Tag: Personal

The Sound of Rushing Deadlines

Douglas Adams once said “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” This sentiment feels no truer than when you first try to tackle a large project in a designated timeframe. And so, once again, we find ourselves nearly a week into Nanowrimo (or National Novel Writing Month, for those who aren’t in the know). For many, it’s a first foray into the world of intensive novel writing. For others, it’s a familiar kick in the pants to deal with the project they’ve been putting off doing (present company included). As such, I feel it’s important to discuss how to handle writing deadlines without wanting to pull all your hair out. As the days wind down to the final day of November, 

  1. Small chunks
    50,000 words sounds like a lot because it is! Can you think of 50,000 of anything you have on hand? Maybe you have a massive coin collection, or a hearty storage of raisins, or maybe just a bunch of small, pretty rocks. Regardless, picturing 50,000 of any of these things really puts the number into perspective! It is, after all, the minimum word count for a standard novel (and it’s not National Short Story Writing Month–that’s in May). 2,000 of something, however, is a bit more manageable to picture. 2,000 pennies is more than a handful, but you can still count them out with an end in sight. Making your goal something manageable by the deadline is a much easier–and healthier–way of looking at it. Spread it out into smaller chunks and you’ll feel a little less like you’re drowning in word debt. 
  2. Find a Partner
    Accountability is 9/10ths of the battle! It’s easy to tell yourself that you will catch up soon, but can you look in the eyes of a trusted friend and lie to them the same way? Better yet, you and a friend can have Writing Blocks together! I do these with friends from time to time. Often, we’ll do them with fairly low stakes involved (usually an admission of failure over social media or something similar). Working alone together makes the process feel a bit less isolated when you’re working your way through a particularly challenging writing slog. Furthermore, having someone to work with gives you someone to bounce ideas off of during breaks (or even just talking about what you want to have happen next to think about how to get there). 
  3. Keep a Schedule 
    Know thyself! If you know that coming home from work or school leaves you exhausted and vegetative, find a better time to write. I loved having lunchbreak writing sessions, but I also have an appreciation for the quiet mornings with just my words and a cup of hot tea. Additionally, setting aside time to think about your story can save time when you’re at your manuscript. Everyone knows your best ideas come when you’re not working on a thing, so keep a small notebook and spend some time to think through novel problems (in the shower, commuting, cooking, exercising or anywhere else you can spare a few brain cells to mull over your plot). Then, refer to your notebook during your designated writing time! Spend less time thinking about what you’re going to write and just put it to the page! 
  4. It’s OK to Play Catch Up
    An important thing to remember is that life happens. Doctor’s appointments show up. Work gets overwhelming. Time spent recovering is as valuable as time spent working. All that is to say, it’s OK to fall behind. You can settle in on a day off and really commit to playing some catch up. As daunting as, say 6,000 words may look at first, if you give yourself a good block of time to work it out, you can get into the grove and tackle it all at once. Your small chunks might not be the smallest at times, but if you can put aside a day to work on it, you’ll get there in no time. You don’t want to save it all for the last minute, but things pop up in life. 
  5. You’re Allowed to Change Deadlines
    OK, this is really only true if you have the luxury of setting your own deadlines, but sometimes you need to extend deadlines. With Nanowrimo especially, goals change. Maybe your 50,000 word story is gonna need to be 60,000…or 100,000! 50,000 words in 30 days is really just the first goal. It can be–and is–a flexible thing that changes as time goes on. Don’t restrain yourself to just 50,000 words or just 30 days if you think you can improve with more words and more time! The challenge isn’t set in stone. 

Nanowrimo is often a great kick in the pants for starting (or finishing) a project you’ve had rattling around in your brain for a while. If it’s your first, third, or five hundredth time trying to hit a big deadline like this, it’s meant to be for fun! Write your story as best you can and when you do, prepare yourself for NanoWriMoEdYe (National Novel Writing Month Editing Year (or years)). 

