29/04/18: 3003
And just like that, my final episode has been written.
Now, here’s the real test: what the hell do I write until my friend and I start working on the next two episodes? We’re writing them together, so we’ll either split up each episode into scenes and then divide them up between us to work on individually, or we’ll work on them at the same time either online or face to face. At the time of writing we haven’t decided yet, but whatever we decide, I am left in the meantime without my primary source of writing to work on …
Which means it’s time to lean back on my own stuff.
Eep.
This is good though. This is the test I’ve been building up to; I know I’m good for writing with the co-writing project, and I’m sure I can transfer those skills over to my personal projects. Since I managed to do some planning for them last month, it’s not even like I have to go into it cold; these may not be projects that I’m as excited about writing as I’d like to be, but they are available, they are prepped, and I can use them to get writing done with.
Which is an interesting change in attitude for me. I tend to think of writing as something that I either want or don’t want to do based on the merit of the story – and that’s still definitely on my mind. But now there’s this new element of just having a project that is suitable for achieving the goal of getting writing done, and so long as the project is appealing enough, it’s interesting to see how I’m thinking of my personal projects from the perspective of being means to an end, rather than an end unto themselves. I’m no longer solely judging the worth of these projects based on whether or not the story is good or gets written; I’m judging the based on how well they will facilitate my desire to write. It’s basically the exact opposite of the way I’ve thought about writing for the last 18 years.
Also holy shit I have wanted to be and have been taking steps to become an author for 18 years.
And it’s feeling like this shift in my priorities might be enough to finally get that ball rolling in a way I have never gotten it rolling before. This year, I need to get a book finished. That was my goal, and remains my goal, even if the sense of impending finality that spurred that goal originally has worn off. I started this year feeling like I needed to do it. I don’t feel that anymore.
Instead, I feel like I can do it. It almost feels like an inevitability. And I don’t think I’ve ever felt that way about my writing before.
I like it.
30/04/18: 2007
And all of that was one of my own projects.
Realm of the Myth to be exact. I was going to end the day with 662 words, but made myself do some more writing before going to bed. The temptation to stop writing came not because I wasn’t interested in what I was doing, but because it wasn’t clear what I was doing; I have a rough plan, but because this is a story with magic in it and I’ve never, ever settled on a magic system at any point in the 17 years that this project has been on-again off-again, I was making up a lot of shit on the spot. And that is draining.
But, as it turns out, it’s also quite satisfying. I like what I’ve come up with – and, as I was writing it, I realised that I had actually settled on something like a clear, set-in-stone system last year when I decided that Realm of the Myth was going to be a videogame instead of a book – not a videogame I ever hope to get made, but the logic of videogames just works so much better for the constellation of ideas that constitutes Realm of the Myth. I didn’t set out with the intention to fit what I was writing today to the videogame reboot in terms of the magic system, but it worked out that way, and it feels pretty right. Gonna stick with it.
Also, I have had this project for 17 years and it is getting written. Not for the first time, but potentially for the last time, and that’s proving to be pretty liberating. Perhaps why I have finally allowed myself to settle on a magic system instead of keeping all my options open. I think that’s been the main reason why Realm of the Myth has never gotten written, which I have articulated many different ways over the years, but that I think is the clearest, most direct explanation I’ve ever come up with: it was like a relationship I never committed to but didn’t want to end. I was always keeping my options open, and as a result, I never found fulfillment with what I had already. Well, that’s a shitty relationship, and this process of writing myself to a point of closure and resolution – it’s early days yet, but in seeing a clear end-point for this story after 17 fucking years, I am looking forward to the end of this relationship.
And who knows? Maybe I will find, once I know where things stand, that moving forward with this project instead of abandoning it is a more fulfilling choice. But it’s not what I’m hanging out for. After 17 years, all I want is to get clear, to sort through the garbage that has piled up for almost two decades and finally be done with this shit, one way or another. Either a garbage-phoenix rises from the ashes, or I pack it up and send it to the dump, and never have to worry about it again.
But whatever the eventual outcome, the process itself seems to be going well. Again, early days yet, and I still have a week to go – in fact more than a week, as my friend is busy until halfway through next week and we have nothing to co-write until then – but today yielded a positive outcome, because I proved to myself that I can make myself just sit down and do the fucking work, and I am confident that I can keep it up.
Writing my own things. It’s been a while, or feels like it at least.
I don’t mind it.
01/05/18: Day Off
I generally don’t add to these weekly words posts during my days off, but I’m doing it today because something has fallen into place, and it does in fact involve writing.
I did do some writing today, but it was planning, and I’m not counting planning. Not yet anyway. I might change my mind, depending on how well the rest of the week goes, but generally when I write plans I don’t count them because, well, what is the value of the word-count of a plan? I do think making plans is important, and good to acknowledge; perhaps I need to find other ways to measure different kinds of progress that I make towards my writing projects that aren’t just word-count. But planning does not seem to be something that measuring in terms of word-count would be helpful for.
