You Will Change as a Writer

The summer before my junior year of high school, I stopped writing.

The days leading up to the sudden collapse showed zero signs of what would eventually happen. I'd been stamping the keys from morning until night, and at my peak, I completed three chapters in one day. I'm gonna have to estimate the collective word count for that day was probably about 12,000.

Yikes.

Did I even take breaks to eat or, er, use the toilet? I don't remember. All I remember, with an unusual amount of poignancy, was finishing up, looking out the aged, dusty frill curtain of the single window, and realizing it was dark.

But writing marathons were normal for the summertime. I mean, this was back when we had one computer for the whole house to fight over, but I'd claim the titanium beast early in the morning and cling to it all day, and I'd been ready to pick up the next day where I left off. I wasn't writing with much of an outline, but I had a fairly clear idea what I was going to do, and I had predicted about eight chapters were left before the spectacular end. I was ready to get there. I had finished four manuscripts before this, and I was ready to mark this my fifth.

I never finished the next chapter.

I never finished the manuscript.

Originally I told myself I had burned out. Maybe I had. But I also told myself I only needed a break -- all the stresses of life as a seventeen-year-old picking up a million broken pieces of bad times had definitely impacted my ability to create. It was the whole reason why I had decided to leave public school for independent studies at home for a year, after all. Healing was in order.

But as the weeks dragged into months and the months into years, I didn't finish another manuscript. I didn't finish anything. When I received my first laptop for Christmas, the first thing I did was open up the basic word processing program ad start a new story on it. I got about five chapters in and stopped. I started project after project and finished none of them. I wrote with friends until we weren't writing anymore.

Senior year, I went back to public school and decided I couldn't be a writer because of this. I went into art instead. I graduated without honors because depression had ruined my freshman and sophomore GPAs. I got a job at my father's law office. I coasted.

With Victoria across the country, we wrote together to get ourselves through problems with home life. When she finally moved down here after her own graduation, something had changed. I picked up what was about to be the first rewrite of the Marionettes Saga and I finished the first book. It took eight long months, but I finished it.

Some financial ceilings crackled and came down on our heads. We moved to Pennsylvania, but two months later, I picked up writing the second book. I finished in five months, after we came back to California. I moved right onto the third book and finished it in less than four months.

I jumped into the brand new fourth book, but this thing was a monster, and I took a long break toward the final quarter to write more with Victoria. We wrote a ton. We finished books and moved onto new books, and we didn't keep track of the word counts. We wrote because we couldn't not write.

I also took a break because I had decided to write to be published, and this is a pivotal change for any writer. I can confidently say that 99% of my growth as a writer occurred because I had decided I was going to make myself into a writer of publishable quality, which meant actively looking for ways to improve. I had problems with writing reasonably sized stories because, one, Victoria and I never cared about word count when we wrote and, two, I didn't even know there was a "reasonable size" for stories.

I learned a lot because I had a lot to learn, and I wanted to learn.

My first manuscript failed to get agent attention because I hadn't yet learned, but then I wrote another manuscript and I kept learning.

Failure taught me a lot. I failed over and over again, and I gave up a few times because of failure, but I kept writing because I still couldn't not write. Phases of stress and depression came and went and were tough to endure, and I did little to no writing during these periods, but not only did things around me change, like circumstances and setting and people, but things inside me changed too: where I was emotionally, the things that I found inspiring, the things that I had learned and was learning, so on.

I wrote more books. I kept writing books. I finished books and moved onto other books. I kept teaching myself how to write better. I built up endurance. But I never stopped having thoughts of "Am I good enough?" or "Would people actually want to read this?" or "What if this is actually really bad?"

Those thoughts won't stop. I'll never tell you they will.

Some writers can write with utter confidence and then get up in front of thousands of people and talk intelligibly about their story and entertain the masses and smirk like a true author in the portrait on the inside dust jacket flap.

The rest of us are only human.

But wherever you are right now, it doesn't have to stay that way. Keep moving, coast if you need to take a break, and then start moving again. Any step forward is still a step, no matter how small. Even if you've made a big step, that can be daunting, because then we put the pressure on ourselves to match or even top the stride, down to the placement of the toes and heel. Big steps make our little steps look like nothing.

Your little steps are not nothing.

