Category: Writing

While washing dishes last weekend, I dropped a plate. Like a crab claw, my thumb and finger automatically snapped apart. I remember this from last year: the beginnings of carpal tunnel. Even though I type hundreds of words every day, somehow NaNoWriMo is my tipping point. Since it’s the kind of stream-of-consciousness fiction that prioritizes just getting raw, unedited words on the page, it’s a lot more repetitive than the type of thoughtful writing I usually do.

So with that, I’ve quit. Sort of. Even though I’ve taken myself out of the running for the 50,000-word goal, I’ve still gotten a few things out of this exercise:

Four new pieces of creative fiction

After last year’s heavily researched science fiction draft on quantum mechanics, this year’s novel was on the lighter side. I wrote about a fanfiction author with a secret who visits her pen pal in Japan. And whenever I ran out of ideas for that storyline, I broke it up with drafts of actual fanfics I’ve been meaning to write. I published one, and I’m working on the other two now. Without NaNo, that might have taken me years or more realistically, never happened at all—since I put such a low priority on fiction.

A new way to write

I was stuck on a slow Metro train when inspiration for my novel struck, so I started taking notes with my thumbs. By the time the car started moving again, I’d written 300 misspelled, poorly grammaticized words—but 300 words all the same. I realized that when I can’t finesse the spelling and grammar, it frees me to get my thoughts down first without worrying about the final result until later. I’m not a particularly speedy texter, but when I type just for me, I can write almost as quickly as I think. I’ve started writing my weekly streaming reviews this way as well, and the best part is I can still type easily while wearing my wrist brace.

Not always writing to my strengths

One of the reasons I don’t prioritize fiction is because the nonfiction writing that makes up my day job comes first. The other reason, if I’m really honest, is because I’m not as good at it! As a ghostwriter, I’m good at matching other people’s tone and voice; as a fiction writer, I’m not too good at developing my own. As a technical writer specializing in niche topics, I’m good at establishing detail; as a fiction writer I’m crap at worldbuilding and creating a convincing plot. I could just avoid those things, but then I’d never grow. One advantage of personal development that should get more attention is that improvement is a lot more interesting than sticking to your comfort zone. NaNo has been a great way to hone my weaknesses in a kind, supportive space.

Continuing to write every day

I’ve decided to no longer aim for the finish line, but I’ve still been returning to my manuscript daily. After 20,000+ words (that’s 50 pages in Google Drive), it’s habit forming. I have a lot of unfinished threads I want to pursue, even if it’s not at the rate of 1,600 words a day. I’ve been editing, rearranging, and massaging the wording—all the things they tell you not to do during NaNoWriMo because it will slow you down, but it’s precisely this slower pace that is keeping me from injuring myself further.

Last year, I kept writing beyond the point where I was dropping plates. After a close friend died, I’d realized that we never know when it will be our last chance to accomplish a goal. I’d been putting off NaNoWriMo for years and nothing was going to stop me that time; my resolve was unwavering even as I knelt to pick up the shattered china. My novel that year, about a woman in a parallel universe trying to return home, is a palpable metaphor for grief. But this time I’m choosing to celebrate the writing I did do instead of worrying about the writing I didn’t.

NaNoWriMo is an amazing exercise that can push you beyond your comfort zone; I guess this year it was just a bit too much of a push for me. I still want to try it again next year, just with daily carpal tunnel exercises baked into my writing routine. Even if I don’t finish again, it’s such a good opportunity to grow as a writer, which is why I’m always encouraging people to join. Want to use it to work on an existing project? Sure! What if I use my 50k to write 30 different daily blog post drafts? Sounds good to me! Maybe I should offer that same flexibility to myself.

I’m concluding my official count at 21,708 words, but if I do a word count on the manuscript I’m still editing, it’s grown to 23,441 by now. I’m moving a lot more slowly, turning this lump of pure ideas into something more polished. If NaNoWriMo is less about finishing a book in a month and more about starting a habit, well, it’s working for now. Maybe that’s all that really matters.

Photo of kintsugi pottery, which has been broken and mended, via. 

Recently, a friend asked me how I managed to stay motivated while writing my two self-published books. She wanted to know how I managed to keep going when I wasn’t even sure if it was going to pay off, especially when I had other, paying work I could do instead.

A major part of my confidence comes from the fact that both times, I polled my audience about which topics they’d most like to read a book about. It was important to start with something I knew readers already cared about. But today I want to tell you about what came after that: getting some semblance of the book into readers’ hands as soon as it was ready.

It’s just like Twitter. It’s so easy to tweet an idea out there and see people’s interactions right away. The instant gratification is addictive. Longform writing projects are the opposite of that. It’s so long until anybody sees what you’re working on that it can feel like you’re writing just for yourself. And no matter how much you care about the topic, that can be a slog—especially when I know I have more immediate work you could do.

But hold on a second. Let’s examine why that other work feels so much more pressing. I think it’s because the other work: blog posts and articles and copywriting, is due to meet its audience very soon. Like Twitter, it’s more of a conversation, and that feeds my dopamine receptors. Unlike a book that might take months or a year to finish, it will get acknowledged right away.