So yes, today was my day off, and it wasn’t quite the “day on” I was aiming for. In fact it was nothing like that, and I was going to be quite disappointed with myself until I stopped to think about it, and the fact that, as a birthday present, my friend with whom I am co-writing gave me a couple of really neat things: Naomi Novik’s Temeraire, which I have heard many good and cool things about and am looking forward to reading, and a couple of little notepads. I have wanted to keep a notepad for a while now, but never bothered to actually go out and get one, story of my life etc. We were discussing some life goals that we each had, and one of mine was to make a point to identify things that I want to do besides writing, a rant you might remember from the Monthly Words recap for April. She made the suggestion of writing down things that I want to do when I think of them. I immediately took one of those notepads and started doing just that, because as soon as she said it I realised that it was such a clear solution to my issue of not ever getting around to doing the things that I want to do. I tend not to think of really obvious things; I am an over-thinker, and it really pains me sometimes, so if you are reading this co-writing friend who I will not name online because I am really paranoid: thank you, this is already kind of life-changing.
I thought that dedicating my day off to doing things that I want to get done would be a good ideas because it would add to my self-discipline-developing regime, and because I am horrendous when it comes to self-care and me-time. As I’ve mentioned before, I suck at chilling out; I just procrastinate and distract myself because I feel guilty about not “being productive”, not that I actually know what “productive” means for me anyway, but apparently my brain thinks it’s a good phrase to use in order to generate its daily quota of shame or something. It’s right, so I guess I can’t blame it.
But having written a few things down already, I’m feeling that these things I’ve written down are actually more manageable than I thought, just because I’ve taken the time to actually write them down instead of just thinking “oh yeah I could do that sometime”. I’m thinking that, actually, I don’t need to devote an entire day to ticking things off a list just so that I’m not only focused on writing. I think just having the ability to make the list of things and have it accessible at all times – not something I need to be at my computer for – as well as it being handwritten for whatever primal kinaesthetic reason, is enough structure for me to work these things in (or at least the ones that I can manage/feel the strongest about doing) organically, rather than artificially separating them from the rest of my week. I feel that’s both disciplined and healthy, not to mention a tad more practical than my “day on” idea. You don’t always have a whole freaking day to do anything you want; you have to find ways to work in the things you want to do around the things you’re obligated to do, or they won’t get done. Yes, there are weekends, and I am still committed to the idea of using my Saturdays off with more intention; that can be my “day on”. But having the list, I think, is going to be enough for me.
So tomorrow, I am going to watch an episode of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, which a couple of friends have suggested to me for a few years running now, maybe an episode of Star Trek: Beyond, which looks at least interesting and has Michelle Yeoh in it (also why I’m only really committed to watching one episode, spoilers), and maybe an episode of Lost In Space, which I have heard is mediocre and pulpy, which I’m kind of in the mood for. That’s a lot of TV sampling for one day, but that’s the thing: I’ve got this list of things now, and having that list empowers me to find space to fit them in whenever I feel like it.
And then Saturdays are for a bit more of an, I guess, contrived form of recreation, where I do actually force myself to go out of my way to do things that I’ve put on my list of wants. Weekly wants, to go with weekly words, because branding. It’s not getting me any customers, but I guess I am my own best customer, probably should have complained a bit more and returned some products but hey that’s consumer culture for you. Not going to restrict myself to getting everything on my list done in the week that I come up with those things; I may not have things that I want to do every week …
No, you know what? I’m going to try and think of something I’d like to look into that isn’t writing-related every week. I don’t put enough thought into my life in general. It’s time for that to change, while I have the opportunity to spend time on exploring these things, like I said at the start of the year. I had forgotten about that whole life-changing revelation for a bit – well, here’s my chance to get back to it. Because even if the feeling of existential finality is no longer there, I still know it’s true, and I want to make the most of this opportunity while I have it.
And all it took was a notepad. Lesson learnt. I will never be without one again.
(I’m using the other one for D&D notes because the people on Critical Role do that and I am nothing if not desperate to feel included)
02/05/18: 1178
That was a bit of an effort. But I did it.
Originally, I was going to cap off today with 399 words written, but I got partway through this update and though: you know what, fuck it, I’m not happy with what I’ve done, I’m always saying how I want to get comfortable with allowing myself to write shit in order to just get things done instead of giving in to my inner perfectionist all the time, I’m going to fucking do that.
So I did. It’s not actually that shit. I mean, it’s not great, but as far as shit goes this shit is pretty excusable.
It’s been hard, trying to motivate myself to write now that I don’t have the easy option of the co-writing project, and I think I’ve been deliberately sabotaging my efforts, dwelling on really negative thoughts and attitudes – it’s too hard, I can’t do this, my characters aren’t developed enough, my vision isn’t clear enough, I need to plan more – but as soon as I wrote out these frustrations in this post, as often happens when I do that, I realised that I was being stupid and could literally just go do the thing I was complaining about not doing.
