Slow Mode
Septembers are rarely chill. Anyone else agree? It’s been a very busy few weeks, but seems I’ve found the time for the monthly update regardless. Lucky for me, this lends a lot of thematic energy for a topic I was considering anyway.
The thing about writing large projects is that it’s really about settling in for a long journey. While writing can be done in aggressive daily word counts, which I dabbled with early on in my Getting Real Serious About Writing period, to make the absolute best quality work, one has to dedicate time, especially when one also juggles a job (or two) along with all the other things needed in order to live a happy life. This entry is about learning how to cope with the long haul.
But first, the updates.
Returning to Codetta has been a treat for many reasons. It’s been well over a year since my last major editing pass and the progress of my skill as a fiction writer has become apparent. That last manuscript I wrote last winter really did what I’d hoped. It’s also simply fun to return to this old story, especially now as we come upon my favorite time of the year, the same season that makes up the bulk of the first act of the novel. It’s probably the first time in the four years of tuning Codetta that I’ve gotten to work on it during same exact weeks within the story. I wrote an entirely new second chapter for this draft, and what was likely the most densely YA thing I’ve ever written, and I’m not embarrassed to admit it was kind of fun to briefly relive an idealized and curated version of a high school experience influenced by my own. I assume this is one reason why a lot of authors write YA - it can be just a fun nostalgia trip, healing even.
I’ve also been plugging away at a comic book project. I didn’t want to mention it if I wasn’t certain I’d be doing anything with it, and I’m by no means certain now, but I’ve put in a good amount of work and am sitting at the halfway point. If I do manage to complete it, it would be the first comic script of length that I’ve written since my teens. Can’t really say yet to look forward to seeing more about this, just thought it was worth introducing due to how it fits in with this month’s topic.
Recently I saw a tweet making its way around the circle of writers I follow on Twitter. It was probably a couple weeks back now, please don’t expect my blog to have timely references to popular tweets, as social media in general isn’t a particular joy of mine. This particular tweet was one of those of a certain mentality of which I used to partially subscribe: the idea that true craft is born from suffering, and that suffering must come in the form of an ocean of words, wrung from the author every single day, no matter the cost. Of course this mentality omits all the other things every writer needs to survive in this world, such as a day job to keep oneself afloat for the several years it typically takes to break through, and all the other day-to-day activities one needs to invest themselves in to keep the old mind and body working in tip-top shape. Obviously, there are many people in the world who are fortunate enough to not need, say, a full time job to get by - but I would just like to remind my fellow creatives who do have to perform the daylight hustle of a few necessary truths: working builds both character and drive; not staying healthy tends to catch up on a person sooner than later; and putting off chores typically means someone else in the household has to do them instead. This kind of person becomes a lout eventually, at least in my humble opinion, the kind of artist that outputs reams of pretentious and narcissistic work, to completely show my view on the matter. This is how I used to be, more or less.
At some point in the last few years, falling in love likely had much to do with it, I decided to become one of those wretched writers that walks both the day and the night. My bohemian days are long past, and I’m settled in to what I call the Slow Mode. This fashion of writing is my own term for the method of writing output one adopts for the long stretches of years where one is expected to simultaneously build and live a life, but also pursue their dreams every step of the way. Burn out was a huge risk for me for the longest time, back when I was writing several thousand words a day, it was a sacrifice that was easier to make when I had less going on. Now I got a house, a partner, bills, some animals running around, video games that I spend money on but never actually get around to playing, and ultimately the hope that I can one of these days get back into something resembling a state of overall health. The trick is how to keep the words-train on track throughout all those… uh, distractions.
My first tip for making writing a lifestyle choice is nothing new under the sun, but it’s crucial regardless: write every day. You’ve heard this before, but it’s true. Keep that muscle moving every single day - and read too, mustn’t forget reading! Read what’s current in your genre, do research, read something higher level, but don’t skip it. Do the thing every day, output and input, even when it’s hard.
That said, when you’re writing every day, don’t feel obligated to marry yourself to exceedingly high volumes of labor. Mix it up, stay dynamic; certainly there will be stretches of days where a thousand words will be your minimum, but know that you will also have days where writing a couple hundred words is just as taxing and just as sufficient. Some days, you won’t even be in the mood for your current project, and there will be nothing you can do to change it. That’s where my next tip comes in.
What I’m about to suggest now may clash a bit with conventional wisdom, but at this stretch of my own journey, it has been largely beneficial and has kept me writing every day with joy. In addition to having a single main project to pour oneself into, I recommend having one or two additional just-for-fun projects on the side to catch you on those days where you just can’t bare to look at your main work. The aforementioned comic project has been that for me. I’m new to writing comics, so I obviously don’t know the finer points of the craft, but thus far it has been a little easier going than novel writing and has caused me to flex that writer muscle in new ways. I also wrote about tabletop games in another entry, and yes, writing for and playing D&D has been the last safety net, so to speak, of fun projects that have helped reinvigorate my creative juices when I’m getting close to written-out. Between my current pass of Codetta, the comic project, and my current D&D campaign, I now have more than enough options for output on any given day, regardless of my mood, level of exhaustion, state of mind, level of distraction, or what have you.
So, to sum it up, write every day, just experiment with giving yourself the space to have multiple smaller (or simply even more fun) projects to tinker with on the side when you need a break from the main beast. Simple as that. Life is happening to us all the time, what’s expected of us changes every season, and to survive, the criteria for conventional wisdom and practice needs to expand. Even discipline must become dynamic to remain beneficial. I didn’t want to face it at first, but the truth is that this game takes years. Life shapes us, while the craft remains the only constant, to survive we must grow with and around both.
Every year, my partner and I like to return to the beach during the off season for a little creative retreat we’ve been calling Dark Beach. I’m currently wrapping up this entry on the last day of this year’s Dark Beach; the crowds are here, but dying down, favorite establishments are closing for the season, it does really feels like the last waning weekend of the summery times - tomorrow is the first day of October after all. I got nothing poignant to tie it all together, just wanted to provide a sense of time and place. As always I’m looking forward to the Halloween season, and hopefully that means finalizing the first act of Codetta before November settles in. The Slow Mode really has been in full effect the past couple weeks, but this trip has inspired me to make some more life changes, all for the sake of the cause, and I can’t imagine a better time to stoke the flames and tap into all the latent creative energy that seems to hang in the autumnal ambience. With that said, best of luck to the both of us on the next stretch of this long, long journey.
