Hitting the Wall

For the last month I have taken time away from adding words to the novel I started last spring. The holiday season has clouded my ability to focus when I sit down and write. I gave myself a break and focused on day to day mom/wife/household responsibilities. Now that Christmas has passed, I feel ready to pick up where I left off on my story. 

I have come to a point in this writing journey where I need to add public goals to my work. So here they are, in no particular order: 

A. Finish the first draft of this story by the end of February 2019 

B. Have my draft edited and revised

C. Shop for a writing agent or begin the self publishing process 

D. Complete a daily very short story (VSS) on twitter for the month of January 

E. Begin writing out my memoirs/life story to give to my children when they are grown 

There they are. Five writing goals for the upcoming year. As of now, these goals seem slightly lofty, but attainable. I hope I can look back on this in a year and realize I exceeded all of these in ways I could not imagine today. 

Roller Coaster

This year was my first time participating in NaNoWriMo. My goal was to get my first draft to 50,000 words. I ended up with 39,000 words, and I am proud of each word. It was difficult to carve out a section of time to write each day, especially around the Thanksgiving holiday. I got through some critical plot points, and added details to minor characters to give depth to their personalities.

Last May I began expanding a short story, which has turned into a novel. My highest monthly word count prior to November was 9,000 words. Even though I did not hit the 50,000 word goal this year, I did substantially exceed my monthly word count. I am in a rough patch now. My creative reserves are low, and I’m fighting off thoughts of worthlessness. I am not sure what’s triggered this episode, but I’ve had enough times like this to know that if I wait it out things will come back around. 

It is peculiar to go through the process of writing out a novel. I have no clue where this journey will take me. If I could tell the youngest version of myself that one day I will begin to write a sci-fi story, I would have laughed. The longest piece of writing other than this was writing out the first three chapters of a thesis for school. That assignment was 10,000 words. A year ago 10,000 words was intimidating. Six months ago 10,000 words was still intimidating, but it was a word count I wanted to surpass. Five months ago I exceeded 10,000 words. Now I am at 40,000 words. 

This process has been a wilder roller coaster than I anticipated. I am determined to get this draft finished and see it through edits. On more than one occasion, I’ve thought about jumping off mid ride. During those moments, I choose to put the story away for a few days and take time to recharge. 

Does anyone have any advice or kind words to share? I would appreciate some encouragement in the comments. 

I have been away from this blog for years. I am dusting it off and giving this tiny speck of the internet a focused direction. In the years since my last post I have moved from Japan back to the United States. I have also started working on writing a novel.

In 2014 I had a bad year. I got lost in my brain, and anxiety had the worst grip it has held on me so far in my life. My husband was unaware how to help, and at first made insensitive suggestions. He didn’t deter, and one day handed me a book with hundreds of writing prompts. I flipped through the book and found a couple that sparked ideas. There was one story I wrote about a girl from the future writing a letter to our present day. She was in the aftermath of a major attack and was frantically attempting to reach out for help from the people who could help her, us. It was a fun mental exercise to write that short story. When my husband read it, he was hooked. He had to know what was happening to the girl from the future. I sat on this story for a couple years. This year I picked the story up again and it began to grow in size before I realized I was unwittingly beginning a novel. It didn’t take me long to realize I would need to add organizing strategies that worked for me to keep track of the plot. I got a notebook and filled it with character bios, timelines, research, and vocabulary lists. Eventually I ended up with a timeline on a wall and a virtual mind map. I am in the middle of hashing out the first draft of this story. Trying hard every day not to give up on this project. Also knowing that the shadows of editing are looming in the future if I continue with this journey.

Through all of this I am thankful for the unexpected therapy writing has brought me. I am thankful for friends who are filled with positive encouragement and for making new friends in writing groups. Join me in my journey, I could sure use the support.