If you start fifty stories and never finish one, you're still writing and you're still making those creative juices work. Keep wanting to do better, keep working, keep making little steps, keep learning. If you have to coast for a while to catch your breath, do it. If you have to look over you shoulder every once in a while and check to see if you've made progress, do it. If you feel like giving up sometimes, it's okay. You're not less of a writer for thinking you'll never be one. Your feelings are perfectly legitimate. I can't tell you how many times I had decided to give up, and I can't tell you how many times I realized I just couldn't give up.

Writing is a dream, but it's also a nightmare.

Keep yourself immersed in everything that is writing and reading. Take breaks to take care of yourself. Come back knowing that you're not in the same place you were before, even if everything around you looks exactly the same.

And when you think there're a ton of writers who're better than you and write more than you do, who the fuck cares? You're not writing for them.

You're writing for yourself, and you're writing for the people who will eventually fall in love with your characters like you have.

The Revising Process

So, I've begun the arduous task of revising book two. It's already been more of a trial than revising book one. It's a fat manuscript at about 130,000 words, which is about 20k more than the first book, maybe 10-15k more than the third. I was so determined to beat the "second book syndrome" that I finished the last word, looked at the word count, and went, "Oops."

Of course, more words =/= a better book, it's just that book two has a lot of feelings.

Anyway, a lot of what I've done so far is clip unnecessary words and phrases, and also passages between characters that don't carry their weight (as in further plot or character development). Often, that means striking out some of my favorite lines. Waaah. It's so hard.

But I've also added a whole new scene after Victoria and I workshopped a couple of characters and discovered new things about their pasts. This really changed their dynamic, and while I'm adding clincher details to other characters, I ended up adding another (albeit small) chapter altogether. I reeeally don't want to push the word count (130k is about the size of "The City of Bones") since it makes the paperback more expensive, but necessary scenes are necessary.

The strangest thing about it is that, after I finish revising a chapter, I'm already looking forward to going back and editing it again, mainly because I don't feel confident about what I've left behind, like I can still make it better.

Well, I guess it's not so strange.

It sort of happens with every revision I do, but this has been the hardest book so far to revise. I spent eight straight hours revising yesterday, and on top of the previous couple of days I spent revising, I'm only on chapter nine. Ugh. Though, chapter nine is a reeeeally good chapter, I won't lie.

A thing that helps though is that I've endured the revising process many, many times, and the practice helps me identify problems better and how to fix them. It's also helped to develop my writing. Revising teaches writers what's working and what's not working, which is why it's so important to take it seriously.

It's also important to treat writing and revising as two separate things, even if they're tied together. It's like work versus school -- one puts the words down, the other teaches what the words do. It's best not to do your schoolwork at work, but sometimes, you just gotta, and that's okay too. Just make sure that the schoolwork doesn't interfere with productivity.

Book two is now 31 chapters, and, with the addition of a new chapter, that technically puts me on 10. That means I'm a third of the way through. Not bad in three days, I guess. But if I have to have another six days of eight hours, I may, well, cry.

Here are my tips on how to get into revising:

1. Take care of primary needs. This means I’ve eaten, because food in my belly keeps my energy up and focused, and whenever my thinking power starts to wane, I know I need to eat again and I do so as soon as I can. Anything else I might need (such as tissues or snacks) I make sure is within arm’s reach of me.
2. Take care of ritual needs. For me, this means I go through my dashboard first, make my tea, detox for a bit, do some blog work and cross a few to-do’s off my list, perhaps go for a walk, and then begin rereading where I last left off. A set pattern that I follow makes it easier for me to get into working mode.
3. Listen to a few songs that pump me up. Upbeat songs get my creative powers focused, but the key is that I can’t be scrolling Tumblr or reading something else simultaneously. I have to listen to a few songs, let myself think only about my story, and become fully immersed and invested. This helps create a driving need to work on it.
4. Revise in solitude. When I write, I write to music. When I revise, it’s more like library time. I need to be able to hear my story without the music, to see it clearly and without any influence that music gives. If I don’t have absolute quiet, I keep my headphones on to block out noise. If my street’s particularly noisy, I have rain, or white noise to block out distracting noise.
5. Seven minutes of uninterrupted focus. The first few minutes are agonizing, torturous, and I writhe and resist and only by the sheer force of will am I able to press on. But after those first few minutes, I completely switch on and go with great speed.

