B O N D P H O N E.
Words and pictures by Chris Lamb.

No lines for yesterday, as yesterday was spent incubating. Which is a roundabout way of saying "playing Sly3 for the better part of the day and not eating enough before downing a brandy tumbler full of Jim Beam and Coke and watching Star Trek IV and going out, though not necessarily all in that order." It's all in the phrasing, see. But in between and around the edges of all that, I thought about these twenty lines a day. I've never been one for writing exercises, and while this one is only five days old I'm personally a little amazed that it's still standing. I can't help thinking there has to be more to it than "looked like a good idea at the time."

I like the limited nature of it, though I've yet to stop at twenty lines with any of them so far. Twenty lines is about the borderline between wondering aloud and short essay, roughly the life-span of an idea before it grows into something that needs proper taking care of. Also, committing to twenty lines a day is a lot easier than the amorphous advice to "writing something everyday" or the dead horse of writing "just a page a day." What is a page to you? Where do you stop yourself when just writing something? Without that mark of twenty lines the exercise becomes work, and if I could just do the work I wouldn't be bothering in the first place.

And that's twenty-three lines, right there. I feel like I should try to avoid making the rule "At least twenty lines a day, genius or not," as if there's anything I need to work on it's conserving my words. And besides, ending mid-thought guarantees me something to write about tomorrow, and it's hardly cheating if it's to keep within the rules, right?

posted by chris  # 1:59 AM