So on Monday evening, the sky decided to present us with this:
A rainbow to the east and a sunset to the west!
Rainbow over our house
Sunset from the back deck
I’ve been decidedly in bread machine mode with book two (The Marigold Miracle). I’ve been reviewing the draft—slowly—making notes, and then letting everything simmer or churn or do whatever it is my brain does when I’m not paying attention.
It’s nice to really embrace and refine my bread-machine way of writing. I already have some (what I hope are) nifty ideas for draft two. When I wrote the original draft, I knew that the initial scenes would not be the first scenes of the book. But, at the time, I simply needed a way into the story and those scenes worked for that.
It’s not flashy, but I’m pleased with this progress. I’ve also made a dent in all those Photoshop tutorials as well this week. And since the air quality here is awful and I’m stuck inside, that’s what I’m going to do next.
This week, I tried something a little bit different. I decided to take an admin day during the week, one where I didn’t write, but used that morning focus time for writing and publishing-related tasks instead.
Usually, I’d tackle one or two of those after my writing session. But you know what? After my writing session (about 3 – 4 hours of deep work), my brain is done. I don’t want to sit at the computer and do more stuff. It’s enough to clear out my email, comment on a blog post or two, and then head outside.
So, I thought, why not try an admin day during the week, use that focus time to knock out several publishing and personal admin tasks. Not only will I get things done (that need doing), but I can bring fresh energy to the tasks.
Additionally, if I schedule the day mid-week, I can also let my subconscious do some story simmering as well.
I think this might work. At any rate, I’m going to experiment with one admin day per week this month and evaluate the results once July arrives.
In other news? Well, ducklings!
Mama duck and all her ducklings, in a pond along the park/nature trail
I’ve been experimenting with time management and how I want my days to look like now that I can set my own schedule.
One thing is becoming clear:
There’s wisdom in taking weekends and time off.
Back in January and February, I was writing seven days a week. I was so darn excited to have the time and head space (especially the head space) to write. Book two was simply waiting for the cognitive overload from my corporate job to clear out so I could write.
Then, I needed a break. I know this about myself. I’m what Becca Syme calls a bread machine writer. In her article Why Isn’t This Easier, she writes about bread machines (the writers, not the appliance):
Your brain is wired like a bread machine, so the easier books to work on are the ones where you’ve had more time to put all the ingredients inside the machine and let it sit for a long time. But when you become a professional writer (even if you’re not writing full-time), you don’t get to spend years thinking about a book, unless you’re GRRM. So, when you take away part of the way your brain functions creatively best, it becomes more and more difficult to complete the process.
I need time to think, both long term—hey, I’ve been musing on The Pansy Paradox and the series for a decade, y’all—and short term.
So, maybe it’s an afternoon when I head to the garden center and look at all the plants (I know, I know; I’m running out of space.) Maybe it’s a trip to Half-Price Books to restock the Little Free Library.
In any case, I’m taking a conscious look at my schedule. I’m questioning why I do things when I do them and considering whether there’s a better way for me to do what I want and need to do.
Today? The siren song of the garden center is calling my name. (Can you hear it? I can definitely hear it.) Yesterday was the Guthrie Theater and Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap.
All in all, not a bad weekend. (And would you look at the Mississippi. We got a lot of rain last week.)
Last week, Anno asked what I was working on and whether it was the series about Pansy (she of the sentient umbrella).
And yes, yes, it is. I’m writing the entire series. Or rather, I believe it’s the entire series, three books with a companion novella. I’m writing the whole series first before publishing any of it.
I’m doing this for a couple of reasons. First, I simply want the joy of writing it without any external expectations. If I publish the first book and it’s nothing but crickets and tumbleweeds, that can make the subsequent books more difficult to write.
If the first lands and finds its readership? Well, that could make the subsequent books even harder to write.
Right now, I’m in my writing bubble and having an immense amount of fun, and I don’t want to give that up.
Second, I think the series will be better for it. I’ve already refined the world-building by writing book two. I’m keeping notes of what I want to change in book one. Small things, a sentence here or there, backstory that needs a slight rephrasing. I could probably get away with not doing this, but I really enjoy doing this sort of work. To borrow a word I used a few blog posts ago, it feels like a luxury.
Last but not least, I believe that, in the long run, it will take less time to publish the entire series. There was a three-year gap between Coffee and Ghosts books three and four. Part of that was circumstances (oh, hi, pandemic). Part of it was I had to figure out how to bring back (spoiler) the entity. The entity is Katy’s foil. The series doesn’t work without the entity sticking its nose into things—not that the entity has an actual nose.
