At university I had a professor who shared that he drafted maybe three hundred words a day on whatever was his current work in progress. I remember thinking that was so little. But there is an advantage to manageable, steady drafting.
I like to think of my writing practice as all inclusive. But while my writing practice may include drafts or ideas, the majority of that tiny cursive is readying me to write the pieces I want to write. So I may write a thousand words of observation, prayer, worry, repetitive thought, fragmented ideas or plans before netting two hundred words to keep. When I get the chance to rip through two thousand words on a draft, awesome. I love it. It’s rare.
Most days, if I’m working on a project, I manage five hundred or less (usually less) words, a doable pace that keeps me interested in but not overwhelmed by the narrative, giving me time between drafting to think about what to write next. Some of that thinking lands in my notebook as questions or lists until I am ready to focus on the work again. When I draft like this, the piece can feel like blocks. I draft the part of the narrative I am thinking about, which isn’t always the part that will come next in a finished piece.
I don’t know what happened, Vanessa wrote, I didn’t see Del much since I moved to Eau Claire but he and Bethie were married for five years and after they were married she still called me sometimes to tell me to stay out of their lives but I was always okay that they were together. Jennifer closed her eyes. Read that sentence aloud, Van, she would have said in the classroom. Vanessa would have hooked her feet around the chair legs of her desk and read aloud. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t – I haven’t seen Del much since moving to Eau Claire but – no, that’s the sentence.
Jennifer moved to Denver, but not into Pete’s apartment. She interviewed with three schools and took a part-time position co-teaching sixth grade language arts at a charter school, and picked up early morning shifts at a coffee shop in her neighborhood. She learned enough Spanish to talk a little with her students’ parents but mostly communicated with the kids’ older siblings or social workers. There was a pleasant split between her morning and afternoon. The morning was steady, fast, and steady again, and Jennifer learned the usual orders of a couple dozen regulars within the first two weeks. Her hands and feet were always moving and she needed a good stretch before biking to the yellow brick rectangle that housed the charter school. But once there, the day was like sitting at a kitchen table, the administrators keen to nurture students, casual about test scores, trusting teachers to set the pace of their curriculum. Jennifer’s co-teacher was Karl, a man in his fifties who drank chamomile tea no matter the time. That first year at the school he invited Jennifer to join him for a weekend of making the space work, as he said, and they drove around to thrift stores looking for lamps, coffee tables and cheap, clean couches. When they found three hammocks, Karl said it was a good thing he had a concrete drill in the garage.
Still twenty-six of thirty-nine, 339 new words for 1090 total.
Piecemeal 