Oct 28, 2024
Most people probably wouldn’t think it to look at me, but I suffer from an all or nothing personality. No idea where I got it from, but it’s mine to deal with.
It comes out at times like when I try to improve my relationship with the internet. A sensible approach would be to reduce the amount of time I spend online, but I find myself jumping straight to not using the internet at all.
And it snowballs. I go from not using the internet at all to trying to reduce all my technology useage, until I’m ready to sell my phone and computer and go and live off the land.
This writing challenge is a good example of me trying to do the opposite of that. But it wasn’t until yesterday that I realised it.
The first writing challenge I set out to do was a million words in a year. Which I failed. To be fair, I got something like 800,000 so I failed well, but even if I’d managed it, I couldn’t have sustained it. This time things are different. 1,000 words a day is a goal I can hit pretty much every day. It’s not an impressive number, but it’s something I can do consistently. And that’s what I’m looking for.
The same is true for the planning (one story plan a day) and the editing I’m going to be starting on Friday. And now that I’ve realised it, I’m looking at other areas of my life where I can apply this simple goal of being a bit better.
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Pre-Production
Stories planned (total): 13
Production
Words written today: 1,048
Words written total: 31,787
Plus / Minus target: +2,787
Currently writing: Son of Mars
Oct 20, 2024
I now have five stories planned, one of which I am currently writing, all of which I like. It might be hard to pick between them when the time comes. That’s not a complaint though, it’s what I wanted when I started this habit.
The idea process is straight forward. I have a little template in Obsidian that looks like this:
IDEA:
A CHARACTER:
THE CHARACTER WANTS SOMETHING:
BUT SOMETHING PREVENTS THEM FROM GETTING WHAT THEY WANT EASILY:
SO THEY STRUGGLE AGAINST THE FORCE:
AND EITHER SUCCEED OR FAIL:
SETUP:
MOVE INTO ACTION:
THE PROMISE IN THE PREMISE:
SHIT GETS REAL:
FINALE:
I start with a vague description and then I work through each step. The last part (SETUP to FINALE) is the actual plan. Usually I go through it in order, but this morning the ending was the clearest image in my mind, so I started there.
It usually takes ten minutes to fill it in, but that’s ten minutes well spent if I avoid floundering around when writing the first draft. And I don’t know, although I suspect, the editing will be quicker as well. So all in all, it seems like time well spent.
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Pre-Production
Stories planned (total): 5
Production
Words written today: 1,159
Words written total: 23,070
Plus / Minus target: +2,070
Currently writing: Son of Mars
Oct 16, 2024
I would like to be one of those people who can write without a plan. When I read about authors who work that way, I envy them. But I don’t think it’s for me.
The other thing, is that I enjoy planning out a story. I like the back and forth of changing my mind about things, coming up with details that might never appear in the story, building a world. That’s fun for me, and I think it makes my stories better.
So starting today, I am planning stories. It’s not a 1:1 plan it, then write it. I am going to make a habit of coming up with a short story idea every day and coming up with some structure around it. It doesn’t have to be much. Then, when I come to start a new story, I will have a few to pick from.
I am just about at the end of The Last Outpost. The writing went well for the most part, and I really enjoyed writing a story set in the future. I think I am going to do more of that.
—
Words written today: 1,151
Words written total: 18,805
Plus / Minus target: +1,805
Currently writing: The Last Outpost
Currently publishing: n/a
Latest release: n/a
Oct 13, 2024
Not as much as I would have liked, but enough to keep my daily average up and push me a bit further ahead.
What I need to do is apply the same level of commitment to the editing and publishing side of things, because I am not making much progress there.
The difficulty is that I can treat writing first drafts every day as an ongoing habit. There is not much complexity involved with ‘get up, feed the cats, make coffee, write 1,000+ words.’ But as soon as I move to the multi-step process of publishing a story, which I can’t do everyday, it becomes a project that I have to manage.
As far as I can see, there is no way around this, other than to just get on with things, so that is what I am going to focus on this coming week.
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Words written today: 1,078
Words written total: 15,456
Plus / Minus target: +1,456
Currently writing: The Last Outpost
Currently publishing: Sisterhood
Latest release: n/a
May 2, 2024
The whole reason I started writing stories is because it is fun. Little five year old James laying on the floor with his Ghostbuster’s notebook and pencil wasn’t making up stories because he wanted to make money, run a business, post about it on social media and all the other stuff that comes along with being an independent author. The only reason that little guy did anything was because he thought it was fun.
It’s easy to lose sight of that, and I’m certainly guilty of doing so, from time to time. I get so focused on the metrics, on fine tuning my processes, on being as productive as possible that I forget the simple pleasure of sitting down and making up a story out of thin air.
When that happens, you inevitably get bogged down, the whole thing starts to feel like a slog, like hard work. Which I think comes through in the story. If I’m not enjoying writing it, is anyone going to enjoy reading it? I can’t see how they would.
I started writing because it was fun, and most days it still is fun, but I need to get better at recognising when I’m sliding into not fun and do what I can to pull myself out of it. There’s no point writing if you don’t enjoy it.
I’m sure there are other things that we started off doing because they were fun, but turned them into hard work. I don’t know why. Part of me wants to blame it on the culture of side hustles and the nature of capitalism, but I don’t think that’s all there is to it. Maybe people are just wired this way?
