Entries by Bethany

Keeping It Real…Small

Yesterday I typed for a couple of hours and discovered that I have waaaayyyy more words than I thought. Around 25,000 in fact and maybe slightly more. My original, math-challenged goal was to write 30,000 words in May (math-challenged because I thought I would do this by writing 500 words per day). It’s astonishing (to […]

One Day at a Time

Between doctor appointments (mine and a daughter’s), a visit to my mom, and two quick trips to Bellingham, I am still writing. I now have about 16,000 words (14,000 of them typed). Yesterday I wrote my 500 words in my parked car, late in the afternoon while (ostensibly) running an errand. At Lauren Sapala’s blog, […]

Know Thy Own Process

Last week I read someone’s advice to write a first draft without rereading. I tried to stick to that for…one day. Then I remembered Joan Didion’s Paris Review interview, in which she explains her process of rereading (and rewriting) from the beginning every day. That has always been my process, too. Aha, I thought, as if […]

It doesn’t have to be good…

After several days of sailing along and writing (it seemed) like a genius, churning out 500-1000 words a day, I’ve been slogging these last two days. It feels as though I am writing just to be writing, writing snippets and scenes that I’m not even sure I’ll keep. It’s frustrating. There are different schools of […]