since reconsidered this idea. I feel that posting my novel in tiny chunks like that isn’t wise. I suppose I’m a bit concerned that my ideas might get plagiarized. I feel less concerned about this for my poetry, perhaps because the poems feel more or less complete, while the novel, at the word count that I’ve set for myself, will take at least a couple of years to complete, and having it out in the wild for that long before it’s finished just isn’t smart.

In lieu of posting my actual work, I’m going post my word counts, maybe a sentence or two from the writing, the current state of affairs, and any thoughts or reflections I may have on the process itself.

Without further ado, let’s begin!

WORD COUNT FOR THIS WEEK

Day 1 (Monday, 9/11): 175 Words
Day 2 (Tuesday, 9/12): 148 Words
Day 3 (Wednesday, 9/13): 187 Words
Day 4 (Thursday, 9/14): 146 Words
Total Words: 656

Not too shabby! The minimum I’ve set for this 100 day project is 125 words for four days a week. It is a modest goal, to be sure, but attainable. And I will likely increase my word counts in subsequent projects as I become more accustomed to the daily practice of writing.

KNOW WHAT TO WRITE NEXT

This is some advice from none other than Ernest Hemingway:

The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel you will never be stuck. That is the most valuable thing I can tell you so try to remember it.

I’ve been a bit more conscious of this idea as I’ve been writing daily. It helps immensely to know that when you sit down to write, you’ll have something to write.

WHEN

This week I’ve written most of my words during my lunch break.

CONCLUSION

Well, that’s about it! So far, so good. This weekend I’ll be working on poetry!

The 100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project is a creativity excavation. It’s about unearthing dormant or unrealized creativity by committing to a daily practice everyday for 100 days.
Creativity is a skill. The more we practice, the more skilled we become. Practice takes time. Practice takes commitment. Practice is a radical act in this speeded up world. Through practice, we develop a creative habit. Through habit, we reconnect with and know ourselves again as a creative being.

I started this 100 Day Project (my second one) on September 11th. Each week, I will write at least five hundred words of my novel. These words don’t necessarily have to be a polished product, but should, at least, be coherent and grammatically sound. I’ll also post two poems a week. These poems will be a bit more polished than first drafts. Most of the material will come from poetry that I wrote in my first 100 day project. In addition to writing the poems, I’m also going to read them, so that you may hear how they sound in my head. I’ve been told I have a pleasant voice, so I’m sure you won’t be disappointed. Lastly, I’ll create one blog post where I read a famous poem written by a real poet! I will also include a little history and fun facts about the poet.

100 DAY PROJECT NUMBER TWO UPDATE

Well, I originally planned to start my second 100 day project on August 28th. Dutifully, I began, but soon after starting, I took a trip to Vegas …

… and everything went to pot.

I’ll have to be honest, Vegas was just not my kind of town. I felt out of sorts during my entire stay there.

I should preface these remarks by saying that I don’t consider myself a prude. I don’t mind walking into the midst of decadence and debauchery, because I know I’m able to rise above it. However, Vegas is just too much.

One issue I had with Vegas is that you can’t really escape Vegas when you’re in Vegas. In NYC, for example, you can go see Times Square, be wowed by all the lights, and then go find a diner and be a normal person again. Not so on the Strip. There’s no place where a person can just be a person. This makes it especially difficult for a person like me, who prefers not to drive when travelling.

Not having a coffee shop where I can sit down, away from the crowd, to read, write, and reflect, was particularly unnerving for me.

The other thing is that there’s nothing else but gambling, women, food, drink, rides, and shows. Vegas is essentially a bazillion dollar adult amusement park.

When I go to a city, I want to go to the art museum, the library, and of course, a nice coffee shop. Vegas doesn’t really have that stuff.

AS a result, I did not get any writing done while there.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I went. The place is nutty, and everyone should experience it once. But I don’t plan on going back.

That said, I did get a fair amount of writing done on my novel before Vegas rudely interrupted me.

REFLECTIONS ON MY FIRST THWARTED ATTEMPT AT WRITING CONSISTENTLY

So, one task in my second 100 day project is to write 125 words a day on my novel. I did this for a few days before Vegas.

IT’S NOT TOO DIFFICULT

Getting out 125 words really isn’t too hard. I was able to knock them out usually under an hour (I’m a slow writer). Not to say that my output didn’t need some retooling, but it was relatively clean, understandable writing. And that’s what I was aiming for in a first draft.

IT ADDS UP

I was rather impressed with the how much I had written. The daily output adds up! That was an eye-opener. Chip away at it, and little by little, you’ll make progress.

