Yes, I know, this sounds more like an argument for any kind of kinky sex (and I’m not judging - you do you in the bedroom and elsewhere!), but it’s a strange thing which happened to me these last few weeks. When I disciplined myself in order to get more written and make a dent into my stack of already-plotted stories, I rediscovered the joy of writing.
For quite a long time in my life, I’ve been a discovery writer. I have evolved from that by now, plotting a basic structure for my story, deciding on the scenes I wish to write and where they should be in the story, yet it’s still at the root of my writing. I enjoy the thrill of jumping in and writing things.
While my mum was still alive and I only had a little contact with my parents daily on the phone, that was an easy thing to do. Most of my day was free for writing, I could write what, when, and for how long I wanted.
When she died, things changed greatly for me. My alone-time was limited much more and it was hard to get around that to write again. For over a year, I hardly got any work done - first the death, then the move (mine and my dad’s), then his heart surgery and recovery, then the lingering inflammation he carried for a while. Things were difficult.
Afterwards, my alone-time grew a little again, but not all that much. I needed to reorganize myself. During this time, I experimented not only with doing a basic plot structure for my new projects, I also tried out the pomodoro method and found it pretty useful. Yet, I didn’t really get into it.
It was only recently that I returned to that idea. Plot structures, a simple line of scenes collected in chapters, are regular for me now, but I struggled with getting things to page. Both “Grey Eminence” and “Ignition Rites”, plotted and ready, resisted me. I found it hard to get one chapter a day done, let alone more.
After I’d finished editing “The Eye Vol. 1” in the middle of November, I decided I had to change my work ethics. Instead of listening to music or YouTube videos or TV, I decided to keep a silence while I was writing. No more distraction from work.
I continued writing “Ignition Rites” (I’d slogged my way through “Grey Eminence” before that) and I kept to my new rules. To my surprise, this enabled me to write two chapters of 3,000+ words a day! I ended November with a little over 50,000 words written - my quota for a full month, not for half of one.
I’ve also entered December very well, getting through the remainder of “Ignition Rites” and starting on another collection of three novellas - “Flatmates & Spies”. With this one done, my releases for the next year will all be finished - they’ll only need editing before release. As it looks at the moment, I will definitely be done with the manuscript soon, having reached my high goal of being all set for the next year before this one is ended.
So far, so good, I’ve become more productive. But what about the joy?
Well, when I came up with the idea of using the pomodoro method and not having any background noise while I was writing, I thought it would be tedious. That I would force myself to do it every day. That it would feel as if I was missing something. The opposite happened.
Without any outside distraction (the few ‘normal’ sounds of life outside don’t count for me), I could focus much, much better on my writing. I could write about 1,000 worlds per pomodoro unit, meaning I could finish a chapter in about three units, roughly one-and-a-half hours. Writing three hours a day and spending less than another on a first re-read (I try to do that before starting the next chapter to erase easy mistakes and set my new word goal), I could be more productive than I had been for a long time.
Instead of feeling tedious, it felt invigorating. I was getting somewhere, the chapters-to-write part of my plot lines grew shorter and shorter. Finishing all those books I had plotted already suddenly felt much more manageable than before. And I had a true feeling of accomplishment, looking at my word tracker every evening of the week, seeing the nice, long lines of colour filling it now.
Few were the days with 3,000 or less words - only when I had other things to do that day and couldn’t devote all the time to writing. On most days, the tracker was filled or almost filled, displaying a number with a five or a six in front of it (my novellas have a chapter goal of 2,500+, my novels one of 3,000+, so the end result for a day should be 5,000 - 6,000+).
Instead of feeling like I was under-achieving with my goals, I started to over-achieve. The 50,000 words set for a full month could be completed in a half-month. Clearly, that made a novel (60,000+ words) or a collection of novellas (also around 60,000 words) per month a definitely possibility. More than that, even, but I also would eventually have to set time aside for plotting again.
The feeling of accomplishment, of having done something, also influenced my spare time. Instead of feeling that I should also write on the weekend, that I should try to write in the evening, too, to make up for the slack during the day, I could finally give myself time off. After eight to ten chapters a week, I could certainly take the weekend off and do what I wanted. I could certainly spend my evening doing what I liked instead of trying to squeeze in more writing while I was getting tired, given I’d already written two chapters.
With this, the joy came back to writing for me. The joy of opening the text document at the beginning of the day, of opening Campfire Pro to see where I was. The joy of reading through the rough description of the next scene and then transforming it into a real scene in my mind and on the page. I found joy in turning to the computer and the keyboard, joy I’d been missing ever since my life changed. No longer was I ‘making’ myself write, I was writing because I wanted to, I was looking forward to the moment when I could start it, could dive in again, could turn a vague idea into a story. That, of course, made it much easier to write even more.
The joy has returned to me through the discipline of making writing the most important thing on most of my days. Instead of letting myself get distracted, I focus on my stories and there’s nothing else while I’m writing - no music, no background noise. It brings me joy and satisfaction again and I am very grateful for that.
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