How to Measure Progress
Let ‘em cook
Hi friends. If you’re new here, I’m writing a book 200 words at a time, Monday through Friday. Each Monday I post the last week’s progress, raw and largely unedited, along with some reflections on the past week’s writing.
If you’re here primarily to read the story, you can find the start of the novel here. If you’re mostly interested in the weekly introspection on writing (and occasional life update), you can find that down below.
Things did not look good for Benji. As Basil commanded quiet from the increasingly panicked crew, the sequence of events emerged. Most folks had been busy with the work of repairing the ship: resizing the little lumber on board for specific holes, cleaning, and the like. Benji was on the deck, reading some book. Orion was left watching over him—which meant of course that he was looking out into the mists, “just for a second!” Then, the shrill owl cry that everyone heard. Orion had looked over to see a “dark shape” in the fog “leaping and disappearing overboard”, and when he ran to where Benji stood, there was no sign of the owl, nor any disturbance in the waters below.
“You had *one* job I needed you to do *for five minutes,*” Ari snarled.
“Sorry that I did not realize ‘keep an eye on Benji’ meant literally stare at him unblinking,” Orion said, throwing his arms up. “I was barely two steps from him! And Gruber said we’d be safe on the ship!”
“I only said to stay on the ship, and to not venture out alone.”
“Great, very helpful clarification, thanks,” muttered Orion.
Basil turned to Ari. “I’ve never seen you leave Benji’s side. What drew you away?”
At this, Ari let out an embarrassed hiss. “I… had to relieve myself. Five minutes. *Five. Minutes, Orion.*”
“This isn’t Orion’s fault,” Gruber said. Everyone turned to Gruber, surprised—none moreso than Orion. “We’re leagues from anyone who would know to target Benji. Whatever vanished him could have just as easily hit Orion.”
“Thank you,” Orion said. Then he frowned. “Wait. Really?”
“If that had been the case, we wouldn’t have had to go find him,” Ren said. “But that owl is the entire reason for this expedition.”
“*And* besides, the Meadowhawk does not let *any* passengers get vanished without attempting rescue,” Basil added, shooting her first mate a look.
“But y’all would’ve just left me behind?” Orion asked, incredulous.
“Yes,” came the chorus of reply.
“Even as is, the question currently is liability and risk,” Gruber said. “Is an attempt at rescue worth more folks disappearing?”
“Or should we shove off now with what we have and risk the seas over certain death by angered spirits?” Mumbled one of the crew, and a murmur of consent rippled through the sailors.
“It’s been mere minutes since he vanished!” Ari roared. “Orion and I are oathbound to retrieve our ward. And Basil, you signed a contract to protect and provide safe passage. Will you honor it or forsake us now?”
“No one is forsaking you, Ari,” Basil said, her tone surprisingly gentle. “You are well within reason to be upset. We must act quickly, but not at the cost of prudence and adequate caution.” She looked up at her crew. “We would never abandon one of our own, ghosts or no. We won’t abandon our passengers without every effort of rescue and recovery.”
“One piece of good news,” Orion said. “Whatever grabbed him was no ghost. It had form, and the scent of some kind of animal.” The crowd murmured in surprise. “The bad news,” Orion continued, “is it moved with supernatural speed and strength, and smelled of old, putrid blood.” A renewed panicked murmur rippled through the sailors in response.
Basil shouted above the din, and immediately the sailors quieted, all eyes on their captain. “I will go with Orion and Ari to see what we can track of whatever took Benji.” Basil locked eyes with Ren. “The First Mate will supervise the completion of however many repairs we can make with what lumber we have gathered. Upon completion, you will wait and give us in total two hours to complete our search. If we send sparks skyward, extend the wait by one hour. If you see nothing or red sparks, disembark immediately and continue back to Vahn.”
“I will come with you,” Gruber said. “I knew these isles before they became plagued with death. I can at least guide us on a more methodical search.”
“Glad to have you, ol’ chap.” Orion clapped a hand on Gruber’s shoulder. Gruber’s annoyance was tempered by the unexpected sincerity he heard in Orion’s voice. “We’ll need all the help we can get. That thing was *fast.*”
“At least it isn’t ghosts,” Ari grumbled.
“Let’s not speak too soon,” Gruber cautioned.
“To work!” Basil barked. “That’s an order!”
The sailors broke, and Ren began shouting out names of folks to help with various tasks. She and Basil clasped hands, and Gruber looked away as they had a brief, hushed conversation before Basil stepped forward. She looked into the eyes of the hastily assembled rescue team. “Let’s fetch us an owl.”
Instant Pot vs Slow Cooker
Yesterday marked the end of November, and also the end of Novel Writing Month! Over the course of the last 30 days, I wrote roughly 30,000 words of a new story. For context, I’m currently 22,000 words or so into this novel. That means in one month, I wrote a bit more on the new novel than I’ve written for this project over the course of 4 (wait, is it 5 now??) months.
This inspired some reflections on two approaches to creative work that I’ve come to value deeply. The (imperfect) analogy here is comparing the instant pot to the slow cooker.
In the Instant Pot approach, great creative work can get made by cooking with high pressure over a short amount of time. In this method, I’ve found the right length of time is “just a touch shorter than you think you could possibly get the task at hand done.” 50,000 words in 30 days. A 10 minute play written and fully produced within 24 hours. By moving fast, you force yourself to trust your gut and don’t leave room for self doubt and your inner saboteur voice to take over—simply because there isn’t time. And by having some outside pressure (a performance to the public at the end, or accountability buddies who are asking you about your 50k words by day 30), you create a framework that pushes you to make something that is often much better than you thought possible at the outset.
Conversely, in the Slow Cooker approach, you let things simmer and stew over a long period of time. New ingredients might get added months apart. Small segments or ideas for a project percolate over months instead of days. The luxury of time and the space that provides for ideas to blend, saturate a project, mature and evolve, then ultimately land in a meaningful way can produce truly incredible outcomes. I’ve written plays that took me several years of tinkering, adding a whole second act a few years after finishing the first part, that frames the whole play in a completely new way, giving it a perspective and depth that I could not have found in its initial creation.
Both processes have their merits, and I’ve made work that I’m immensely proud of in both modalities. The risk of the short term project is you’re optimizing choices for what you can accomplish within the time frame rather than what might be the true best approach, and the risk for the long term project is that perfect becomes the enemy of good, and pushing to a “finished” (or even a “finished for now”) state can become more and more difficult. But some of my best writing has come out of a 24 hour play festival, and one of my best plays that’s received the most accolades came about after years of stewing on a series of ideas, life experiences, and feelings.
The worst space to be in is the uncanny middle ground, where you’re forced to ship early or have to polish the rough creative output of a fast process into a finished product before it’s ready. And of course, that is usually the time and space capitalistic demands leave us in, when we need to sell or commodify our creative outputs to, you know, eat food and have a place to live.
For now, I’m grateful that I’m not hoping either novel I’m writing will pay my rent. But “don’t make your art your day job too early” is a whole other topic and train of thought, and I’ve already written almost as many words in this journal entry than I did for the novel this week, so we’ll wrap things up there. <3