The Reading Nook

Every reader dreams of having a big, extravagant library: tall oak shelves, high-backed chairs, a crackling fireplace, and an impenetrable wall of books! But, some of us have…simpler budgets.
Whether you’re living in the library of your dreams or a small apartment, having a special reading nook is a great addition to any space. I’ve been slowly working to convert my balcony into a reading nook (though I will certainly have to reassess these plans when it starts to snow). I find that very few of my neighbors are out on their balconies with any regularity, so I enjoy going out there with my dinner for the evening and enjoying some time away from the perpetual screens that I find myself glued to all day. When I can catch it, I’ll go out and watch a nice thunderstorm rumble from the protected alcove. And, of course, when the weather is clear and there’s a nice breeze, there is nothing that quite compares with going outside with a good book.
The ambient sounds are good background for whatever I happen to be reading and it’s a nice mostly private space for me to relax with a book. I’ll go out with a cup of tea and a light snack to enjoy the cool mornings or evenings and unwind a bit before or after a long day. And on my days off, the balcony becomes a nice little outdoor reading nook.
A good reading nook should have adequate light, a comfortable seat, a nice temperature, and–naturally–something to read. It can be just about anywhere, but I recommend keeping it a bit separate from your sleeping space or anywhere with a lot of traffic in your house. If you can surround yourself with books? That’s great. If you can only bring out one book when you’re reading it? That’s also great! There’s no right or wrong way to have a reading nook (though we all dream of the dramatic ride on the library ladder). In the end, a reading nook is about making a comfortable space where you can enjoy a good story and let the outside world stay outside (or more outside, depending on your location).
Do you have a reading nook? What goes into your perfect reading spot?

The Joy of Tabletop Games

I’m suffering from a bit of a mental burnout for a few reasons, so this post is gonna be a bit shorter than usual.

But, we just wrapped up a game of Monster of the Week in a group I’ve been playing with for about 6 months and I just wanted to reiterate my absolute delight at playing Tabletop RPGs.

I’ve no doubt talked about this before, but I just love story-driven games. Whether it’s decided by dice or a video game, I love stories that are gamified in some way. I am one of those people who enjoys running a game as much as they enjoy playing in other people’s games! I think that RPGs give storytellers a lot of very powerful tools.

You want to get better at worldbuilding? Give your players a set space and they’ll push up against the glass asking “What’s that out there?” and then you have to come up with something. I’ve encountered this scenario a few times in various games and it’s led to some fantastic adventures all from one player seeing something and wanting to poke it. You can build an entire continent of adventure and then have to shift all your adventures to a different location because those pesky players keep finding something more interesting elsewhere. And they ask questions that you need to come up with answers to–usually on the spot. It makes you a more flexible storyteller and makes you more aware of the places your readers are going to look to poke holes in.

Want to get experience with tone and mood? You quickly realize how different the words you use when describing an evil dragon’s lair shifts to the comfortable inn where everyone hangs their hat. I’ve been at tables where everyone collectively holds their breath, just waiting for the next words out of the DMs mouth. That’s tension. Seeing a player care about characters in a moment of crisis can be so heartbreaking you’d swear they were worried about real people.

Speaking of characters, running a tabletop game will have you thinking of characters on the fly that you want to explore more because you keep peeling back layers. One guard could very quickly turn into a group favorite (sometimes even going along for the ride) by the few characterizations you give them. You learn how to quickly make people enjoy (or despise) the characters you want them to, not by telling them, but by showing them. It can be so rewarding to see characters learn to trust NPCs or see a PC’s relationship with another PC change as they adventure together. You learn what really makes people tick, especially when you ask your players what their characters feel in the moment.

Story is such a powerful tool for games. It gives your players a mission, a goal, a reason to get out of their sleepy hamlets and go fight a dragon. But for someone who is obsessed with story, it is a lesson in committing to the moment and resisting the urge to make it perfect. An NPC’s name will never change–especially if it makes everyone burst out laughing. You learn to let go and have fun. You learn that it doesn’t need to be perfect on the first draft. It just has to be there.

Editing is a different beast, of course, but we all have our dragons to slay.

The Mini-Writing Retreat

For the last few months, I’ve been trying to think of ways to go on a writing retreat. It sounds quite appealing: arrive at a picturesque location, enjoy some shop talk with other storytellers, maybe hear an inspiring lecture, then buckle down with some well-deserved writing time! Whether it’s three days, a week, or more, the prospect of being in a self-imposed creative exile certainly sounds like the path of a true artist. Sadly, that’s not always available. Even three days is a long time when you don’t have the resources. Even if you can sacrifice a whole weekend for a writing retreat, you still might feel compelled to do errands, not to mention that you’d have to be able to easily seclude yourself from the day-to-day if you can’t afford to physically distance yourself from the distractions you love. These past few weekends, I started doing Mini-Writing Retreats. While the romantic notion of going away for weeks at a time locked in the struggles of creating is not feasible for me at the moment, I can usually find an open day in my weekly schedule. So, I’ve started committing myself to my writing time again. If you’re interested in creating a Mini-Writing Retreat for yourself, here’s how mine usually goes down.  

