Ira Heinichen's Blog, page 292

Day 1,642: Maui!

We made it.

We’re in Maui.

I thought the flight out here was super quick and low key; Liz thought it was long

Day 1,641: Six Chapters

We leave for Maui in the morning. I. Am. Excited.

I do have to say, however…it is just not the same house without the pups. They went over to spend the night with Kristen and Argeesht since they’re taking care of them whilst we’re away. Yes. I am “that kind” of dog person. I miss them, okay? Git off mah nutz.

I had a good writing day considering everything I had to go get done! It’s hard to say how many words I wrote since what I did was RE-write a couple scenes, but I put in two sessions of...

Day 1,640:

It’s late, so this shall be a quick one.

I had a middling day of writing today – 1,300 words. Two and a half sessions.

I woke up tired. It seems to just happen that way with me sometimes

Day 1,639: Two Days

I feel like I had two whole days today, all wrapped into one.

I wrote today till 2pm and got 2,300 words done. Enough for another full sequence, and a start on the next one. I was very, very happy about that. I don’t think I’ve ever done that, written so many words by early afternoon. It was awesome.

THEN I went downtown to pick up my new tailored shirts. They fit perfectly. Very happy. I drove back to SO from there, which of course took forever, and stopped by Target to return some shorts I’...

Day 1,638: 3K Day

So, I wrote 3,000 words today. It was one long sequence of the book that I’d already written…but here we are. It’s better now. MUCH better. Like, it has my neurons firing and exploding, ‘better.’

I’m sure frustration days will pop up again a few times over the next couple months…but overall, I am feeling much better about what my role is as a professional author and how that relates to ‘output.’ Which is to say:

I just need to do the work.

As long as I put in the time and I do the work, I rea...

Day 1,637: Coco

Liz and I watched Coco tonight, the Pixar movie from last year, and it was *wonderful*. Really, really enjoyed it. It was exciting, touching, visually stunning, and signature-ly Pixar. Bravo!

Day 1,636: No Hitter

Sean Manaea, one of the A’s younger starting pitchers, threw a no-hitter tonight against the best team (and, arguably, best offense) in baseball! The Ho and I got to watch it live together. It was pretty magical.

I remember the last no-hitter I watched. It was 8 years ago on Mother’s Day, it was actually a perfect game (no hits, no walks, no errors) by Dallas Braden, and I was late to work so I could watch it until the end. I remember I was literally standing in my living room with my work cl...

Day 1,635: Short

Quick entry today!

The Ho and I had a long day of driving around LA today doing errands

Day 1,634: Finally…

Finally…a solid writing day. I wrote 1,500 *excellent* words today. This scene, this particular mechanism in my story, is *poppin*. I’m interested in it. It finally makes SENSE, and I’m digging it. It’s an asset to the story now.

I realized today that when I find myself with the inability to write, it is (almost) invariably because I don’t know what I’m writing. It’s not about me being lazy, or usually even depressed…it’s that I just don’t know what I’m writing. I haven’t figured it out deep...

Day 1,633: My Teacher

Breakthrough!

Oh, Lordy…I finally had a good breakthrough day today. Finally! Finally.

I had a one-on-one about a month ago with an author far more advanced than I, and one of my takeaways from that conversation was that there should be a separation between editing/outlining/brainstorming and actual writing. Based on my own assessment of my creative habits, I decided that I should try a schedule where my writing happened in the evenings, and my outlining/brainstorming happened in the morning....