I’ve been happily typing up some of my handwritten backlog, and keeping up with the current year’s typing. This is an accomplishment.

So, I’m working my way through an old notebook. How old is it, exactly? Well, let’s just say that it’s well and truly been set aside for long enough that I can look at it with fresh eyes.

This is the story that I ought to be revising, right now. It’s one of two that were finished right around the time that I finished my last revision. (Uhm… right before, you know… the Global Pandemic.) I was more excited about it at the time, and now that I’m re-reading it? I was right. I’m still excited about this story. And once I get the damn thing typed…

There’s nothing particularly wrong with the one I am revising. I always envisioned it as a both, not one or the other. And since this one was typed and ready to go…

The handwriting thing.

I think I’m coming up with bigger, more coherent chunks than I do typing. With the computer, a new page is just a click away. With a Leuchtturm? No tearing out pages. No skipping from notebook to notebook. No flipping from page to page. It’s better organized.

That said, it has taken me a really long time to get into the habit of typing every single day. It’s almost a first round of editing, and it definitely puts my head back in the space it needs to be in. I start in the next day knowing exactly what I ought to be working on. But miss a day or two, and catching up can be a huge drag. (Hence, the backlog.)

The Looking Back Thing

I’m typing some very old stuff right now. I’m looking back on what a good year looks like. I used to get a lot of work done, before the pandemic hit.

I knew that the pandemic was affecting me. I didn’t realize how much, in quantifiable form, until just now.

Okay. Well, I am making some progress. I might even be getting back to my pre-pandemic levels of output, soon. But I took a hit or two last year. Didn’t we all?

I’m also picking up an old running total spread for my bullet journal. It’s exactly what it sounds like. How many words did I write today? And how many is that for the month? (I also had something similar for individual projects, but at the moment, I’m really only working on short stories and a couple of other things.)

This is definitely not a short-term experiment. I’m just now starting to get the full benefit of the process. I do think it’s probably worth it, in the long run. I always need an extra boost in terms of organization, and this does help.

I’m also really enjoying re-reading the story. It might be as close as I’ve ever come to re-reading my own work as if I’d never seen it before.