So, I did, and it fucking worked. It’s still not as much as I’d like, but I think I’ve gotten over the excuse hill now, and the rest of the week should be smooth-ish sailing. I have a plan for this project I’ve been writing today, the same one I was planning yesterday, and the plan isn’t perfect.
So fuck the plan. I’m just going to write it, try to get back into my shitty YA werewolf novel groove and trope the fuck out, because that is fun to do as well as plan, but doing one tends to make the other harder. I’ve been planning – now I want to actually do it instead.
It’s hard, but my things are getting written. I’m counting that as a win, whatever the word count is.
03/05/18: 2088
Holy shit, that’s not bad.
I have been worried all week that I wouldn’t put as much effort into my own projects as the co-writing project, but while it’s definitely been a bit of an uphill journey so far, I’ve managed to prove to myself that I not only can, but do put in the effort. I have set a precedent, and I am continuing to uphold it.
Feels good.
It is interesting to compare progress in terms of word-count to story ratios between prose and screenwriting, or my improvised approximation of screenwriting at any point. So much of prose writing is taken up with narration; I enjoy narration, but it can easily drag things down, especially when you’re not quite sure what you’re doing yet. With a screenplay, it’s mostly dialogue, and some screen direction; you cut to the chase very quickly, and all the way through. Not as much opportunity to waffle. I mean, you can do it, but the temptation is much stronger, for me anyway, with prose.
And yes, I’m still writing this thing as a book. I actually like it as a book; I think it absolutely would work as a screenplay, and I may yet explore that option in the future, but for now I think I actually want to get back into prose writing and take control of it a bit more than I have for a while. Part of why I find it so easy to waffle is because I just don’t try to stop myself; I get pretty lazy with prose, maybe because I have so much “hypothetical” writing that I’ve done over the years and it’s killed the seriousness of writing prose for me. Well, I want to get it back, and here’s a perfect opportunity to get started.
04/05/18: 1699
It’s been hard going, working on my own stuff. It just doesn’t feel natural, like it does with the co-writing project. I can’t just slip into that mode and get things done; I get stuck on the tiniest little details that don’t feel quite right. My inner perfectionist is still at large.
But despite all that, I have managed to make myself do it, all through this week, and that is the main thing. I can tell it’s been hard because I’ve left it really late every day before starting writing, and that’s something I want to get past for next week, and going forward. I think the trick, as it always has been, is just to sit down and get started. It’s nice that it feels natural with the co-writing project, but I’ve proven that it’s not necessary this week, and I just need to stick with it and get a handle on my times.
The other big issue is that it just doesn’t feel important to me. All the stuff I’m writing is high fantasy, and as I’ve said a few times before, while I have a certain fondness for the genre and the potential to play around with the tropes and settings and stuff, it just pains me most of the time. I like world-building, but I hate trying to fit it into my writing in an organic way, because while I know it’s possible, I don’t have the experience or skill or whatever to do it myself. Might just be another case of leaving things until revision to worry about. It’s almost certainly a case of that. But it just really blocks me from writing, every time. Maybe I need to think some more about going back to urban fantasy, because at least with that I don’t have to make up … well, I have to make up different stuff. Stuff that I find easier to make up.
So yes, it’s been a rough week for writing, and it’s felt bad and uncomfortable and affected everything else in my life as a result, but by Jove it got done, and getting shit done is the entire point of Weekly Words. So, that’s a win.
And speaking of wins, the grand total for this week is …
05/05/18: 9975
I thought to myself: hey, just write another 25 words, make it an even 10k. But I didn’t, and the reason I didn’t is because I finished my writing for the day, at a good place to finish the writing – a scene transition – and honestly I just want to be fucking done. That’s another thing about writing my own stuff; I can’t wait to be done with it. I hate this feeling. I need to find some strategy for getting past it, beyond “just sit down and write”. It’s good practical advice just for getting words written, but I need to figure out what’s going on with me psychologically regarding my projects. I really do think part of it is the high fantasy thing. But the other part is that it’s just me who cares about any of it, and that really makes it hard. I don’t know how anybody ever gets anything written just for their own purposes, unless it’s a passion project, and right now I don’t have any of those.
So, I think that’s my goal for next week: identify my passions, and write from that place. I have a lot of interests, neat ideas and concepts that stimulate me enough to think about them a lot, but so far it has not translated into any kind of writing project that really feels vitally important to me. Can’t force these things. I might just have to suck it up and write a bunch of shit until something sticks. In fact I seem to recall I had this exact epiphany a few weeks ago, and thought it was a very good idea.
Whatever I was doing when I came up with Mark and Jessie’s Christmas, or Tallulah – that’s what I need right now. I am really feeling the lack of a story that really speaks to me, grips me, makes me feel a need to get it written. And the whole point of Weekly Words is to make myself write without relying on that kind of emotional fuel, and hey, it’s been working, even if it’s not the ideal experience I’d like it to be with my own projects. But it is working.
I just think that, if I could come up with a story that actually fucking meant something to me, it would work a lot better. And I think that’s worth trying to do.
Vevacha 