2020 The Final Stretch Writing Wise

[chestnutnola]

I haven't written since May 19th, almost three months next week. I was doing okay writing wise. I mainly kept to my writing routine, planned at the start of the year with the occasional two weeks of not-writing in between. The not-writing wasn't really due to The Excuses. As I've worked on Monstrous, I've realized the main reason for my bouts of non-writing, is a lack of confidence. It's taken the last three years, and writing on a longer work in a new fandom, as well as discovering the story I've plotted is going to be way beyond my intended 50K length to tell that I have a lot more confidence issues in regards to my writing and my writing process than I realized.

I don't have The Excuses for the lack of writing the last three months, but I will say that burnout due to work related stress is the culprit in truth. I think with the pandemic, the current political environment along with rampant obvious racism in our society, worry about getting sick, new working environments to stay safe, more responsibilities at work, and basically not being able to get out and actually do things as usual has caused my epic case of burnout. I know many people are feeling pressure at this time, so my situation isn't unique and I at least still have my job to pay the bills. I know a lot of folks who don't, so I'm very lucky and I know that. But, even knowing that doesn't negate being burned out and just plain tired all the time.

I've been exhausted and depressed and just not in the right frame of mind to write. I'm having trouble getting out of bed in the morning, and that is just not who I am. I'm always up and out of bed before the alarm even goes off, but I've been having trouble not lingering in bed, sleeping too much on the weekends, with little drive to barely keep up with my normal chores. I just haven't wanted to face each day, so getting out of bed has been difficult, let alone trying to write.

It's not a good thing. It's a vicious cycle, because I'm happier when I am writing at the butt-crack of dawn even when a story is giving fits.

I'm working on bringing myself out of the blues, and the occasional pep talk on my journal is needed and helpful. So, pep talk here it is.

I have three WIPs I want to finish by the end of the year.

Mornings (James Bond) novella most likely will come in around 24K.

Monstrous (Teen Wolf) novel (aka The Beast) that I'm hoping won't go much past 100K.

Unknowing (James Bond) novella and a Sentinel Fusion story I started in 2018 that should come in around 25K, though it was originally planned as a 15K short story. Another situation where the story I want to tell is slightly bigger than originally intended.

It's all a learning process and I do embrace that even if it causes my confidence to flag on occassion.

I have 90,554 words of first draft writing for these three projects to finish by the end of the year or 4 months. 

 

So on average ~23K/month which is totally doable even with my ridiculous writing process. I would love to be able to get 10K a week done, but it's just not realistic for me. I need to take back my writing time and my writing time isn't spent just sprinting out the first draft. My writing time is a combination of 25 minute sprints, sketching out scenes and chapters before I write, reviewing and self-editing chapters after they are written before moving on to the next one. I need that review to go over the points in my plot I've covered and what plot threads are still lingering. I need the self-edit to smooth out the narrative because honestly, I love sprinting but the work is extremely choppy and sometimes something comes out that just doesn't make a lick of sense. I have to fix those issues before I move on and continue building the story.

It's a slow process but I do feel my draft at the end of it is pretty solid.

Anywhoo, 5 to 7K per week is realistic with how I write and in the end how much I like the story is all that matters even when it comes out slow as molasses in January.

The first three chapters of Mornings are on AO3 and the parts of the drafts I have completed for Unknowing and Monstrous are published currently on The Wild Hare Project.

Best, The Nut.
 

P.S. Also, being involved in Fandom is starting to help bring me out of the blues, as well. It's the time of year I moderate the 00Q Reverse Big Bang! Art and Writing Challenge and I had to sort my self out recently to get everything launched. It's taken focus that I just haven't had for anything other than my daily work grind and has made me very happy.