So, funny thing, I have always been a writer. Tucked away in a rubber tote are laminated, illustrated tales of dragons and unicorns that I wrote in the third grade. In high school while we were studying WW II I wrote an epic romance short story about a German pilot who got shot down in Liege and fell in love with a Belgian woman (I was 17, give me a break), and let's not even get started about how many files and notebooks full of stories I have amassed.
The thing is, until Hive, I never actually finished any of the tales I have written as an adult. I allowed life to be my excuse for never finishing. When it reality this quote sums up my procrastination quite well:
I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged.--Erica Jong
I don't even know who Erica Jong is, but dang, she knows things.
Anyway, my birthday is coming up next month, it's kind of a big one in a sense, as I will enter my fourth decade of life. I'm one of those people who rejoice in getting older, as I tend to like myself more as time elapses. Each decade I've traversed has taught me so much, the motto I cling to, there's always more to learn has taught me so many things about myself, the world, and others. Not that there hasn't been pain, but even that pain has taught me all manner of positive things.
My foray into the blogging and blockchain world was a big bird flipping to my fear of making other's uncomfortable by just being me. Now, I am stepping into the next part of Life's Labyrinth, I am going to finish one of those dang books I have started.
Easier said than done of course, but I set myself a challenge of writing every day for 30 days with the goal of finishing my manuscript draft by the end of April. Here I am five days in and this is my word count:
Day 1: 2218
Day 2: 1902
Day 3: 852
Day 4: 902
Day 5: 1312
Now honestly, I can write thousands of words in a day, but my life is pretty busy, and I am proud that I have made the commitment to show up and am making my work a priority instead of everyone else's needs for a change. Self-sabotage and I are old friends, but we are taking a break from each other.
What excites me is that Sunday-Tuesday are the most crazy days of my week, and I still found time to write. And that's the key, I made a disciplined choice. Sure, I had to get up earlier, and rearrange some things, but I still did it.
Even better is that fifty-four pages in I am remembering how excited I was to start writing my story in the first place. I love to write stories one scene at a time, and tend to get overwhelmed by the middle of the tale and the enormity of crafting a novel, because I want it to be good and cohesive. That awesomeness does not come from a one time write through, so I am teaching myself patience and learning to do things that I don't necessarily enjoy doing. Editing and revision I am looking at you here (yuck).
Anyway, part of challenging yourself is adopting a spirit of accountability, so for the next four weeks you all will probably see a post weekly or so digesting and spouting off about my progress, my failures, and the whole journey in general. I know that my whole avatar is a play on the concept of generic, but honestly this community is one of the best, most real things that has ever happened in my life, and I love to share and engage with you all about all manner of things. Thanks for reading my work and being there while I grow, you are all adored.
Good job! I'm trying, I really am. NaNoFinMo is my goal this month but I have been slacking super hard. So many other things keep taking priority, along with a healthy dose of "lack of creativity". I did get past my stumbling point from beginning of December though so that is a plus.
November was much easier to dedicate time since it was dark, cold, and Winter and not all sunny, warm, and Spring.
I don’t know if I’d qualify sailing as “slacking” but I totally hear ya lol. And I’ll agree that it’s easier to commit to writeathon in the dark of fall/winter, but maybe that’s part of plan to kick my own butt into actually finishing the manuscript, attacking it when it’s hardest for me too. I’m really good at getting 20-30 pages in and then letting life distract me. Heck, my life’s always gonna be crazy I’ve decided so I prioritized😁
Of course, right now instead of writing im sitting in a school parking lot eating goldfish crackers and waiting for my youngest to get out of track practice so I can go buy him not one but two pairs of shoes. Yeee.
Can’t wait to read your book btw...hint, hint...
This is my travel keyboard that I have used very successfully to do my posts and it types really nicely. I use the full size with 10 key so I don't use my laptop keyboard at home. Rather wear this one out especially with the 100s of thousands of words I type a year. Just thinking since you are in the car you could be writing with the travel keyboard. These are good enough they keep up with @stryeyz 80+ wpm fingers of fire.
I'm 90k words in and I feel like I have barely started the story, I think I was writing all the backstory instead of the story I've got in my head. Or maybe it is the story and I just can't worry about it till it is out, then I can worry about making it coherent? All I know is none of it matters if I am NOT writing so first and foremost...
Ooh, that keyboard is snazzy! And I snortled so loud when I read fingers of fire that reminded me of Data's Pinchers of Power from The Goonies, lol lol! That said, I am in full admiration of @stryeyz's boss typing skills:)
90K! AHH! What genre of story is it? That's a lot of prose my friend, but not so if it's world-building and plot-thickening. Now that I think of it, most of us blogkins average around 30-50K words a month on posts alone, but still holy wow! I am about 25K in on my fantasy story, which is about 1/3-1/4 of the tale. My whacked out brain is constantly thinking in narrative though, so I write the story first and worry about the details later, which of course presents it's own challenges, doesn't it?
I guess like they say, if it were easy everyone would do it, but I so love it, and yes, you need to write, write, write!!!
If I may ask, do you write stories in order, or do you have entire plots in mind and then add details?
I’m glad you asked! So, I usually get an idea and then I plot out that idea a bit, mind map the beginning, middle, and end. With the first draft of any project I’m not absolute on anything, I just have a general direction. Next, I get cracking, writing one scene at a time, letting the story flow out. I don’t edit as I go, and I usually brainstorm a scene or two ahead before I stop each writing sesh. I did make myself little scene charts that I pin on the wall for big projects that I pencil the scenes into as I go, it helps me keep a sense of the overall story as I create.
In that case, do you have any suggestions for someone who can usually write a short story, research paper, or editorial all at once, get it right the first time, without using an outline at all (research notes don't count), but ended up having to make one that's 40 pages long and contains over 24 000 words to organise an obscenely large literary project?
Ah, my friend, you are speaking to the choir in here, or at least a fellow soloist. I don't draft any of my short stories, blog posts, or papers at all either, just write them up, proof read, and go. Large projects though definitely require a bit of organization lest you lose your mind. Plus, it saves you a bit of work in the long run. The trick is finding your own way of building, and I don't know if there are any shortcuts. I do like Scrivener for massive projects because then you can leap around your 40 pages of outline without losing your mind, but I have a feeling that 24 thousand words of planning for a massive project makes sense to me in a way. I can say that I feel your frustration here maybe it's just cause you are used to formulating and finishing rather than taking the line it out scenic route. I know I am feeling a bit of that right now at times as I work on this novel.
Whatever you are working on sounds pretty intriguing though!
I, too, have a collection of stories I've written since I was a kid, but not nearly as many as you have!