Monthly Writing Check In

“As the story grew, it put down roots into the past and threw out unexpected branches.”

J.R.R. Tolkien

Here we are at the end of another month! May is the busiest month of my year, every year. Nothing compares to how much I have to jam pack into this month. I love it, but it can also be a lot, and I tend to get a little burned out by the end of May. But May was a really good writing month for me, and while I didn’t make all the progress I wanted to on certain projects, I got a lot of writing in, and I’m really happy about that.

                At the end of April, I had made some major decisions about my approach to the next draft of my novel. I had a lot of ideas on areas I wanted to change, things I needed to work on, but it was exciting. I went into this month ready to go. And I had a blast with it the first half of the month! I basically focused on character development and world-building for my novel. Now, most writers likely handle world-building before they write an entire book. I wish I had done that, because then this draft would have been better, but it doesn’t always work for me, and I wasn’t exactly sure where the story was going until I wrote it. I spent probably two entire weeks working on the world-building. I drew a map. Why is map creating SO fun? And as I drew the map, I wrote down descriptions of each place and tried to flesh them out more.

                And as I did this, the rest of my plot holes fell into place. I suddenly realized what the story was missing, I realized which characters needed more development and it just really started to flow into a new story. I reoutlined the entire book and then started writing some short scenes between two characters. I struggled a bit with one character feeling real. She was coming off as flat and not developed, and it was definitely hard to kind of feel her out. But I know who she is now, and I’m excited to rewrite the book.

                I only ended up rewriting the first chapter, which is where I’m a little disappointed in my progress. I wanted to be through a big chunk of edits but I’m nowhere near done. But I’ll be honest, I’m also not in a rush. I enjoy writing so much, and this is part of the process. It’s going to have its ebbs and flows of productivity, but at the end of the day, the most important part is to keep going. To adjust and figure out how you can achieve your goals without draining your battery.

                In the third week of May, I was toying around with this one story idea I have for another book. And well, I really started writing a lot around that. I have these mini cute little notebooks I picked up a few years ago on a trip to Salem, MA, and I just found myself wanting to sit with pen and paper rather than at my laptop. And the words poured out of me. It’s a contemporary story, with sort of a tragic romance storyline to it, which isn’t really like anything I’ve written before, but I have written so many snippets and scenes and plotlines for this story. It is a story that is burning to be told, and I’m SO excited to work on it. Between both my current WIP and this new idea, I filled up almost an entire mini notebook, but I’m going to try something new when I work on this story. I’m going to try to have the entire story plotted, the characters fleshed out in my head and the setting solidified before I write. I’d like to see how plotting goes because it’s not an approach I’ve tried often. And to be honest, these characters are just sort of living rent free in my mind right now, screaming from the top of their lungs to write this story. So I plan on flipping back and forth between those two projects in June as best as I can.

                I also have this other idea (my mind is full of ideas I don’t have enough time to write), and it’s a story I actually do have outlined. I had tried writing the beginning a year ago and it didn’t feel quite right, so I had moved on at the time. But it’s another story I think about a lot. So I wrote the first scene again just to get a feel for the characters, and it went much better. Sadly, as much as I want to tell this story, it still needs to wait a little bit. I’d love to work on all three projects at once, but it’s maybe not feasible, so I’m going to focus on the two I have first and then come back to this later, but it’s nice to know that I have something on the side that I can work on if I’m running into writer’s block on my other two projects.

                I ended up taking about a week off of writing though. I was so burned out from everything else and a million little things, and writing wasn’t happening last week. And the guilt I felt for not writing was ridiculous and enormous, but the break was very needed, and I’m so glad I took the time off because this week I was able to get back into writing and I feel so much more myself. The words are there, I want to sit down and write, I’m excited about it. If you’re dreading something you love doing, it’s your mind’s way of telling you it’s time to take a break. Listen to that, and don’t feel bad about it (I know it’s easier said than done).

                I’m finishing up May/starting June with a new short story that I started last night. It kind of started with just one scene and I’m rolling with it. The character’s personality is so different than anything I’ve come across, and I’m having a blast writing it so far. I’m going to work on finishing it this week before jumping back into one of my books. It’s nice to create new stories while editing old ones, and I think as writers, this is the most important balance we need to strike. Editing can take a lot out of a person. Creating and discovering new characters, new worlds, new ideas, is really important, and it’s important to work on a story when it’s screaming at you to be told. I know from past experience if I push a story off for too long, it’ll sort of die out in my head and never get written. Granted, there are only so many hours in the day, but I’m doing my best to keep writing.

                The only area in which I really struggled this month was beta reading. I promised a very good writing friend to read her book this month and totally slacked on it, but she has been super amazing about it, and I’m back into it now this week that I’m less busy, and it’s amazing. I have quite a few beta reading/critiques coming up this summer, and it’s really nice to give back to the writing community because so many of them are so supportive of me too. Not that I’ve had anything worth sharing in awhile, but hopefully by the end of the summer that will change! I hope everyone else has had a really good May, and if there is any way that I can help support you in your creative process, please let me know!