I saw the 62 and a thought popped into my head: Hey, I’m nearly 37, that’s what . . . only 25 years and I could cash some of those checks.

It wasn’t the 25 years that set off warning bells in my mind. It was my use of the word only.

Only? Only 25 years? When did two and a half decades merit being described as only? While all the normal panicked thoughts raged through my mind — I haven’t done anything yet, what about my goals, I’m old and I’m still just treading water — I realized that the reason I can say only is because I can actually envision twenty-five years. Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to do that. It was just a number that didn’t mean anything. But now, I can look ahead and see those years passing.

So the moral of the story? Well, naturally I’ve decided to be more careful about opening the mail. You never know what you’ll read in there that’ll make you feel old.

And to be careful with the world only. Obviously, it can be a dangerous word.

“The President believes that American families are tightening their belts, so the government should do the same.  Eliminating Republicans will save millions in payroll expenses, not to mention their generous health care and pension benefits.  It may not seem like much — and I’m sure Republicans will complain that it’s just a tiny fraction of the overall budget — but every lit bit does help.”

When pressed for details, Gibbs would only say that President Obama would be releasing a statement later in the day explaining his reasoning behind this decision.

Late Update: President Obama’s full statement is below.

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Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release  -  February 03, 2010

By now most of you have heard about a provision in the new budget which proposes to eliminate Republicans from both houses of Congress.  Since this has caused a little stir in our conflict-driven media, I wanted to set the record straight about what this provision will and won’t do.

It is true that this provision will eliminate all Republican persons in Congress, thereby saving American taxpayers millions in wasteful spending.  However, we are not proposing eliminating Republican votes – which would be a violation of the very Constitution I’ve sworn to protect.  We will be replacing Republicans with life-size cardboard cutouts that will be placed behind their desks in the Senate and the House, which to the casual viewer on CSPAN will look no different than the real flesh and blood Senator or Representative.

Since Republicans have consistently voted no on every piece of legislation since I took office — even those traditional areas of Republican concern like fiscal responsibility (GOP Senators voted 40-0 against reinstituting PAYGO procedures) — then it’s become apparent that we don’t need real Republicans to cast these votes.  Instead, Congress will be hereby instructed to assume that all Republicans in either chamber will be voting no on all bills going forward.

As I said recently, I’m not an ideologue.  I’m pragmatic.  This provision will not by itself turn around our economy, but it’s one in a series steps that we are taking to return to an era of fiscal responsibility.  When such a time occurs that we again see budget surpluses — last seen during the Clinton presidency — we will review this policy to see if the economy can sustain having physical GOP representatives again in Congress.

Sincerely,

President Barack Obama

P.S.  To oversee this effort, I’ve created The Political Reinvestment in Real Ideas Commission , or what is now be calling PRRIC for short.

Note to Self #2: Actually exercising once in a while (and no, moving a computer mouse doesn’t count) in preparation for playing five-on-five basketball could lessen the pain you feel the next morning.

Note to Self #3: This will be repeated the next time you play basketball — and every time hereafter — unless you heed Note #2.

So what I do is use what I call a “Writing Productivity” spreadsheet.  I use Microsoft Excel, but you could even do it by hand if you prefer.  At a minimum, you’ll want columns for your daily word count, a monthly running total, an annual running total, and an area to jot a few notes about what you were writing.  (Those notes can come in handy later, believe me, when you want some idea on what you were working on when, or how long it took you to finish a particular project.)  I use Excel to calculate the results automatically, but you could use a trusty calculator as you go along too.

Tracking your word counts will help you in a number of ways:

1. It helps you see that you’re treating your craft seriously.
2. It’s another way to build momentum.
3. It encourages you to focus on something you can control (your productivity) rather than on factors outside your control (publication)

Here’s a link to the spreadsheet I’ve been using for the last couple years (minus my own word counts, of course).  It’s pretty much good to go, though having a working understanding of Microsoft Excel is probably helpful.

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Poe:

Scott:  J.D.?  As in Salinger?

Poe:  Yes, didn’t you hear?

Scott:  Oh, I heard.  I’m just curious how the news got to you since I don’t have the Internet or the radio in here.

Poe:  Oh, you know, when you’re a famous writer, you tend to just know when one among us has passed. 

Scott:  Ah.  Well.  You see, you’re not really a famous writer.  You’re a fictional construct manifested by my imagination in the form of an action figure.

Poe:  Details, details. 

Scott:  You know, I have been thinking about Salinger lately, though.  I have to admit, when I sat down to write The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys, there was part of me that really was trying to capture the same authenticity of voice that he did.  I’ve even described the story as Catcher in the Rye meets Thelma and Louise. 

Poe:  So what are you saying?  You want to move to New Hampshire and live as a hermit?

