The Durand Cousins: I broke ten thousand words today. They aren't ten thousand particularly good words, but it's really important that you not let yourself be burdened by worrying about quality with a first draft. At which point do you worry about quality? A good question.
An Incomplete Education: I'm on page 63 (out of 600+). While I still can't seem to retain much about literature or art, I feel that I now have a pretty good grasp of the Dredd Scott Decision.
NOTE: I wasn't on page 63 of An Incomplete Education. I was on page 93. Heck, I'm almost done!
That's a good question about quality verses quantity. Of course, I'm only writing novellas, so the quantity is fairly fixed. I try to aim for reasonable quality on the first draft and then hone on the second...
ReplyDeleteAh, but what is reasonable quality?
ReplyDeleteWell that's the $64 million question, isn't it ?! I honestly don't know - but I do know when I've written drivel - so anything that's not complete drivel is of a reasonable quality, I guess... For instance, I started writing the prologue to my latest novella last week - wrote 1500 words (longhand as usual) - typed them up, and ditched all but a paragraph and a half, because the rest was just utter drivel !
ReplyDelete