Hey everyone,
I wish this weren’t true, but I’m excellent at self-sabotage. I could play it as a sport, I’m that good. Of course, there are no prizes for writers who sabotage repeatedly– only bigger and higher obstacles to overcome.
Remember how I told you I was going to write 10,000 words on Black Friday?
This was a good plan, an excellent plan even. I don’t like to shop and we were in lockdown, so what else was I going to do? Plus, I’d had several high word count days as I worked on my novel in November, even hitting 8,000 words one particular day.
But then something exciting happened:
I finished my novel!
Cue the fireworks. (Actually, I did see fireworks from my window that night, as though Brighton was celebrating my win with me and it felt quite special.)
But anyway, I finished my novel a minute before midnight on Thursday.
This is an expansive dystopian novel that spans more than one country, more than one time period, and has the pacing of a thriller– there are little secrets to be discovered in every chapter. Basically, it’s an expansive project and more ambitious than anything I’ve ever undertaken.
I also got stuck on that last day. Just as I thought I was done with the book, my protagonist decided to go get herself into additional trouble right in the last chapter and I couldn’t figure out, for the life of me, how to end the book for many, many excruciating hours. So that when I did finally write the last word, relief flooded through me and I mumbled a small prayer of thanks to whatever muse might have given me that last bit of inspiration. I felt excited to be done, but also just so spent.
So, did I, like any sane person, decide to have a little celebration, perhaps take the next day off, or at least just have a regular workday?
Nope.
Well, I did have a little celebration with cake and a glass (or three, don’t judge) of wine. But I didn’t even think about taking the next day off. I’d said I was going to do the 10k on Black Friday challenge and I don’t go back on my word, so goddamnit, I was going to write 10k words.
I didn’t.
The next day, I hit 4,398 and then my brain just went on strike, refusing to cooperate, sitting in the corner like a sullen child.
I mean, to be honest, when I woke up the morning after I finished my novel, I didn’t really want to write. Or if I did, I didn’t particularly want to push myself. There’s a series on Netflix that I’d been saving up to watch after I finished the book, and I really just wanted to go do that.
But instead, I forced myself to write. Why? Oh, because I’d promised a bunch of writers on a forum that I would. (And most of them would have told me not to anyway.)
This is a mistake I make fairly routinely: I push (which is great), I take it a step too far (which is not), and then I crash and burn.
November is a fantastic time to push and I’m so glad I did because I’ve now got another finished novel in the bag that, with a round of editing, will be ready to submit to publishers when the world opens up again. But not every month of the year is a good time to push, not every day needs to be a new challenge, not every project needs to be more ambitious than the last.
Which is why I’m going to spend this next month lazily outlining my next novel and then in the twelve weeks from January to April, I’m going to write it at a steadier, slower pace.
I’ve got something new brewing and I think you’re going to love it.
Cheers,
Natasha