Scott:  There are days.  But no, I’ve been thinking how there’s this rumor Salinger has a safe full of manuscripts.  I mean, he hasn’t published anything in over 50 years.  He told the New York Times a couple decades ago that he still writes, but just for him.  I’ve been thinking about whether that’s a good or bad thing. 

Poe:  How so?  If it makes him happy, what’s the difference?

Scott:  To him?  None.  Catcher made him extraordinarily rich, so he didn’t need to write for money any more.  But there’s something about writing for an audience, for readers, that I think demands a certain amount of engagement with the world.  Writing is communication, after all.  If you’re not communicating with anyone other than yourself, are you still communicating?

Poe:  Ah, but that’s not to say my friend J.D. wasn’t writing for readers.  He just didn’t feel rushed to share those later works with readers.  There’s a big difference between publication and writing.  Once it’s written, what’s the difference whether it’s read or not?  It doesn’t change what it is.  Take the Diary of Anne Frank.  An extraordinary work, and yet there’s no indication she was writing for anyone other than herself. 

Scott:  Well, that’s what I’m driving at.  That’s one book, not a career.  Sadly, we’ll never know what Frank would have written after that.  If I want to become the best storyteller I can be, how can I do that without some kind of feedback?  I’m not talking about critics, per se.  I’m talking about audience.  If you make a movie, how do you know if that movie entertains unless you screen it?  But there’s the other side of me that says you’re much more likely to stay true to your own unique vision, your own voice, the less you let others influence you — at least directly.  Influences are all around us. 

Poe:  Perhaps it’s best to do both.

Scott:  What do you mean?

Poe:  When you’re writing, you write only for you.  You shut out all the other voices.  But when you’re trying to get better, when you’re trying to learn, you have to be willing to open your mind.  That means you might get stung.  The key, of course, is to be able to shake off criticism without ignoring it completely.  It’s a balancing act.

Scott:  I agree . . . Hey, since good old J.D. is your pal, do you know if there really are dozens of manuscripts locked away?

Poe:  You’ll know soon enough.

Scott:  Hey now!  How about some gratitude?  I do put a roof over your head.

Poe:  Put an Internet connection in here and you’ll see some gratitude.

You just have to write 25 words a day.

That’s it.  That’s your quota.  If you hit 25 words, then you give yourself permission to quit.  I reached that in the first paragraph, so you can see how ridiculously easy it is.  And that’s the point.

See, most of the battle of overcoming our natural resistance as human beings to doing anything that requires discipline is just getting our butts in the chair. Once your butt is in the chair, the word processor is fired up, and the first couple words are typed, you’re already well on your way.  Most of the time, you’ll actually find it hard to stop at just 25 words.

But not always.  Maybe you’re down with the flu, maybe you’re out late partying with Jay-Z, or maybe the creativity center of your brain is just coming up empty, and if that’s the case, give yourself permission to stop at 25 words.

The key is keeping a streak alive.  Creating momentum is one of the most powerful ways to boost your productivity.  Once you’ve got a streak of even a few weeks going, you’ll find you don’t want to miss.  Try it out.  You might be amazed after a couple weeks how the pages have added up.  It’s also a great game when you find yourself suffering from a long dry spell.  Because no matter how bad your writer’s block is, you can always write a couple sentences, right?

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Somehow it’s easier when I can tell myself that all the crazies live somewhere else.  Albuquerque, maybe.

What I found more depressing, however, was the immediate capitulation on healthcare by weak-kneed Democrats who are doing their best to reinforce the stereotype that Democrats are spineless. 

Look, healthcare reform may not be popular right now, but either was Social Security or Medicare when they were enacted.  Today you have even rightwing crazies spouting nonsense like “Don’t let the government take away my Medicare.”  Just goes you how far the pendulum can swing; history proves again and again that people like good government social programs once they get used to them, and conservatives know this, which is why they fight them tooth and nail. 

I’m also willing to make a prediction:  the Democrats don’t pass some kind of meaningful healthcare reform, they’re going to be slaughtered in November at the polls.  They might be slaughtered anyway — it’s just the way history works, the party in power during bad economic times get punished even if they weren’t the cause — but they’re guaranteeing that they’ll get slaughtered if they buckle under the pressure.  

The Republican line if healthcare doesn’tpass:  “You spent a year dithering on healthcare with nothing to show for it and we’re still in a recession!” 

The Republican line if healthcare doespass:  “You spent a year dithering on healthcare and passed it and we’re still in a recession!” 

The second line of attack might still have some traction, but at least it gives Obama and the Democrats a chance to sell the reform.  No reform, nothing to sell, that’s all she wrote.  You think we’ve got gridlock now?  Oh boy, just wait.

