As many of you know, it has NOT been a good few months for writing…
When I last checked in on my novel progress back in November, I was facing an avalanche of pressures at my university teaching job in Japan, not to mention a busy few weeks working with Vine Leaves Press getting MFA Thesis Novel ready for publication. For all of November to December I felt overworked, exhausted, and in a disconnected state of mind.
Then in January and February I spent a LOT of time prepping for my big move from Japan back to the States—mailing boxes home, cleaning out my apartment, and doing a whole lot of packing…which then turned into a whole lot of unpacking, plus dealing with jet lag and social readjustment when I got back to New Hampshire.
March and April, meanwhile, were REALLY big months for MFA Thesis Novel as I set up the pre-order and prepared for the novel launch. This was a HUGE project that occupied much of my attention, and was made more difficult because I’ve still been adjusting back to life in the States and working through a major life reorganization….augh!!!!!!
(Meanwhile, those of you who’ve caught my hints will know that I’ve also been working on a new website that’s almost ready for launch! More on that later…I promise!)
All told, it has NOT been a good five months for writing, but all that’s about to change…
When Life Upheavals Happened, I Didn’t Try to Write Through Them
I hear a lot of writers talk about how they keep up their writing schedules NO MATTER WHAT, and brag about how they continue to produce regardless of what’s going on in their lives. (Or at least, so they claim—you can never tell with social media…)
I can’t help but notice, though, that most of these writers aren’t facing major intercontinental moves or major life upheavals, and a lot of them don’t have books to promote yet. Some of them might not even have Day Jobs… (!)
I’ve tried following these kinds of strict regiments, and they didn’t go well: When I tried to keep writing during a hectic time, I found myself not only falling behind on other things I needed to do, but producing work that was written hastily, didn’t feel right, and would definitely need to be revised later.
In some ways, it was good to keep making progress, but I didn’t feel satisfied with my writing, and overall didn’t like the stress it was putting me under.
For me, the better long-term solution involved:
- Taking care of the things that were making my life stressed and hectic, then
- Organizing my life in such a way that things wouldn’t become stressed and hectic again, and finally
- Going back to writing
This to me feels more natural for my personal workflow, as well as a better long-term solution once I can put the worst of the other stressors behind me. In some ways, I think this can sound like making excuses (“I’m going to get back to writing next month, I swear!”), but regardless of how it sounds to others, I think if the writer is sincere about taking a break and getting back into writing, who the hell cares what the plan sounds like to people on the outside?
I Made a Promise to Get Back to My New Secret Novel in May
A few weeks ago, I looked at my To-Do list and calendar and speculated that May could very well be the month that I feel together enough to get back to my new secret work-in-progress novel. Rather than making a specific plan, though, I kept this in the back of my mind and kept at my daily grind.
More recently, I looked at my calendar again, considered what I had going on, and thought “Yeah, I think I can do May.”
Then, last week, I realized that things are definitely slowing down to the point where I actively miss having a major creative project to work on.
This was a major indicator. Because I’ve been so overwhelmed for such a long time, the active desire to dive back into a complicated novel draft has been superseded by other things. Now that those other things have died down, though, the time finally feels right to get back into it—and I can say that honestly, because it’s the way I really feel. This way of working feels more natural than setting an arbitrary deadline that I’ll just break later if I’m not feeling up to starting again.
So I marked down a date on my calendar, and made a solid promise to myself: Tuesday, May 3rd (!) will be the day I get back into my new novel draft.
Obviously I’m writing this post in advance of that day (another sign that things have relaxed!), so by the time you read this, I may well have already started. With this post, I wanted to not only explain my thoughts about my writing hiatus, but hold myself accountable in a way that made the process more real.
So, whenever you read this, feel free to check in and ask me about how the novel’s going, and I’ll give you an honest answer ;-)
Final Thoughts
I fully expect that my first few writing days will be slow, and consist of mostly outlining, notetaking, brainstorming, and rereading chapters I wrote six-plus months ago—and that’s OK. This thinking-type stuff is a natural part of the writing process, and one I realized I wasn’t devoting myself to when things were hectic—another reason why the writing wasn’t coming out the way I wanted it. Hopefully now, though, I’ll be able to change all that, so wish me luck!
Finally, in case you missed it, I was recently interviewed by novelist and writing coach extraordinaire Roz Morris, which came out super well, and I dropped in a little sneak peak at the new novel at the end. Go check it out!!!