Revising can be fun, but it's work. If you start to burn yourself out, take a break. I prefer to do all my revising at once so that the whole book is still clear in my brain, which means I can edit something in chapter 10 and go back into chapter three to fix something tied to it. But, if I feel I'm losing too many sanity points, I'll take a day to unwind. The work will still be there when I come back.

The Inner Critic and Ways to Fight It

I went through this exact same thing in my late teens and my adult-but-not-really-adult years, and continue to have the same thoughts even today. I just want you to know that these thoughts are natural. Creative types go through these cycles all the time, though it’s important not to endure this alone.

For me, a lot of it has to do with the development of the inner critic. As we get older, we get better at what we do, but our world gets bigger too, so we don’t really see our own growth in comparison to what others do and how much better they do it and how can we ever keep going if someone can do it better and—etc. It could be that your lack of motivation is a side effect of something bigger like this. It was for me.

I’ve also heard that, for creative types, they hit a wall when they realize they’re not as good as they want to be. The internet, bless the thing, makes this worse, because now we have greater access to a massive volume of people who write just as well or better, with more original ideas and so forth, and it’s pretty damn disconcerting. That might be part of your block too. It’s a lot of weight to carry.

Or, it could just be that the original reason for your writing changed. When people say they need to be depressed in order to write well, I understand, because writing used to be the best therapy in the world for me. But, after awhile, I didn’t need it for therapy, and I had to rediscover why I loved writing in the first place: I just liked to tell awesome stories that got people as excited as I did.

Anyway, enough about the possible whys, since these could be totally wrong. Here are some suggestions for you:

• Read. One of the things that gets my writerly blood moving is reading and thinking, “I can do this better.” Sometimes it takes me forever to read a book because I very nearly rewrite the whole thing in my head.
• One of my favorite pieces of advice is write for someone. Stephen King writes for his wife, I write for Victoria, and it might help you to write for someone. You’re still writing for yourself, but creating your perfect audience doesn’t hurt.
• Find a fellow writer to be each others’ coaches. Talk all caps about your stories, have word wars, trade chapters, talk each other up. Get someone who loves writing as much as you do and can get you excited again.
• Post to a writing community and ask for only positive feedback. You’re so used to your own writing ability that you might not really see it anymore. Sometimes a reminder helps us out.
• Focus on smaller projects, such as short stories or flash fiction. WriteWorld has daily prompts to borrow from, and FYCD has things like Shipper Saturday to help you develop characters. Here’s a post on writing prompt generators.
• Read on habits and taking care of yourself and stop thinking you’re losing your touch! Find positive outlets and don’t give up on what you love.

Good luck!


(cross-posted from KSW on Tumblr)

On Habits and Taking Care of Yourself

Anonymous asked:

I’m a big fan of your blog and I don’t know where else to turn ^^; I’m having a lot of trouble getting the motivation to write, to work and to exist in general. I thought it was just procrastination, but it’s gotten to where I’ve completed 0 assignments all week and haven’t written anything for a whole month. I could really use any help or advice you’ve got, even if it’s just yelling…

First of all, I’m super glad you turned to someone about this, because I know it’s not always easy working up the nerve to ask people for help. Also, I’m a big expert on how to get myself (and my lovely partner in crime) to work beyond what I call our “brain rebellions”.

The brain rebellion is simply when we’ve fried ourselves by overworking for extended periods of time. Lots of people will tell you this is just bullshit and you need to learn how to “work through it” like “everyone else does”, but if you’re stressed, then you need to de-stress, not make yourself even more stressed. Don’t listen to those people, because, chances are, they don’t know a thing about your inner workings.