Before: The days before I like to take care of things like food shopping, cleaning, and other little chores that might distract me. If I have the time to make a few meals I’ll do that and make sure the dishwasher is empty. Nothing throws off your rhythm like the temptation of something you “have to get done.” Plan out your meals and a couple of snacks so you don’t drift over to the fridge every five minutes to browse (and if you’re like me, grab something sweet to look forward to at the end of the day). Prepare to go social media dark for the day of, to ensure that all your distractions are limited, if not completely gone! 

Day of:
5:30- Wake up. I know some of you are already rolling your eyes, but trust me. The silence of the very early morning is the best time to get in the mindset. Make yourself a pot of tea or coffee, make some breakfast (not just cereal), and enjoy a bit of relaxation before the retreat truly begins.  

6:00-8:00- Writing. Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of editing, but commit some time to your work in progress. Actual work, not just mood boards or Spotify playlists. Put on some meditative music or something else instrumental to help set the writing mood if that helps.  

8:00-9:30- Break and Walk. I like to get some steps in and let my brain work out any story problems I might encounter in those first hours’ worth of work. There’s a trail near my apartment that takes a little over an hour to make a loop of, so I’ll do that followed by a shower and getting dressed in real clothes (sweatpants are only acceptable for so long, even if you don’t plan to leave the house).  

9:30-1:00 Writing. Get back to it! This is why you’re here!  

1:00-2:00 Lunch. Break out one of those premade meals and sit with it away from your writing space. Let your mind relax a bit and give yourself a proper lunch break. Some light reading is suggested or even a quick writing lecture on YouTube to further inspire you. Set a timer, though. Can’t fall too far down the black hole. 

2:00-5:00 Writing, writing, writing! 

5:00-5:30 dinner. Pop out another pre-made meal and give yourself a quick dinner break to mull over your last few story problems.  

5:30-7:00 Last Writing Sprint. Wrap up whatever you’re working on.  

I usually like to wind down afterward with a nice, sweet treat and a movie. After all, you just worked a full day!  Congratulate yourself on an excellent writing retreat and start thinking about when you’re gonna do your next!  Have you ever given yourself a Mini-Writing Retreat? Have you ever been on a professionally hosted writing retreat?  

Razor Sharp Focus

It’s so easy to feel like writing is something that can just be jumped into. We like to think of it like sky diving, a story idea taking us up and then we free fall as the words pour out of us in a smooth, endless string that eventually forms a story. Trying to keep that focus can prove to be the most challenging part. In an age of endless texting, social media notifications or the dreaded ‘just one quick video for ‘research”, it is so easy to drift off from a blank writing document. I think–like many writers joke about–most of my chores around the apartment get done in the time that I had set aside for writing (“Just gonna do the dishes real quick”). Even grabbing a fresh cup of tea is a potential disaster for distractions on the way to and from the kitchen.

If I have a good stretch of time off during the day, I like to try and set some of it aside for writing. To stay in the habit I’ll write a little each morning before work (usually not much), but if I have a day off (from library work or volunteer work), I’ll carve out a good chunk of time for writing. To make the most of it, I do everything I can to settle into the space before getting to work.

I always start with a fresh cup of tea. It’s usually very meditative and slows my pace long enough to think about where the story is and where I think it should go during the next few steps. I’ve always found the process of tea very calming: having to wait for the water, the feeling of a tea mug, the warmth of the boiled water, and all the smells that come from that first, fresh pour. I’ll also grab a snack so I’ll have one less excuse to get up at some point during my writing session (recent snack of choice? Peanut Butter Pretzels).

Something that I do struggle with is my mind wandering. I’ll put on music if there’s a certain mood that I’m going for, but I also enjoy listening to a few podcasts while writing. Some of my favorite podcasts to write to come from the McElroy brothers since I can kind of tune in and out without missing too much of the story. I jokingly call it the Golden Retriever Effect (ya know, like when you turn on the TV for your dog so they don’t feel like they’re alone? Kinda like that).

Making the most out of the time available is very important. Focus can be really hard to master, but giving yourself a conducive writing space is the easiest way to find your rhythm and stick with it. Forming a mental bubble around your space is more than just a good writing practice, it’s a survival tactic to keep your focus on what’s important!

What rituals/things do you do to make your writing space the most efficient it can be?

The Lunch Break Novelist

When I was working for a court reporting company, I called myself a Lunch Break Novelist. Each day, on my breaks and lunch, I would eat quickly and the break out my laptop to get some writing done while on my lunch break. On a good day, I could polish off a solid 700 words that I was satisfied with before having to head back to my desk. I’d spend time first thing in the morning and pick up right where I left off on my lunch and again when I got home. Some days were better than others, but I was usually able to come up with something by the end of the day.

