PACING CHECK-IN
The biggest gift I can give to myself is time. I had a choice of taking a week off between drafts or getting started on this YA draft right after I turned in the middle grade book, so I could have more time on the end of the schedule. People told me to take the break, but I chose to keep pushing and have more time at the end. (One of my mottos is do it while you have the energy, so you can afford the break when you don’t.)
I turned in the final draft of the middle grade book on a Friday and the following Monday, I started the Plot Draft of this YA book. This gave me two weeks buffer between my schedule and the deadline. And on a week like this one, that was so full of procrastination, I am so grateful I had that time.
The buffer allows me to be imperfect, have days off, get tired, and fall off schedule. I lost two days in my schedule this week, but it’s fine. I’ll take it out of my buffer. Achieving big goals requires us to push ourselves—a lot. But maintaining our sanity, requires us to have spaces and pockets to get off the hamster wheel and take a breath/diminish output/slow down when our energy is low.
DEADLINE: 2/22—Three weeks left
LOGISTICS, CRAFT & MECHANICS
In this phase of my career, I’m all about getting it done. I’m applying project management to my writing life, compartmentalizing drafts and tasks, and getting rid of unnecessary layers to produce, produce, produce. My three biggest tools to productivity are: outlining, bucketing writing into three clear drafts, and scheduling, scheduling, scheduling. These three tools supported me in writing a novel in 8 months from pitch to outline. Before this, I couldn’t write a novel in an almost-30 year career. (There’s lots of reasons for that, but the mechanics is an area I can control).
I call my first draft the Plot Draft. I am literally throwing the story down on the page to see how it all fits together. I go from beginning to end just writing. NO EDITING. This is radical for the people who write polished first drafts. (If that’s you, stop listening to me now, lol. I believe any approach that works for you is valid.) Writing without rules and perfection for the first draft is empowering for me. If all I have to do is get the plot down, I don’t have to worry about foreshadowing, character development, voice, tone, structure. I can focus on one thing: building a workable frame for the story.
The work of the Plot Draft is turning plot points into scenes, it’s placing the ideas in the outline into the very specific parameters of scene: setting, character, time. For some sections of the outline, I know exactly how to animate the plot. Other sections of the outline, baffle me and force my problem-solving brain into overdrive. Of all the ways I can bring this plot point to life, which way will I go? The Plot Draft requires me to lean into both logic and instinct to make sure my characters get where they need to go and the story unfolds in an organic manner. And that is quite a lot of work to do indeed.
MENTAL HEALTH CHECK-IN
The funny thing about procrastination is it can be fueled by so many things. It can be fueled by exhaustion, trauma, danger, worry, stubbornness, and any manner of emotion. I accept small amounts of procrastination as part of my writing process. When I’m faced with hours and hours and hours of procrastination, however, I know something beyond the normal process is going on.
By the time I got to the end of this week, I was pretty clear that my procrastination was connected to fear of the unknown. Fear is one of our basic human emotions. If you’re human, you know fear! And even though we are not physically threatened by the creative process, our body responds as if we are. That’s because the unknown frightens us humans. And the creative process is one big unknown. It’s staring into an empty expanse of possibility and saying, I’ll make something. I’ll make the millions of micro-decisions required to create something. And even as you make that commitment, fear tells you: Hide! You don’t know how to do this. So let’s procrastinate. Don’t try.
So this week I had to tell myself, of course you’re uncomfortable. You’re walking into an unmarked space and you’re writing into the unknown. Your emotions are reasonable and rational. Your task is to shape something out of the unknown. It doesn’t have to be right or good, it just has to be done. Sit with it and write through it. You’ve done it before and you can do it again. And when it’s done, we’ll come back to it and make it right. I had to hold my own hand and whisper to myself, “let’s just get this done.”
Onward,
—K.