Over Memorial Day weekend, I kept up with my writing streak despite being camped out. But car camping is not the same thing as backpacking. For that weekend, I used my phone to type up my words. Those words were automatically counted for me. And I had plenty of time on my hands to get it done.
Last weekend, then, was the true test of how I would do with keeping up my writing streak on a backpacking trip.
I packed four sheets of blank, unlined paper in a quart plastic bag and a mechanical pencil in the top of my pack. I had to be careful about where I put the mechanical pencil, because it’s sharp and pointy and I don’t want it tearing anything. Since this was a short trip, I also took my Kindle, not only for the purpose of reading a book when I had time, but also because it serves as an excellent surface to write on.
I got my words written in the evenings on this trip, laying down on my stomach in the tent and alternately writing and counting my words. I chose to go a little over 100 at a minimum so I wouldn’t have to worry about counting the words in my chicken scratch handwriting with complete certainty.
I was correct in thinking that I would be tired at the end of the day and might not want to write, but the streak is keeping me motivated. I did my writing before the sun went down each night, but we were done for the day before six in the evening each night.
The second night, I wrote over 200 words and could have kept going, but every word I wrote out there would need to be transcribed, and that’s not my favorite thing to do. Plus, I reached the end of a chapter I didn’t know which chapter number came next. That’s a good excuse, right?
I’m not keeping up on my production goals when it comes to writing a short story a week, but I didn’t realize how long that first new story was going to be. I’m hoping the new new story will be shorter so I can start adding up some finished works.