CONCLUSION

At any rate, I’m going to start fresh and anew this Monday, September 11th (that date doesn’t seem particularly propitious, but I’m gonna roll with it, anyway).

The 100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project is a creativity excavation. It’s about unearthing dormant or unrealized creativity by committing to a daily practice everyday for 100 days.
Creativity is a skill. The more we practice, the more skilled we become. Practice takes time. Practice takes commitment. Practice is a radical act in this speeded up world. Through practice, we develop a creative habit. Through habit, we reconnect with and know ourselves again as a creative being.

REFLECTIONS ON MY FIRST 100 DAY PROJECT

For my first 100 day project, my aim was to read a poem and write (at least) one first-draft stanza of poetry inspired by that poem. During the course of the project, however, this aim evolved somewhat into writing whole (mostly short) poems (granted, many of these need some work and should probably be expanded), and the poems upon which my stanzas were to be inspired became somewhat ancillary. I found myself writing my own poetry first, and then finding famous poems that were tangentially related, after the fact. This became a bit tedious, and I’m going to drop that requirement in my next project.

Despite this, I did read a lot of poetry and fell in love with some of the great poets, notably Dickinson, Rilke, Housman, Cavafy, Millay, Yeats, Blake, and Whitman.

THE PROCESS

As the project evolved, I settled into a pattern of writing most of my poetry on the weekend, usually away from home, often in Bloomington (I’m writing this from The Runcible Spoon!).

I found that I must work myself into a certain state of mind to start a poem, or to receive (if that’s the correct word) inspiration, as if from a muse, some words or an idea. It was usually just a line or two. I had to learn not to censor myself, and just let it flow out of me. A lot of it was, to be honest, crap. A line or two, a word or a phrase, might stick, but the rest …, well, it either went into the trash, or was heavily retooled. After that, much of the nitty-gritty work came from moulding that inspired mess of gobbly-goop into something half-way decent and readable. This phase of the work didn’t require the aforementioned inspired state of mind, but a simple kind of steadfastness.

It became a two-fold process. But I’m certain this process is incomplete. I remember that Mary Oliver wrote in her book A Poetry Handbook, that she drags her poems through at least fifty drafts!

So, for my next project, my plan is to fill out this two-fold process with yet another layer of reflection and editing.

THE ARTIST’S LIFE

Often artists are regarded as eccentric by outsiders. Artists often think and behave in strange ways. I used to think that that’s why they became artists.

I wonder now if the reverse is true. Perhaps creating art alters the artist. It is the work that is transformational.

For me personally, it’s a spiritual endeavor, and I think that’s how Rilke, and other poets, considered it, as well.

Without further ado, I’m pleased to present …

MY NEXT 100 DAY PROJECT

One of my lifelong dreams is to write a novel. Many years ago, I started one, then dropped it. I started another, and after many more years, I have only four of five chapters in various stages of completeness to show for it.

Let’s face it, at this rate, I’ll never get it done. My next 100 day project will include work on this novel, which will henceforth be called Novel X.

In addition, I will also continue to write poetry, and to a lesser degree, read poetry (as it pertains to the project; of course, I’ll continue to read poetry on my own). For this project, I will write whole poems based on some of the work that I’ve done in the first project, and also from work that I’ve done in the past.

Here are the specifics:

This project will really be a 105 day project (fifteen weeks), although that’s not as snappy as The 100 Day Project, so I’ll continue to call it the latter.

Each week will consist of the following:

Four blog posts for Novel X, each of which will consist of at least 125 words (half of a page). These 125 words don’t necessarily have to be a polished product, but should, at least, be coherent and grammatically sound.

Two blog posts, each consisting of one poem. In addition to writing the poem, I’m also going to read it, so that you may hear how it sounds in my head. I’ve been told I have a pleasant voice, so I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

Lastly, I’ll create one blog post where I read a famous poem written by a real poet! I will also include a little history and fun facts about the poet.

At the end of the project, I should have thirty first-draft pages of Novel X completed, and thirty poems.

An ambitious project! But I’m excited to begin it.

Monday, August 28th, 2017 kicks off my next 100 day project! Wish me luck!

The 100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project is a creativity excavation. It’s about unearthing dormant or unrealized creativity by committing to a daily practice everyday for 100 days.
Creativity is a skill. The more we practice, the more skilled we become. Practice takes time. Practice takes commitment. Practice is a radical act in this speeded up world. Through practice, we develop a creative habit. Through habit, we reconnect with and know ourselves again as a creative being.