Here are some things to help you cope and de-stress:

• Know your limits. Everyone’s different and, consequently, everyone needs different things and works at different paces. The important thing is knowing how much you can take. Never think of it as “giving up” or “giving in” when you reach your limit. Think of it as, “My well-being comes first.”
• Be realistic about what you can handle. It’s okay to challenge yourself, but don’t tell yourself anything like, “Okay, yesterday I wrote 500 words, today I’m going to write 5k!”
• Don’t compare yourself to others. If you see someone who regularly writes 5k words a day, don’t kick yourself because you can only write 500. Your circumstances are likely so different from theirs that comparing yourself only hurts you with feelings of inadequacy.
• Take care of yourself first. Eat. Sleep. Take breaks to watch mind-numbing television or look at pretty artstuffs. Your brain is telling you it needs to turn off for a while, so let your brain turn off.
• Change your routines. If what you’re doing now isn’t working, consider changing it up. Work somewhere else, at different times of the day, in public places or in private. Sometimes our default working environments aren’t very good to us for various reasons.
• Go someplace new. Take a little mini-vacation. Go find your nearest state park. Take some friends (or a significant other, or, heck, go by yourself) and stay at a place in the mountains or by the river. Find your nearest old towns and do some window shopping. Give your brain a chance to think about other things and detox from stress.
• Treat yourself. Reward yourself with something you love but you don’t have very often.
• Find a community of people similar to you and connect with them. Support groups are awesome and the right people can help talk you out of bad places.
• Know that you’re more important than the work you do or put out. You must always, always come first.
• Ask for help. If you fall into one of those bad places, don’t be afraid to ask for help. It doesn’t make you weak — it actually takes a great deal of strength to ask for help. A school counselor should be able to direct you to where you can find help, or you can always try hotlines.

There will always be school and there will always be something to write, but you’ve got to fulfill all your mental health needs before you get to that. When I’ve a friend who’s clearly been overworking themselves and is considering whether or not to just shut the book for the night and do what they want, I will be the first supporter.

Once you’ve done the things above, then here are some tips to get yourself working again:

• Set small goals. A lot of the time, we think about ALL the things we need to do and it haunts us as one giant entity. Sometimes making “to-do” lists to organize projects in order of importance can do this as well, because then you have a full visual of how much needs to be done. Write your to-do list, take the first thing, and divide it up into manageable segments. Then —
• Organize your time. Work for maybe a half hour, then take a work-free, mind-numbing tumblr break or whatever you please (or you could write or doodle or look for new music — it’s okay to be productive on your breaks because sometimes productivity in any form is what it takes for us to feel good about ourselves). Then take this process and repeat.
• It takes seven minutes for you to fully fix your concentration on something new (at least, that’s what I’ve heard). The first seven minutes are the hardest when you pop open a school book to do homework or open up a word document to write, but give yourself seven full, uninterrupted minutes of focus.
• Train yourself to think positively. This’ll take time. My father says it takes 21 days to make or break habits, but this is of necessity. When you finish your working increment of thirty minutes, don’t go, “Oh hell, I only read two pages and I still have to read 17 and answer the response questions and alkdsfl.” Get yourself to start thinking, “Two pages are out of the way. Now I get some free time.”
• Take walks. If you’ve got nature around you (green belts or anything similar), then take a walk. Negative ions are said to be good for the body, and nature secretes loads of negative ions. If you don’t have nature, then get away from technology (which secrets positive ions, said to be draining) with a book or a notebook or a drawing pad.
• Talk to people, whether in person, on the phone, through AIM or Skype, Tumblr or forums. Connecting with people gets you to hear voices other than your own, and it also gives you the chance to unload all your thought vomit. Just make sure you find some positive reinforcements, not negative.
• Build yourself up. Work with smaller segments an increments at first. Work for ten minutes, then give yourself a break. Then, as you get more comfortable, challenge yourself to do fifteen minutes.
• Cheat a little. Oops, you got to this part in your story that you’ve been waiting for and you wrote for fifteen minutes longer than you should have. That’s cool. You might match your next work segment time to make up the difference.
• If you feel like giving up, stop. Repeat the first set of bullets. Don’t start working again until you’re ready.

Your writing may be suffering because you’re simply overworked and overstressed, but it could also be because of guilt: “I haven’t done any work, I don’t deserve to write,” or, “How can I do any writing if I haven’t done any work?”

Your creative process might be poisoned by this stress. For now, you could do little things for your writing that help inspire you. Between your work segments, look at art, listen to music, plot and plan. Try to keep yourself in creative habits, and when you feel confident again, start writing little bits and pieces that excite you.

Here are some additional links that might help:

• Backhanding Procrastination
• On Editing
• On That Note: Accomplish All The Things
• Breaking Down the Wall: Overcoming Procrastination

I hope all this helps, and thank you again for the ask.

Good luck!


(cross-posted from KSW on Tumblr)