800 words, 100 times
Happy New Year, dear readers —
If you are a Nutcracker parent, congratulations on surviving another Nutcracker. If you are a former ballet dancer, congratulations on not having to survive another Nutcracker. And if you did not spend every December of your childhood rehearsing and performing the Nutcracker, congratulations on not having to turn right around and leave a CVS when you realize they’re playing Waltz of the Flowers!
Now, a new year begins. If you’re the resolution-making type, maybe you resolved to work out more or eat out less. Floss more, drink less. Maybe you resolved to go (back) to ballet classes, which I obviously heartily endorse, as long as the idea fills you with anticipation and not dread.
I made no resolutions this year (when I told her this, my 105-year-old grandmother replied, “What, you’re already perfect?”). That’s because I’ve got one mammoth task ahead of me in the next nine months, and it’s going to take up all the energy and discipline I’d usually devote to sticking with whatever wellness trend is meant to signal my virtue and inner peace while also giving me amazing skin (juicing? Bespoke vitamins? Daily sheet masks for my elbows?).
I have to write this damn book. (I also have to plan a wedding, which will take place ten days after my manuscript is due, but that’s a subject for another newsletter).
To say that writing an entire book is daunting seems fairly obvious, and so I try not to think about it like that. I try to think of it as writing 800 words, 100 times. Eight hundred words is the length of the average oped or blog post, and I’ve definitely written more than a hundred of those in my life.
80,000 words? Terrifying. 800 words 100 times? Still terrifying, but doable.
Yes, each 800-word chunk has to flow from the last and into the next, and yes, they all have to be good words, and yes, even if they are good words, many of them are going to get rewritten at least once. But. Eight hundred words is something I can do every day, and 100 days is barely three months.
The truth is, I’ve been feeling like it’s about time to start writing for a few weeks now, and not just because I set myself the task of writing that first 800 word chunk today. I’ve been reading books and journals and newspaper articles since July. I’ve been interviewing sources since November. My brain has started to feel heavy with information, like a sponge that’s dying to be squeezed. Writing is the squeezing.
For a slightly less gross analogy, it feels as though I’ve spent the last six months pulling an arrow back on a bow and now it’s time to release it, and hope it flies straight and hits its target.
All of that is to say: two chunks of 800 words down, 98 to go.
See you next week, and thanks for reading.