100 Days of Writing in a Row

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At heart, I'm really still in 5th grade where we used to get animal stickers for a job well done, such as reading ten books in a month or having good cursive penmanship. Belonging to 750 words.com provides the same kind of gratification--you get these little badges for different accomplishments. On Wed., I earned the 100 days in a row badge--I think it's like a screaming eagle or something. Next badge is for sure a flying dinosaur of some kind (a pterodactyl? I need to bone up on my dino lore). But truthfully, there were a few days out of the 100 where I cheated. You can cheat on the website by cutting and pasting work from somewhere else; it doesn't count your words in real time, just counts the number of words that appear on the webpage for the day. So, yes I did have mornings where I didn't make it--not too many though. It's also not true that I wrote all fiction on those days--often, it's more journal-esque or it's about this dream I had the night before or it's complaining that I don't know what to write. But sometimes, it's fiction. I spent a few days on this novel idea I had to take the story line of The Scarlett Pimpernel into modern times, but the voice was wrong (highly unlikable) and I couldn't figure out how to make it plausible that a woman would marry or stay with a guy she didn't like that much. For awhile, I tried setting it in high school, but realized quickly that it was becoming teen lit or a bad impression of an Amy Heckerling screenplay. Also, what the hell do I know about how kids these days talk or act or LOL or OMG. It's so different now.

We're celebrating Alumni Weekend for the next several days. Here's my outfit for today. I love red & blue.




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