Reflection

The suggested topic for yesterday was reflection on reaching the halfway point in the challenge.  It does seem a worthy topic to spend a bit of time on.  To this point I have written 15 days of 500 words or more (except for one day where I fell a hundred or so short.)  One average I have been coming in just short of 600 which doesn’t seem to bad given that prior to this I had not written for more than a couple consecutive days since college (at least.)  I don’t think any of my essays are going to set the world on fire but that really was not the point this go around.  This, as I have said was help build the habit (and to prove to myself that I could do it.)  Additionally, I had hoped to develop a “voice” that I could use in, perhaps, a more serious attempt at putting my thoughts out into the ether for all to see.  On this note I seem to be progressing.  The writing is becoming easier and the thoughts and topics are flowing freer. 

I am particularly happy with my product from yesterday.  I can honestly say that was the first piece of pure fiction that I have written since… I couldn’t even recall when (aside from an occasional haiku when I was trying to give that a shot.)  Again, I don’t think it is going to win any awards but at the same time I was able to translate a picture I had into words on the page with some level of intricacy and description.  Pardon my few moments of pride in my baby step into a whole different world.  Not sure I will ever follow my cousin into creating entire works of fiction but, then again, every book started with a page.

I also enjoyed writing my movie review.  I may, in fact, try to research doing a little more of that.  I remember writing a review of a movie we were assigned in my freshman year of college.  This predated modern, useful word-processing so I was left to look words up as a went (which always seemed a ridiculous proposition… here’s a book of how to do it sorted by the correct answers, how we did anything else other than prove when we were spelling wrong is proof of man as a higher being.)  I remember never getting very good grades on the writing assignments up to that point mainly due to spelling and, occasionally, grammatical errors.  Then came the movie review which, despite my usual smattering of errors, I received an A+ with a note from the professor that I should consider writing reviews from the school paper.  Funny that, more than a number of years later, I still remember that movie and the criticisms I laid out.  I was a story of a man who was born in China and moved to the US, returning as an adult with his family to the city where he grew up.  (Truth be told, I can’t really recall if it was China or Japan.  The context clues I recall leads me to China but…)  The movie wasn’t too terrible but it wasn’t Citizen Caine either (which was likely the professors intend as it had just enough rope…)  Anyway, I remember really enjoying writing it… as well as the grade.

Well another day in the books… 570 or so (in 20 minutes.)  Not too bad for day 16.