2 posts ago--the one about steak--that was my 1000th post. Woo. I suppose had I been paying more attention, I could have made it a landmark sort of post...but inspired writing doesn't really happen like that.
There was an essay/short story (can't remember which) I read in...Grade 10? Whatever the (not so) fearsome Mr. Tucker taught me. Anyway, it was about 2 authors who met on a ferry ride, and for the duration of the ride, they told each other what they were writing about. The first guy took 2 seconds.
"I'm writing a story about something...I'm not totally sure yet what's going to happen."
And the second guy took the rest of the ferry ride.
"I'm writing about [this specific historical figure]. It's going to be a novel of 300,000 words." And he proceeds to spell out exactly how many words he's going to spend on each specific part of his character's life and specific milestones along the way.
It ends fairly nonchalantly with the two guys arriving at their destination and parting ways, but it leaves you with the message hitting home--you can't plan these sorts of things. Maybe you had to read it to get it. But for some reason, it's stuck with me.
You can't fit me into a word count.
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