I will start publishing once book three is drafted and I feel secure about the content. Not all at once, but readers will know the series is complete.
So, during this first month of full-time writing, I reached ~91,000 words in book two (yes, these are long fantasy books). I’ve written close to 20,000 words this month. Considering I’m still recovering from burnout, I feel that’s significant. It feels like a win.
We’ve been in hibernation mode this week. Kitty, of course, secured the coziest pet bed.
But it’s not like the dogs are suffering. We have more pet beds than pets and lots and lots of fleece blankets.
See? Plenty of blankets.
But it was definitely a week for hibernation.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been consistently writing every morning, and the story is in my head a lot more these days, but I had a book three brainstorming session this week as well. The sort that really does feel like a storm, where you’re typing notes as fast as you can because the ideas just keep coming.
Up until now, book three has been essentially a blank canvas. I know the (many) story threads I need to tie together, but the what and how and when could be summed up with one word:
Shenanigans
True, book three is all about shenanigans. But now I have an idea of what those shenanigans might be. This is a good thing since I’m getting close to the end of book two. I’m not only relieved, although I am that. But I’m excited as well. I’ve been trusting my intuition and subconscious to work things out while I’m busy elsewhere, and I’m pleased that’s happening.
This coming week is bringing us some warmer weather. However, I predict Kitty will still claim the best bed in the house.
So this week, I headed downtown to meet with my accountant to do writerly business-y type things. I discovered that the office was one block away from the statue of Mary Tyler Moore.
This felt fortuitous, so I had to stop to take a picture.
You’re going to make it after all.
My morning routine hasn’t really changed since I started this full-time writing thing. I pushed my wakeup time forward by half an hour. I don’t know if this is my optimal wakeup time, but it feels close.
It’s true I no longer rush in the mornings to get an hour (or less) of writing done. The other thing that’s changed?
I don’t go online until noon. This is starting to feel like a routine now. But at first? It was like I was breaking some sort of rule. After all, being accessible was part of my previous job.
It’s not like people can’t contact me in case of an emergency. I don’t silence my phone. But I don’t get a lot of calls or text messages to begin with, so I don’t need to. I also don’t have social media on my phone (10/10 would recommend not having social media on your phone).
I obviously need to be online for this writing thing. And there’s a lot I like about being online, friends, interesting things to read, and hey, look, I’m writing this blog.
But it’s also abundantly clear that there’s a billion-dollar industry that’s intent on capturing as much (all?) of our time and attention. Not giving into that feels like an indulgence, a luxury.
And that has given me pause this week.
If you’re dealing with the polar vortex this week, stay warm!
This week, I unearthed my old bread machine from one of the lower cupboards in my kitchen. And when I say old bread machine, I do mean old. Not only could it vote, but it’s been around long enough to graduate college, complete med school, and residency before chucking it all to become a YouTube influencer.
My bread machine. She’s been around the block a few times.
I was wondering whether it would still work. Then I reasoned, why not? It’s only been napping there on the lower shelf, and there was no reason not to try it out.
So I bought a couple of bread machine mixes. Low stakes here. I decided not to go all in until I knew for certain.
What do you know?
It still works! And there’s nothing like the smell of baking bread for instant comfort. Unless it’s slicing into a warm loaf soon after.
So, my bread machine is very similar to my writing process. I’m not a fast writer. My stories need a lot of subconscious churning before they’re ready. So, this series I’m working on?
It’s been “in the works” for ten years.
Yep, you read that correctly. Ten. Whole. Years.
Granted, I’ve been doing any number of things during that time, including writing a whole other series (Coffee and Ghosts). In fact, I think I needed to write that first before writing this one.
It can be frustrating to be in this place, to have your process be the opposite of the current hustle and grind culture. But I’ve learned (often the hard way) that it’s so much better for me and my stories to write this way. In the long run, I actually get more words and more stories, have more fun, and end up with better stories.
And this week, I’m grateful that my bread machine reminded me of that.
So, I meant to write up and post these thoughts last year. Really. I did. I have longhand notes and everything. Then, well?
2021.
I may be a year late, but I think what I learned still stands the test of twelve months. I hope you think so too.
In November 2019, I conceived of the idea of posting a story a week for an entire year. With the upcoming presidential election in the US, I knew it would be rough going. I wanted to do something kind; I wanted a distraction; I wanted something to focus on other than the news. I even called the challenge The (Love) Stories for 2020 to remind me of my aim for love, compassion, and kindness.
Then, of course, 2020 actually happened. Oh, my sweet summer child—you had no idea, did you?
