Also, be stupid.

More specifically, be stupid about what you can do, what you will get done, about what is enough.

Today I had occasion to be in Droitwich for most of the whole day and for most of most of the whole day I was on my own writing in various corners. A library. A tea shop. I liked both of those.

But I was there because I was doing this thing that meant meeting a guy at the start and at the end. I told him in the morning that in between I was going to write 10,000 words of the book I’m doing. I said it as a way to say I was fine hanging about, he should forget me. But in my heart I also said it as an absolute truth. I would write 10,000 words today.

I didn’t.

I wrote 8,500 words instead.

Doubtlessly, just doubtlessly, I will have to revise a lot of those and may yet throw them all out as I so often do and have done. But the fact that I was even a little bit cut off from everyone and the fact that for some reason I had my eye on the word count, I flew to 8,500.

The number doesn’t matter and the fact that I’ll willingly throw it all out again tomorrow doesn’t matter. What does is that there are points in today’s work where I kept on writing just to see where I went. And there are points where I went to interesting and new places.

Sometimes I need to just write quickly to get something down that I can change. I know that. I didn’t appreciate that sometimes the very same technique makes me reach into newer areas.

Part of me wants to share that with you for the next time you’re stuck for a word or a sentence or a thought. But part of me just wants to remember it myself.