The Dogma of A Thousand Words

Intellectually I like the approach of committing to writing 1000 words a day. At the bottom of this blog I've posted a WORD COUNTER. Microsoft Word has one built into it and you can find various versions of word counting programs on-line. Seems like something that should be in all word processing tools but it's not. Part of getting in my thousand words a day include writing for this blog. If I'm not writing a movie script I'm writing for this blog. I have several other blogs but I do not count those as part of my 1000 word quota. They tend to be more technical or instructive in nature whereas this site is more focused on the creative craft of writing. Yes I said creative craft.

I've posted enough rants. They're fun and at times entertaining but our focus is on the craft of writing. Which brings us to another approach on writing - one of my favorites - stream of consciousness. Although my favorite I don't feel it's most productive. It is fun to just blurt out words regardless of content, form or function. But one eventually needs to wield command of ones writing. If we are to communicate a story to others we must exercise the skill so as to produce the desired effect with the least amount of ambiguity.

And since a story is not a single tale but multiple tales, maintaining the points of these tales are

critical in conveying a cognizant story.

Points can be made in many fashions. But they must not be neglected. Part of the craft of writing is getting to the point keeping in mind that it's the journey not the destination that entertains an audience. Even if you want your story to be open for interpretation it must be crafted as such. The difference between art and craft may be that craft is less of a gamble on the end product.

Art is natural to me. So is playing music by ear. But sitting down even when I'm not the least bit artistically

inclined has been a massive challenge but one well worth the effort.

By committing to write every day we get closer and closer to having more command over our muse. We also open up more opportunities for creative writing to take place when we are in the act of writing. Just like playing music I'm most likely to create music when the instrument is in my hand.

There may be those that can do all this in their heads and only write when everything is in place and achieve satisfactory results. I suspect they are very talented or highly unproductive. Since the world is full of lazy artist types I'll stick to working steadily toward attaining greater command of my story telling skills. This represents over half of my 1000 word requirement at 503 words. Write on!

Ps- It just occurs to me that if I'm to write 1000 words a day then I should be reading 3000-10,000 words a day. There goes more of my "free" time!