As many of you know, I like politics a lot, and I especially enjoy studying elections. I also very much enjoy discussing both of these, bringing up stuff like “There are now more Republicans in the House from Oklahoma than from New York.” A friend of mine who likes talking politics with me suggested that I write a book of all the election trivia I know. While a book is pretty much out of the question, since that sort of thing would have virtually no market, I shrugged and thought “What the hell, I’ll get some of it off my chest.”
Three days later, writing a couple of hours a day, plus some research, I’ve done nearly ten pages (single-spaced), and about 5700 words. Naturally, if I keep going for a significant length of time, it won’t keep growing this fast, but is it unusual to have this much so soon?
Oh, and if people want to read it (and perhaps offer suggestions), I’ll put it up on GoogleDocs.
I’m thinking podcast. I love *my history can beat up your politics *and this sounds kinda similar. Can you turn your pages into a script?
I think most of what I’ve written could be delivered as-is, but I have no idea how to do a podcast.
Sounds like good material for a blog!
It depends what you want your document to look like. Whenever I write about politics I start with a question, check what others have found, decide how best to get the answers, do the work and usually only then start to write (with pretty much the same lay out). But I’m not doing it just for fun (being a phd candidate in political science) and have to get people to approve my document.
If it’s just fun facts you can just list them (that is how I read what you have been doing thusfar) but in general i feel things are more fun to read if there is a ‘story’ in your writing, something that holds the facts together.
Good luck!
From a writer’s perspective, no it isn’t unusual for a lot of output to come quickly at the beginning of a project. You’re excited and the ideas are just pouring out right now. You’re also taking the easiest, most interesting, most obvious stuff you know and getting it down on paper.
Where the - ahem - fun part comes in is after you’ve picked all the low-hanging fruit.