On the 1,000 word a day front

Overall, I am doing well. Technically, I am behind because of life happening - we moved, both my husband and I got colds and there were a few nights that instead of staying up after he and the baby were asleep, I really just had to go to bed too. (Currently, both he and the baby are napping, and I am still getting over my cold and would like to be napping too, but I am in that place of either I stay up now, and have a coffee later or I stay up tonight. I opted for the former.) If I had written my 1,000 words a day, I'd have 15,000 words and probably over 30 pages. I don't have that. I'm more around 25. But the point of the exercise is not to come up with something new to flog myself over. The point is to develop a habit. I am developing the habit.
Still, there are things I want to ask Michael Chabon: a 1,000 words a day even when you're sick? Do you ever call in sick to your desk? On days that you move? Days that you have the all over achey feeling? Days that you take your family to the zoo? Even on weekends?
I also want to ask how long it takes him. And then, how long does he spend revising and when does he go back and revise?
My 1,000 words are coming pretty easily right now, but when I go back to read over what I have written, I find I have ended up with a story where I have thrown everything and the kitchen sink into it. I don't have a story that's finished that I could send to my sister and other trusted readers and say, "read this before I send it somewhere." I do feel like part of my 1,000 words and developing the habit is also figuring out my process, and right now I feel like I'm expelling a lot of crap. I almost feel like I should be writing 2,000 words a day just to get it out of my system and have things to manipulate, revise, edit, delete, focus in on.
I told my sister this, and she said, "Right, like cleaning out the cobwebs." This is generally what it feels like for me when I write in my journal and purge. Like I am cleaning out the cobwebs of the attic. And this is the image I saw in my mind when she said this. Of that ideal old attic full of cool family furniture and vintage clothes, and me dusting things off and cleaning out the cobwebs.
This morning when I was waking up, I decided that cleaning out the cobwebs is not what this feels like. This feels like what my body is doing at the end of this cold: mainly, coughing up nasty tasting gloppy greenish phlegm and blowing my nose, draining my sinuses until I see stars. Writing right now is expelling sticky stuff that hurts when you cough it up. I suspect most of it will get deleted and thrown in the little trash can on my computer.
My sister reminded me of Elizabeth Gilbert's talk on creativity at the TED conference. Gilbert says our job is to just show up and the creative genius who sits in the corner that gives you stuff to channel will eventually come. So I am showing up. But still. This is where I hate being a day and 12 hours ahead of my sister. If I was in the states, I'd be pestering her with phone calls, asking, "Really?" "I just have to show up? Should I lit a candle or make an offering like people here do when they want to please the gods?"
National Novel Writing Month begins on Sunday. Tomorrow for me. I emailed my husband my first draft and various other notes and writings for him to print off at work today so I can rewrite the thing over the next 30 days (not quite the aim of the project - I am adapting it for my needs - we all agree that it's time for me to finish something in my life). So beginning tomorrow, I have to write more than my 1,000 words. I suspect there will be a lot more phlegm in my life. Maybe mid-month, I'll hit the cobwebs.