Saturday Chores

I spent all day in my office cleaning out the detritis of the dissertation.  There was also quite a bit of dust still remaining from the bathroom remodel.  I still have on my pajamas.  I cleaned all day in my pajamas.  One of my dissertation computers actually died today.  I scrubbed the dust off all the books I used for research and off the bookshelf itself.  I recycled all the extra drafts of the papers and quite a few articles I read to understand how to talk about discouse analysis.  I was a little sad to be out of academia but I work at a job that I love and that pays quite a bit better than university work would have.

I'm  free to start a new project now and thinking it might be some creative writing.  I've been collecting books about writing but a Walter Mosley interview on NPR told me to quit reading and start writing.  He says just write 600 words per day and I'll have my novel in a year.

Never one to settle for just one opinion, I've been reading The Passionate Accurate Story by Carol Bly.  She tells me to start out by writing a list of values and 10k word autobiography.  The values will help with the story later and the autobiography will help me avoid writing about myself.  I guess if I write a 50k autobiography, I'll have a book.

I'm going to combine the advice and write 600 words a day starting with the autobiography.