Since I knew I was motivated by a dialogue, I worked that into the initial release of Otaku Journalism. I started by writing just one chapter and releasing it as a downloadable guide. Then another, and another. By the time I announced Otaku Journalism was going to be a full-length book, these guides had been downloaded more than 1,000 times. Readers had told me what they did and didn’t like, and I could keep that in mind while I wrote the rest. It was easy to stay motivated after that, knowing that this was more than a passion project, but a collection of advice that readers wanted and told me would be helpful to them.

Even so, I don’t think of Otaku Journalism as a success since it took me more than a year to break even and start profiting off of sales—I spent too much time and money upfront. But I corrected those mistakes in Build Your Anime Blog. I kept it lean and dense by incorporating 12 interviews with other bloggers in order to give way more advice than I could offer alone. This extra help also made it possible for me to wrap up the project in just two months. Even if it hadn’t made a profit right away (though it did!), I wouldn’t be out as much time or effort.

The one thing these two strategies have in common is that they got me out of my own head and back in front of an audience quickly. Whether it was through a serial chapter format or through a speed-writing sprint, I got to the good part—getting reader feedback—as soon as possible.

The thing is, writing in a vacuum is hard. When it’s just you and your word processor, it’s easy to get caught up in your own anxieties. What if people hate it? Or even worse, what if they don’t care? The thing is, if you did your homework before starting to write (through a poll or another sort of audience research), you know logically that people want this. It’s just that the gap between picking the project and putting it out there is the time that it’s toughest to remember that, because there’s the largest amount of space then between you and your audience.

I’ve been remembering this all over again this NaNoWriMo. This is about the time when the glamour of being a capital “N” Novelist wears off and I face the reality of extended daily writing goals, reevaluating if I still want to finish this. (I mean, last year I ended up in a wrist brace so it’s a huge question of risk vs. reward; a constant struggle of motivation vs. self-preservation.)

Whenever I feel the least motivated, I talk to friends who are also doing NaNo about where I’m stuck. On a few occasions, I have dropped my own manuscript to write a scene or two for a friend’s. It’s so much easier to write when I know what I’m putting down will soon have an audience. Even if my friend doesn’t like my contribution, it feels good to be acknowledged, compared to plugging thousands of words away into a document that might never be ready to publish.

It might be a long time before my work is ready for the world, and I certainly didn’t workshop my NaNoWriMo idea with a test audience. But I can still text a bit of dialogue I’m proud of or talk to people about the process. These moments of outreach remind me I’m not writing this alone.

Continuing from last week, not to mention last year, I’m wrapping up every November blog post with my current word count out of 50,000. Today it’s 16,417—I’ve fallen a few days behind. I’m not sure if I’ll get to the finish line this year, but I still plan to write a little every day!

I won’t bore you with the details of how I ended up locking myself out of my house last Thursday morning. Just know that no matter how I try to justify it, it was a pretty stupid mistake.

Fortunately, when it happened, my neighbor was home and let me use his phone. I called John and, amid a storm of apologies, asked him to come home from work and let me back in. Then I asked my neighbor for one more favor: could I borrow a pen? After all, this happened on the first day of NaNoWriMo and before the incident, I had been just about to sit down and write.

I settled in on a park bench with my pen and some scrap paper… and proceeded to completely space out instead of getting any writing done.

Some of the stuff I thought about:

• What time is it? I didn’t have my phone or even my watch. Can I keep track of time with the movement of the sun, maybe? How much time has even passed?
• What’s going on at work? Right before I locked myself out, I turned in an article on deadline. Was my editor happy, or was she pinging me right now for changes?
• I’m so stupid. Why didn’t I bring my keys, or double check the door before I closed it? John must hate me right now for interrupting his day.
• Why am I not writing? I have zero distractions. There’s just this paper in front of me. But for some reason, I still can’t make my brain relax.

It turned out there wasn’t any reason for me to worry so much, as is often the case with these things. My editor had gone to lunch and didn’t notice my absence. John wasn’t upset when he came home, and we made a plan to keep this from happening again.

Even though logically, I knew everything was fine, it took a couple of hours though before I could calm down and get some writing done. I had forgotten the most important truth about writing: the most important prerequisite is a calm mind. Despite, it’s far more difficult to create anything when you’re freaking out.

I love this old quote by Cheryl Strayed that debunks the old stereotype about writers and depression: “You’re up too high and down too low. Neither is the place where we get any work done. We get the work done on the ground level.”

I think of the “ground level” Strayed describes as a sort of baseline. Everyone’s is different: some are higher or lower than others. But your baseline is your most comfortable mindset, in between more positive or more negative emotions. Positive thoughts don’t get in the way of my work, but negative ones do. If I’m worried about something else those worries occupy my mind, and I can’t give my focus to creation when I’m already fixated on some impending doom.

It’s important to consider during periods of writer’s block or demotivation, it might be something more than laziness to blame. Are you really that undisciplined, or is it something stressful that’s making it tough for you to concentrate? Putting aside physical time for your work isn’t the same as reserving the mental space it requires.

Maybe you know this already. But in a year that’s been tough for everybody, I think it can be easy to blame ourselves for lower productivity when that isn’t always the right reason. If you’re going through something, ditch the self-shaming and take care of yourself, first. When you’re feeling better, your creative projects will still be there.

Since it’s National Novel Writing Month, I’m going to continue with last year’s tradition and conclude every November blog post with my current word count out of 50,000. Right now it’s 7,886. I’m just getting started!