Think of it this way:  If 100,000 people voted differently in Massachusetts on Tuesday, I doubt some of these Democrats in Congress would be talking about scrapping healthcare reform.  So are 100,000 people going to decide the fate of 300 million?  If it was such a good idea a couple weeks ago when both houses of Congress passed sweeping healthcare reform bills, it’s now not a bad idea because 100,000 people in Massachusetts say so.  And honestly, we don’t even know that’s what they were saying.  It’s far more likely that Martha Coakley was just a terrible candidate.    

So buck up, Democrats. Show some spine.  Don’t reinforce the steretype.  Don’t be swayed by the madness of crowds.  If you do what’s right for the country, history will prove you correct every time.  

That’s it for the soapbox today.  Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Games Writers Play #1: The 30/500 Rule

I’m starting with this one because it meant a lot to me.  When I finally got fed up with my low productivity not many years ago, when I was so self-critical of my own writing that it was nearly impossible to squeeze out any words at all, I decided that I needed to do something to get out of my own way.

1.  Get yourself a countdown timer.  An electronic egg timer works well, but most digital watches have them.

2.  Set the timer for 30 minutes.

3.  The goal is to write 500 words or for 30 minutes, whatever comes last.

The emphasis is important.  If the timer goes off and you still haven’t reached 500 words, keep writing until you have.  If you reach 500 words and the timer’s still going, keep writing at least until the timer goes off.

4.  Do this every day.  You can always find thirty minutes.  If you do, you’ll have written at least the equivalent of two novels over the course of a year.  All with thirty minutes a day.

You’ll find out very quickly that one of the reoccurring themes of improving one’s productivity is to do so by creating limitations. It’s paradoxical, really.  You’d think that have no boundaries would make you more creative and more productive, but it’s often exactly the opposite.  Too much freedom and writers often just freeze up.  There are too many possibilities.  If you limit the time or the subject matter, you’ll often find your creativity unleashed and the words flowing.

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I’m a game player myself.  Like a lot of writers, I’ve got more than a few personal demons that would like nothing better than for my keyboard to fall silent.  Over the years, I’ve collected a number of these games, some from other writers, some from books, and many simply from my own experience, and I finally decided that other writers might benefit from them too.

So here’s the deal.  Every Tuesday, I plan to post a new game — some Jedi mind trick that’s meant to help writers produce more words.  Why write more?  Well, I’m assuming you’re a serious writer, somebody who’s either already writing for publication or hoping to get there someday.  And if you are, then I’m also assuming you accept the principle that the rate of your success is directly dependent on the level of your productivity.

Sure, you have to try to get better.  Sure, you need to watch your said bookisms, your use of adverbs, your tendency to tell rather than show.  That’s a given.  But that’s not the focus of these posts, although you might get a little bit of that along the way too.  No, the focus of these posts is to give you games you can play to unlock your creativity, destroy writer’s block, and get yourself to produce more words.

More words = more success.

If you don’t believe that, you’ve come to the wrong place.

There’s no particular order to these games.  Some will be general principles, others will be specific challenges or techniques.  Not all of them will work for any particular writer.  Like me, you might have to try a few on for size before you find some that work for you.  Remember, the whole point is to get you to write more. If it’s not working, try something else.

How long will I keep it going?  As long as I can.  I’m obviously working on lots of other projects and this is just something I want to squeeze in now and then — something that helps me, too, because I’m always looking for ways to boost my own productivity.  When the project’s done, I’ll most likely put out a print on demand edition, so those of you who want a hard copy will be able to buy it.  I’m hoping it’ll end up as a nice resource when you find your well running a little dry; just open the book (or go back to the Internet) and look for a game to help you get going again.

I’ll be maintaining a table of contents, and I’ve taken out a domain that will take you straight to it (http://www.gameswritersplay.com) so you can bookmark it for easy reference.

You’ll also notice something at the bottom of the posts that I haven’t done on this site before:  a donate button.  If you find these posts useful, if one of them really clicks and helps gets the words flowing, I’d really appreciate it if you “tipped your waiter” a few bucks.  One of the things I decided at the start of this year was to be more active with my own website, but it’s hard to justify the time unless there’s some monetary compensation involved.  I do write for money, after all.  Even a few dollars really does help.

If you can’t donate — and hey, I understand, we’re in a recession here — then please help spread the word.  Write a blog post pointing people here.  Retweet my Twitter posts.  That helps too.

And if you have a game you’d like to share, drop me an email by using the Contact Page.  Type “Games Writers Play” in the subject line, and make sure you give me your website.  I can’t promise you I’ll use your particular game — and I won’t copy it verbatim, because that would obviously be copyright violation — but if I do, I’ll make sure to give you a “hat tip,” which will mention your name and a link to your website.

With that, let the games begin.

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