Status Report: Week Twenty-Three

Week Twenty-Three – The Stats

Weekly Wordcount: 17,804 words

Average: 2,543 words per day (compared to 1,894 last week)

Most productive day: Monday 2 June, 4,427 words

Least productive day: Friday 6 June, 941 words

Year-to-date: 412,536 (24,622 words behind target)

The wheels will fall off next week.

We fly to Istanbul on Friday the Thirteenth.

Six days in Turkey equals another 16,000 words to the deficit.

Looking back, I’ve been out of sorts since mid April.

I perused the 288 page programme for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival today. There are many free events and 2-for-1 ticket deals. Part of me is glad.

I have two dentist appointments in July to fix my mouth. It is difficult to think about the future.

But. It is getting to that point in the year where I must look ahead to what I will do next year: where I will travel, where I will live, when I will write. 2009 seems like such a high number.

I bought a hat today because I am getting sun burnt in Edinburgh.

Poetry has a large slice of this week’s pie. I tried writing a lot of stuff of the top of my head one day, then culling and cutting it back to a few lines the next day and sticky taping a poem together. I repeated these steps multiple times. I counted the top-of-the-head-junk words as well as the final-poem words. I was feeling democratic.

I have to chose what book I will take with me to Turkey. I am in the process of reading five books and listening one. I am not taken by any of the physical books. I am listening to Brave New World. I’m not sure if I would be more or less taken if it was a physical book. I think I will go to the library after work and look for Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut and/or Word Made Flesh by Jack O’Connell.

There is a note in my notebook this week which reads: Saruchi Tootle. I think this is supposed to be someone’s name.

I once met a man named Pascal van Mello. I wrote his name down in case I forgot it, but a) I am unable to forget it and b) I can’t use his name because he is real. Damn him.

Someone once said I had a good name for a writer. The next week she called me Cliff Craig.

I have listened to a lot of Kinks albums over the last fortnight. Nothing as good as Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround. I do like Soap Opera a lot, though. This surprises me.