I’m not the sort of writer who could write and post a short story a week for an entire year. That’s not how I’m wired. (If you’re wired that way, more power to you; I am brimming with envy.)
That being said, I thought I’d share the things that helped me get through this challenge. I offer them up in hopes they might be useful.
Party like it’s 1999: Focus on what you love and what’s fun, what you’d do even if you never got any recognition or payment. This is essentially the dance like no one’s watching advice. It doesn’t work for everyone, but it does for me.
Plan like it’s 2020: If the last two years have taught us anything, it’s that things happen. Things will continue to happen. They may be external things well beyond our control, like elections and pandemics. They may be other things, like graduations and weddings, all the joyful things in life. Peer into your crystal ball as far as you can and plan accordingly, which brings me to…
Scheduling is your new best friend: I blog on WordPress, but I imagine most platforms have a draft and scheduling function. Scheduling posts several weeks in advance gave me breathing room. It allowed me to work on new and not-quite-there-yet stories.
Inventory on hand: Related to scheduling is having a fair amount of inventory on hand. Again, I’m not a fast writer. I might be able to write a story a week, but I’m not sure I could write a story a week that’s ready for prime time, so to speak. Also? In April 2020, I got Covid. Between inventory on hand and scheduling, I continued the challenge until my body and brain were back online.
It will take more time than you think it will: Always. Trust me on this one.
The takeaway:
A challenge like this is a way to create and/or preserve a body of work. The content is evergreen and can have more than one use. When you own the rights to your work, you can do any number of things with it.
There are those external rewards, such as blog traffic, SEO, comments, and finding new readers. But for me, the results went far beyond the external.
I loved discovering what resonated with readers. Some of my “just for me” stories resonated so strongly with others that it helped me trust my inner voice a bit more, which spilled over into Season Four of Coffee and Ghosts. I’m not sure I would’ve written that without completing this challenge first.
I loved spending time with my own voice, rediscovering patterns and themes in my own writing.
In a world that’s always so loud, both online and off, it’s easy to miss what’s surprising and unique about your own voice. My 2020 challenge helped me reconnect with that.
So, what are you waiting for? Go forth and concoct your own challenge. But remember:
Wrote 103,000 words (mostly on Season Four of Coffee and Ghosts)
Read 103 books
I liked the symmetry of that so much, I purposely didn’t finish reading a book on the 31st.
And while I’ve had better writing years, I’ve had much worse. Considering the state of everything in 2021, it could’ve been much, much worse. Not only am I really pleased with how Season Four of Coffee and Ghosts turned out, but I also had a lot of fun writing it.
I also started a Little Free Library this year. Traffic’s a little slow now that the snow and cold have arrived, but readers are slipping in new books and taking others. In the spring, I hope to do more with it. It will be easier for all once you don’t have to mount the snowbank just to peek inside.
What didn’t work in 2021: Weekly writing check-ins. Lately, I’ve found I don’t have much to say, at least not about my writing progress on a weekly basis.
I’ve been blogging in some form since 2003, and I’m certainly not going to stop now. Okay, I just did the math, and that’s nearly twenty years. In that time, I’ve changed platforms and formats, what I write about, and a variety of other things. I think it’s time to change and grow again, but in what direction, I’m not sure.
It may take all of 2022 to figure that out. But for now, I’ll wish everyone a Happy New Year. May 2022 bring you the peace and joy you need.
I may have mentioned that I have a time travel series idea that’s been knocking around inside my head for about … four years now.
I never claimed to be a fast writer.
Or thinker, as the case may be. I pondered season four of Coffee and Ghosts for a good four years before I sat down to (seriously) write it. True, I did do a trial run in 2020, but I jettisoned it because … 2020.
When I tried again this year, it only took me six months to write 100,000 words. That’s not a bad pace, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. The entire story includes pondering and note-taking and letting it all simmer.
Instead of being frustrated by this, I’ve decided to embrace it and make it fun. Because it’s not changing. How do I know this? I’ve tried. Oh, how I’ve tried. I have learned that I’m not one of those zippy writers who can write a book a month.
I’ve attempted to adhere to the pithy writing advice of Don’t think, write.
Guess what? It doesn’t work for me. What I get is a mess of a draft or a story that’s anemic.
I also don’t outline. I take lots of notes, create a framework or a roadmap, but I don’t go beyond that, either. And yes, I’ve tried to meticulously outline as well. When I do that, I overcomplicate the story.
So here I am, plotters to the left of me, pantsers to the right, stuck in the middle with me.