One thing I see a lot when I talk with non-writers is “I just don’t have the time” as a popular excuse. The reality is that there’s always time. Five minutes here, thirty minutes there, another twenty at the end of the day–it adds up quicker than a lot of people realize. Yes, every writer would love to have the experience of getting into the flow state and write thousands of words over the course of the day, but that almost never happens (even with all the time in the world).

As I transition into working more hours at the library, I’ve been working on finding the time through out the course of the day. I’ve been practicing the idea of “Showing Up” rather than making a scheduled commitment. Rather than over exerting myself to get to a word count every day, I’ve been trying to get more into the mind set of putting time to it. It’s been easier to put aside time before work and wake up to ensure I can put the time into it. My breaks at the library now are too short to properly spend time on it, but I’m hoping to get back into the habit of being a Lunch Break Novelist (or at least a Lunch Break Editor).

Time is funny like that. While it is infinite by definition, we’ve come to treat it as a rarity. If we don’t have hours to spend on something, we question if we’re really committed to it. The reality is that there are hours we can spend on something, but they’re very rarely all in one place. It’s all about piecing things together and making the time. Five minutes a day with a notebook and pencil can add up faster than you think.

Are you a Lunch Time Novelist? Where do you find or make the time to commit to your writing?

Reflecting on 2021

Once more, we’re rolling into the new year. To say that it’s been a rollercoaster feels like an understatement. So much has happened, both good and bad, but it’s been a year of growth.

Going into 2022, I’m trying to figure out exactly what my next big project is going to be. I know I want to keep writing, submitting, and working with other writers. It’s hard to set these goals early in the year because the last few years have made it clear that I can never be truly prepared for what the next year brings. The only things I can control are my habits, my time, and my writing. So, I think there are a few things that are going to happen this year:

First, I plan on submitting two times every month. After the September Submission Scramble, I realized that I can submit very easily before or after work, so I can’t really use that as an excuse anymore. In response to that, I’m going to be submitting two times every month (one short story submission and one novel submission).

Secondly, I’m going to try and have one large project that I’m gonna be working on in my off hours. I don’t have any big ideas yet, but I’m hoping that something will come when the holiday haze wears off (we really shouldn’t be required to do any work for December, honestly. How much work are you supposed to get done?) Recently, it feels like a lot of my stories have been stronger as snippets or scenes rather than whole stories, so I need to be better about refining the work into something cohesive.

Thirdly, I’ll be doing a lot of editing. I don’t wanna give anything away, but I have an idea I want to try and tackle and need some time to make it worthwhile. It’s been harder for me to focus on larger projects when it feels like I’m writing something new every day. I’m hoping a single project to unify everything will help me retain my focus and give me a through line rather than trying to pick up snippets over the course of a few days. I don’t know if this will translate to a schedule or deadlines, but I need to be smarter about the time I do spend away from the library desk. Hopefully, this will culminate in some more exciting stuff for the end of the year (or next year).

2020 was wild and 2021 felt like the aftershocks of an endless earthquake. I’d like to say that I hope 2022 will be better, but we can’t know for sure. Instead, I can only take hold of what I can control and focus on that to the best of my ability.

What are your goals for 2022, writing or otherwise?

Surprise Book Feelings!

Hello again, friends!

Today, I’m gonna talk a little about reading. Shouldn’t be surprising on a writing blog that I do enjoy the occasional book with a mug of tea, but I feel like I don’t really talk about it enough. I’d like to talk about a very specific experience I had recently, as well as give a little reading recommendation while I’m at it.

I recently encountered the book Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. I’d heard of it from several people and decided to check it out for the first time! The basic premise is “What happens to all those kids who go through portal fantasies and have to come back to the ‘real’ world?” Think of Alice from Alice in Wonderland coming back from her adventures, then running into the Pevensie children from Narnia and forming a little support group. This book has lots of great things: a killer premise, likable characters, and an engaging plot! Aside from all this, there is a trans character and an actual asexual character! Not in the wishy-washy ‘Head Canon’ kind of way, but the character describes herself and her asexuality on the page for everyone to see. I don’t get to enjoy that very often, so it was a real delight to have that come up! But what really hit me was the ending. I won’t spoil things because I think everyone should read this book right away, but it ended very quickly and I sat up and said “No! I’m not ready to go!”

