Somewhere In Between

Jason:

 

A new restaurant!  Exciting!  Is it a full-menu restaurant or another hot wings place?  I never heard how successful that was.  Is that still running?

 

You must have had a lot of time on your hands to write that much this years.

C 

1 hour ago, Cole Parker said:

Jason:

 

A new restaurant!  Exciting!  Is it a full-menu restaurant or another hot wings place?  I never heard how successful that was.  Is that still running?

 

You must have had a lot of time on your hands to write that much this years.

C 

Stephen King is quoted as saying, "I try to write six pages a day, polished." Or something like that. So instead of trying to hit a certain page goal, I hit a time goal. I try to write four hours a day. 

Which takes me to your next question. Last year we opened a delivery only hot wing concept in a cloud kitchen space. I learned a lot, made a lot of mistakes, and realized the rent they were charging made it almost impossible to turn a profit. And we built up a quite a following and had several profitable months. But once our contract at the space was nearing its end, we realized we could get a 1200 square foot space for a third of the rent we were paying for a 200 square foot kitchen. So we closed our delivery only concept and choose to open another concept, still focusing on Hot Wings but expanding the menu to make it more lunch friendly as we are in the heart of San Francisco surrounded by office workers looking for a more healthy alternative for lunch. So we will have salads, sandwiches, and of course Hot Wings.  

And to your point of having time, I was at the restaurant for thirteen hours every day. And during the time between 2pm and 6pm, I wouldn't get any orders. So instead of just sitting on my hands, I would use that time to write. Spending four hours a day, seven days a week, even a bad writer such as myself can put a lot of words on the paper. All of the stories I've mentioned above, I had extensive notes, ideas, entire scenes written over the last twenty years, so once I sat down, it came rather easily. 

And as you well know, I had been out of writing for a long time, so I knew the first few stories were going to be bad as I got back in the habit. I think my craft has grown tremendously over the last year by sheer volume alone. But each of these stories would be needing heavy re-writes.  

 

J

That's how I write: I get the words on paper, but then comes the work of refining, tweaking, adding, changing and beautifying. The final draft is rarely much like the first one.  It's in the rewrite that both work and skill, if any, come together.  If they do, you have a good story.  If they don't?  Well, that's what that upper left Recycle Bin is for.

I'm like you, I think.  I'm writing less now, but perhaps better.  I hope so at least.

You keep saying how poor a writer you are.  Balderdash!  You're well up there among the best.  Always have been.

C

 

Yeah, balderdash.