Perhaps one thing that I wasn’t prepared for when I started on my writing journey was the roller coaster of emotions that would come with the writing process. I knew it would be hard work, that it would take a long time, and part of me even knew there was a good chance that I would fail. But what it didn’t prepare me for was just how many highs and lows there would be in the process.
You see, when I started my book, I didn’t have an outline, or notes, or well, much of anything to be quite honest. What I had was a faint idea of a plot, a hand-wavy idea that there would be magic involved, and well that was pretty much it. But what I lacked in knowledge, outline, and any meaningful direction I made up for in spirit and boy did I have that in abundance… well at least I did.
You see, as I crossed the 20 page mark, I was still very excited, my characters felt alive and the direction was easy. I was jumping on pretty well daily and putting down at least something on the page, and ideas felt like they were coming to me like a fountain, a fountain that I occasionally couldn’t shut off. I made it through this until around page 50 and that’s when cracks began to form.
You see, it’s about page 50 that the shine starts to fade, and those rose colour glasses really come off and you’re really in the slog. The novel doesn’t quite write itself anymore, the characters feel lifeless, and are waiting for you to do something…anything, and well I did. Anything took on a new form, chores that I had been putting off for ages suddenly got done, that series I had been putting off finally got watched. I even wrote about it, no really. I was willing to do anything besides actually sit down and write my book.
But things picked up again, the major change for me was when I was bragging about it, and asking people to hold me accountable, I started posting my weekly writing on Facebook forcing myself to do something, even if it wasn’t good, to meet my writing quota. This went well for a long time, in fact I made it really far – all the way to 100 pages. But that was when the wall came.
There is something magical about 100 pages, it’s a milestone I think many of us have never really achieved. I mean sure, we’ve probably all written more than 100 pages of text in our lives over the course of the various documents we’ve created for school, or even short stories for ourselves, but 100 pages is a fairly tall order in fact it’s about 37,000 words (at least according to my manuscript) and while it’s certainly something worth celebrating there is a dark side to it too. That dark side for me was burn out.
page 100 happened for me, toward the tail end of the fall, the days were getting shorter, my attention span shorter than that, and the finish line for this manuscript was nowhere to be seen. So I did what any good aspiring author with burn out would do, I took a break… a long break… for over a year and a half.
Now before you start thinking that’s excessive (it is) I want to point out that I had never intended to wait that long, indeed, I planned on coming back the next day.. then the weekend, then when the muse struck, or whenever I had time. Then eventually I just felt guilty for abandoning the book altogether. It got to the point where when someone asked me how it was going I felt a pang of guilt and shame and avoided talking about it at all costs. It was about this time too, when I started researching how to actually write a novel and to nobody’s surprise, one of the first things most author’s and coaches say is “sit down and actually write”.
At some point, I did heed their advice, and I found my stride again, well mostly. It had been a long time since I had written anything and the plot felt about as old as I feel some days. But I reread my last chapter or so, looked at some old notes, and dove in, renewed and ready to concur the novel. The progress started going well but some old friends started popping up as I got my stride back, namely “let’s do anything except the actual writing” this time it took the form of Quill Loop though it wasn’t called that at the time, instead it was “Writer’s Goal” and lived here on this website.
So what exactly was/is Quill Loop? Well besides being my latest distraction from the actual task of writing a book, I decided it was important to meet a daily writing goal (the many books and podcasts that I distracted myself with, and used to pretend I was an author said so after all) and so instead of finding something off the shelf, or you know – creating a spreadsheet – I thought “Hey, I’m a coder, I’ll just make something!” (Also if you know a programmer, this is in no way surprising to them).
So I set out, bent on creating my software, it would be amazing, it would track my words and even omit really short words (like a, or I) and when I finished bringing it into existence it did just that. But as any good programmer will tell you, a program is never done, and the question of “What if I added this” always hangs in the back of your mind and so Quill Loop became the great distraction, it gained email notifications, and friends, and character makers and.. I mean the list goes on but I think you get the idea. At some point, the very tool I had created to keep me on track had become the very reason I wasn’t, and even worse, it emailed me every day to tell me as such.
It wasn’t all bad news though, once I realized what was happening, the tool did become an asset – I still tinkered with it, here and there (it now sends texts), but I forced myself to take my writing seriously. One of the most powerful things as it turns out was creating my writing space. I had read this time and again, but to put it bluntly, I didn’t have the space in my house to create a distraction free writing space. But I had a realization, I didn’t need to own the space.
Enter the library. If you know me, you will know that I absolutely love the library. It’s the last space that you are allowed to exist, without expectation of paying anything, and they provide basically everything a writer could need – internet, a desk, research materials, mine even has a coffee shop. I started going on a daily basis finding a comfy spot overlooking the grassy field outside, and when it got warm, using their rooftop patio, and I also brought with me a playlist (Coffee Shop Jazz if you’re curious) and in so doing, something miraculous happened – when I went there, and played that music – I was in writing mode and damn was I efficient.
Ok – you say – you concurred the distractions, and the time away but that hardly feels like ups and downs – and you’re write, up until now, when I was writing I was in a flow. But there was a new boss in town – Imposter Syndrome. You see, as I started really learning the craft, and writing my own novel crossing over to around 150 pages (65,000 words) I started second guessing myself – does this plot even make sense? will I be able to converge all these different story lines? do I even need them? Am I even keeping to the plot that I set out for? Does the beginning even match what I am writing now? This all came to a head when I wrote an entire chapter which completely contradicted what happened in the previous one and was literally impossible, forcing me to rewrite the whole thing. This is where we get into the dreaded lows. I had to force myself to sit down at my book and push through it sometimes it felt – kicking and screaming. I constantly spoke with my friend who is a writer telling him how I felt and asking for reassurance this is normal (as it turns out, it is)
This is back and forth happened nearly constantly where I would write something I was proud of, then think about all the rest of the book and wonder if anything I was doing made sense. Rinse and repeat. One thing that helped me through that process was one thing that authors and coaches regularly wrote – you’re first draft is going to be shit – and I had to try and be OK with that.
Which brings me to where I am today – two events happened that really kicked my ass and put me back on the motivation train – well I guess two and a half things. First, an author market where I got to meet several local authors and talk to them about their writer journey – they all said the same thing – their novel took about a year to write and two to edit – and here I was years into this beast and not even done my manuscript. Now yes, I know everyone works at their own pace – but that years off didn’t do me any favours.
Now the second thing – a deadline. If you haven’t tried the technique of bragging about finishing by X date I’d recommend it highly – nothing motivates like the pressure of a deadline. I have written in this past month 12,000 words where previous month may have seen a fraction of that – I realize that’s not an insane amount (around 600 words a day) but that progress was light-years beyond what I had done just a month prior.
and finally the half – the season. Perhaps you picked up on this when I mentioned the days being short – it turns out writing in the winter time, or really doing any activity that requires effort and will power is hard. It’s just coming into summer here, and honestly it’s done wonders – if you’re encountering a similar problem know you’re not alone things that I understand work well for this are Vitamin D supplements, exercise, and a light that emulates the day time. But perhaps the greatest thing you can do for yourself is accept that you won’t be performing at your peak and not be to hard on yourself for it. I recommend taking advantage of the brighter months and getting ahead while you can.
So where does this leave us? Well I still haven’t technically finished my manuscript and ironically am slacking by writing this instead, though in my defence I have written 2,395 words today. My goal for this novel is to be done by June 31, 2025 and I think I am on track for that. Wish me luck, and hopefully I’ll see you on the other side.
Thanks for reading!
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