Lines Written upon Contemplation of the UK Word Counts

[devi]

Determined to catch up, I pump out crap.
How things conspire to keep me from my nap.
I have but half an hour to close the gap.

The story is a hank of matted thread.
The ugly beasts who through a library sped,
The social worker who may soon be dead,

A boy who doesn’t see the point of life,
The cartoon sheep who watch a deadly strife,
The laundryman disgruntled with his wife,

A girl who simply can’t make up her mind,
A crow, some future Londoners who find
Incendiary words, some boxes signed

With letters, warnings, cradling lost dreams.
A smiley cultist’s money-spinning schemes.
I think I’ve lost my grip on central themes.

And now the half-hour’s up. Unwise, I know,
For poetry, compared to prose, is slow.
And still almost five thousand words to go.

Comments

[several-bees.livejournal.com]

This story tells of a novelist who's going to be writing a "daily novel" for the Scotsman five days a week for six months, which considering word-count worries like yours seems a somewhat alarming task to undertake. Only eight hundred and fifty words per installment, which is quite a lot less than NaNoWriMoers are having to average, but his installments will be being published pretty much as soon as he's written them, so a lot less room for mistakes and heading off in later-abandoned directions, as well.

On the other hand, he has started already, and the installments don't actually start running until January. But still, I have visions of him getting three months in and realising he has nothing else to write, but a deadline to meet, and resorting to eight-hundred and fifty words of "He opened the door. It was a tall door, and made of wood. There was a door handle in it, and as he touched the door handle he looked at the door, which was tall and made of wood and had a door handle in it. The thing he was touching the door handle with was his hand. His hand was not tall, unlike the door, and nor was it made of wood, also unlike the door, but it did, at the moment, have a door handle in it, which was not unlike the door but rather like the door, which was tall and made of wood and had a door handle in it. The door handle was in his hand. He turned it."