How long it takes to write a chapter
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| Humboldt Bay sunset from 21 March, 2026. Photo courtesy of my husband. |
Well, the actual writing of, say, thirty-four hundred words might take upwards of three hours. That's what I accomplished today. But it's not merely writing. There's the clean-up, then the read-through. And the Metamucil break, the check laundry break, the texting with my husband about adding food to the chicken feeder break.... It's a process longer than it used to be.
When I was younger, writing ate up the morning. In those days, my better half was off to work fairly early, leaving me plenteous hours to write, and I did so with great joy for the sense of doing something I truly loved. How well I did it, that's debatable, lol. When he retired and we moved to Humboldt County, no longer was I alone all day, but we found a rhythm to my writing, not that chickens or Metamucil was involved back then. Oh, and stretches. Well, I might have done that, but not as often as I should. But now I do them just about every day, and I didn't today and now the left side of my middle back is achy. Go figure.
Anyways.... I pondered this earlier today after completing that chapter at nearly noon: How I have altered over the last few years, in aging and adding chickens to the mix and so on and so forth. How this novel has been written in many half-chapter sittings, about which I'm not whinging, merely making the observation that as I age, how I do things, even those I dearly love, isn't how I used to do them.
Previously, I wrote every day when in the middle of an initial draft. Now I skip Sundays. I have activities on Wednesday, so that day is a wash. Mondays and Tuesdays are usually good for a whole chapter, Saturdays as well. Thursdays and Fridays.... Half a chapter would be awesome. Today's output began with a twenty-one hundred word scene, followed by a roughly sixteen hundred word scene. Then it was lunchtime. Followed by reading through all those shenanigans, making sure most of it made some kind of sense. Then I cleaned the coop. And midway through that, we put Ruthie Chicken into the Broody Hen condo, ahem.
These chickens do, on occasion, suck up quite a bit of my life.
But then so does writing, when I am writing. And I like to write, I have a wild imagination, HAH! But now as I approach the latter stages of my life, how I write is changing, much like how I hand-sew has morphed into a thrill of a lesser magnitude. This evening I won't do any sewing, giving both my neck and thumb a break. Instead I'll finish this post, maybe watch some basketball, do some reading. I need to get back into The Hawk, if I want to release Can't Be Done Alone: Book Five, in May. It needs to be read out loud, then looked over once more, a cover made, synopses written.... Always something going on in my crafty, North Coast of California life.
And with that, have a lovely weekend. If you have the time and inclination, seek out a No Kings protest near you!
