My Verbose Voyage: Day 2
This is a thing now, I guess. (2,014 / 1,000,000)
Here we are at day two of my million word journey. I’m not sure if this is more or less difficult than day one. That’s a problem for future Michael to worry about, way down there at five hundred words or something.
Yesterday, I began writing in the evening, and it felt good. I have this image in my head of what I imagine to be the “quintessential” writer. They are sitting at a wooden desk, covered in little brown rings left behind by coffee mugs. It’s late at night and there’s a single desk lamp casting a warm glow on the room; maybe there’s a plant in the corner (if they’re in a relationship). There they sit, stooped over a keyboard, tapping away furiously to release their pent-up creativity in a way that can only be done via writing.
Well today, I’m writing in the morning, and it’s not the same. When I write at night, I feel like I have all day to chew on my ideas, priming them for digestion. However when I write in the morning the ideas are fresh - unrefined. Maybe one is not better than the other, now that I think about it. Morning ideas are like fresh squeezed orange juice, evening ideas are like Sunny D. That’s not a good example, fresh squeezed is clearly superior. Did I use another orange reference today? I’m going to discover so many things about myself through this journey, such as my apparent citrus obsession. Oranges are delicious.
Is writing about anything more or less difficult than being confined to a subject? I’m standing in an open field, with nothing but ankle-high, gently swaying grass around me. I know I need to just pick a direction, and I can run free and unobstructed for as long as I want. But choosing a direction then eliminates all the other options. It’s like going to the grocery store as a kid, and your mom tells you that you can pick any one cereal. There you stand, staring at a wall of cartoon creatures, all beckoning you to choose their proprietary blend of sugar and chemicals. Do you pick the fan favorite, Cinnamon Toast Crunch? Or do you go with something a little more adventurous, say Froot Loops? On the one hand, nothing gives you a sugar rush quite like shoveling a bowl of sugar, cinnamon, and Grain Product (tm) into your face. On the other hand, Froot Loops have that perfect fruit-adjacent flavor that almost makes you believe you’re not eating some chemical called hydrochlorogarnierfructis. Oh the choices.
Upon reflection, I have a million fuckin’ words to get through, so I can always circle back around for the goddamn Froot Loops eventually. That makes things easier.
*SPOILER WARNING: DUNE*
One thing that’s always intrigued me about writing was the different scopes of a story. Is there a right way to tell a story, and a wrong way? All the authors that I love tell their stories on such small scales, following individual characters through their trials and tribulations. But in the process of following said characters, a vast and complex network of schemes, alliances, and politicking is revealed. Think about Dune. You know that there’s this enormous galactic empire with Houses, there’s the Bene Gesserit, and the Spacing Guild. These entities are the primary forces that act upon the universe that Herbert crafted, and yet they are acting behind the scenes for the most part. We only see the results of their actions through the eyes of the characters. We get some good development through the science-drug-magic visions that Paul has, though.
I guess that’s not really a secret, stories need to be about characters primarily. The reader needs someone to connect to - to be invested in. How else would you view a universe, except through the eyes of one of it’s inhabitants? I mean, you view your universe through the eyes of one of it’s inhabitants. I hope. If you're some trans-dimensional being that doesn’t exist in this universe but you’re somehow reading this, I want to know why pi is 3.14159…? It’s such a random number, why not just 3? It’s probably obvious to you, you know that pi is just a result of the effect that dark matter has on up quarks or something like that.
Holy cow, already past seven hundred words here, maybe this morning thing isn’t so bad after all. I’m sitting here with my morning coffee, and there’s nothing quite like hot, black coffee in the morning. I have a coffee ritual that takes me as close to spirituality as anything else I’ve ever experienced, and I was raised Catholic. Put the kettle on, grind the beans, pour it over. While the coffee is brewing it’s filling the home with that distinct earthy smell, which is the unrivaled champion amongst all scents. I just had an image pop into my head of a coffee bean standing in a colosseum, other scents’ bloody corpses strewn about it, shouting into the stands “Are you not entertained?!?”. Cinnamon can’t hold a candle to coffee, and nobody can write on this page to contradict me but myself. Ha! Although I do contradict myself often, as you will inevitably discover.
I’m thinking of adding a number count in my titles, so that we can see the progress I make as I keep posting these. Hmm, should I add the word count of the current post into the word count in the title, or should it be a look back on previous posts? I love questions with no wrong answers, there are so many questions with wrong answers. We’re approaching the end here, you can tell because I get way more meta at the end. And at the beginning. And at any point where my fingers stop click clacking on this keyboard. When in doubt, go meta. Not the company, just like… meta. Lowercase ‘m’. I hope your day is good, and your coffee is strong. As always…
Totally Nailed It,
Michael