And what struck me as funny was that feeling was a huge point of the character’s struggle. They weren’t ready to leave their worlds behind, but they were booted back to reality. I’m not sure if this was by design, but in that moment of reading the last words, I finally understood what the characters were grappling with. I wanted nothing more than to go back into the world I’d just been dropped from and continue the adventures.

Luckily for me, I don’t have to wait for a magic door to take me back. McGuire has several more books in this series and I look forward to reading those as soon as I can.

Have you read this book? What did you think? Do you want to see more book reviews like this? Let me know!

Table Tops for Writers

Hello everyone! For those of you participating, I hope you’re doing well with your word counts! I’ve always said that Nanowrimo is the best experience to tell a story to yourself so you can prepare to write your next draft! Even if you don’t make it to the very end, you can at least say that you tried! And you’ll have more words written than 0 and that’s the real goal!

This month, I’ve started working with a new group of people to start an RPG group. It got me thinking about my experience with previous table top games in the past and thought I would share some of my thoughts about my relationship with role playing games as a writer!

A good portion of my experience comes from playing Dungeons and Dragons. Surprisingly, I didn’t get into D&D until I was in my late twenties. I got really interested in the game through Critical Role and decided to finally give the game a try. I’ve had a few people lead games for me and I’ve even run a few myself! The more I play these kinds of games, the more I realize how crucial they are for writers.

Firstly, games like D&D, Monster of the Week, Pathfinder and others are all about storytelling. Whether it’s a quick jaunt into the haunted library or an epic adventure across the lands, your adventuring parting is going to be telling a story together. From your introduction, there’s a call to action (usually a monster of some kind), which leads to finding more adventures, meeting mentors and questing together. Sometimes, subplots will arise and take you in directions you didn’t expect. As the GM, as much as a player, you have to learn to operate both as a planner and pantser when organizing your next move. The game constantly changes and you need to be prepared for unexpected changes.

You need to keep your characters goals in mind when playing and writing. Whatever whacky antics you get up to, wherever you send your character in the story, the most important thing is that you’re keeping your character’s goals in mind. Whenever I run a game, I always ask my players “What does your character want?” No one is going to give up a comfy life on the couch to go hunting dragons, but if a dragon burned down their house, they have much more reason. Like writing, TTRPGs are based on character decisions and interactions. While the plot may be about your characters fighting a dragon, the story is about your characters’ trials to facing that dragon.

Another thing I love about RPGs is how many different ways it can go. One decision, one mistake, one choice can change the outcome. As a player, it’s thrilling! As a GM, it’s mind boggling that a single role cant take away months of campaign prep in a single blow. Like writing, you may start off in one direction, but find a different thread to tug on that you find more interesting. The rest is finding how all of those ideas work together.

I almost always will find ways to test things. When I get an idea, I’ll trying writing it out as a scene or play with a character’s voice by speaking things I’d want them to say (my neighbors must think I’m a delight, I’m sure). My other favorite thing is to incorporate the ideas into games that I play. If I don’t introduce something as a new writing, people are more likely to tell me the honest opinion. If a character sucks or something doesn’t make sense, I trust my friends to tell me the truth about it. There’s a certain amount of trust that is between GM and players: the players trust the GM not to try and kill them outright and the GM expects the players to play true to their character (not as a gamer). It’s not unlike the relationship between writer and audience.

If you game, what do you like most about it? How do you use it to improve your writing?

After The Submission Scramble and Looking Forward

It has been a busy month! I recently moved and have been working a fair bit. Some of you may remember that I also undertook a project I was calling “The September Submission Scramble”. I’m proud to say that I finished and succeeded! Many magazine submissions, agent queries and contest entries later, I feel like I finished a lot over the course of the past month. I also feel like I was much more active.

The easiest way to win a card game is by holding most of the deck, right? Yes, technically, that’s not how you play cards, but you see my point? I feel like with submissions, you need to jump in if you want to play. I’ve always known that writing takes a surprising amount of luck, but the odds are better when you have a bigger sample size. The work I’ve been putting into this past month has been rewarding. It only takes ten minutes to get a query sent out, so I’ll probably be sending out a lot more of them. I highly recommend every writer try this. Pick a month and commit to submitting your poems, short fiction, novels, everything to anyone you think might publish it. The biggest problem is the fear of rejection, but I’m bracing myself for it.

That being said, I’m working on trying to figure out what the next month holds. Maybe some new short fiction to submit around or some more editing of older pieces. I’m half tempted to do Nanowrimo this year just to get the draft of something new out. Either way, I feel like I’m being a lot more active. Even if the choices I made this month were bad choices, at least I made them. I’m looking forward for what’s to come!