Tag: routine

Sketchbook #45

I have no idea what’s going on with July. It’s been one of those months that’s simultaneously been dragging on forever and is disappearing in a flash. But July is almost over (however that happened), and I guess it’s time to think about how it went.

Sketchbook #44

“Maybe I’ll have some answers by the end of June,” I said.

Why do I set myself up like that?

I’m being a little overdramatic.

Sketchbook #43

May has taught me that I really do need to build a better system for managing my writing projects.

It started off well enough—I had finished drafts of both The Black Sun and Violet Lane, vague plans for my next project (very tentatively titled These Modern Things), and I was excited to move forward. And then… not much happened.

Snapshot #93 | 10 Things for 28 January 2018

Another two weeks! They’ve been interesting. In a (mostly) good way. I’ve been: feeling | wearing | rethinking | discovering | learning | preparing | trying | waiting | getting | debating

Finding my way back into a writing routine.

After taking some time off over the holidays, I’m starting to ease back into writing again. (Technically speaking, I started last week, but that was only two very short writing sessions, so I’m not counting it.)

It’s been… interesting.

Sketchbook #21

This has been a strange month. (Another one.) Not bad, just… strange. In a number of ways.

I’m currently planning the second draft of the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo last year, and I’m in the earliest stages of planning a different novel. I’d worried that it would be confusing, trying to work on two different stories, but it’s not; they complement one another, but they don’t get tangled up together.

It does mean that I’m working on two different stories, but not actually writing either of them right now. I’m not putting words on the page. And the writing routine I built over the last five months doesn’t quite work when I’m outlining, or researching, or trying to make sense of the notes I made last November. I’ve been trying to do some free writing, but… meh. I don’t quite have the hang of that – I always reach a point where it feels like I’m just typing, rather than writing.

So, keeping myself on track – and feeling like I’m actually being productive – has been a bit of a struggle.

Snapshot #73 | 10 Things for 26 March 2017

I don’t know if the last two weeks have felt so odd, or if it’s just the last few days. Either way, I’ve been: wishing | having | loving | thinking | wanting | starting | buying | getting | trying | hoping

NaNoWriMo 2016: Postmortem

It’s been just over two months since NaNoWriMo 2016 ended. It’s been ten months since I first started thinking about maybe trying my hand at it. It’s been exactly a week since I typed “the end” on the story I started back in November.

It feels like a good time to look back and think about how the whole thing went.

I’ll start with some backstory. (If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you might know some of this already.) I used to write. A lot. At least 2000 words a day, four days a week, without fail. I did NaNoWriMo a few times, years ago… until I realized that it wasn’t really a challenge anymore, and that starting a new project in November would mean putting any current projects on hold for a month. I considered myself a writer before anything else.

The problem is, I’ve got a perfectionist streak, especially when it comes to writing.