rosy writes

This is a complicated ask and I’m going to say straight out that I do not feel that I am an expert or authority in it. 

So I’m going to point you to the tumblr blog “writing with color” to answer this ask. They wrote something pretty extensive on this, touching on some of your questions in Describing Asian Eyes. You might want to check out their blog and follow them. 

I am, however wondering why you are asking about asian eyes when your character is a fox. Can’t you just give them fox eyes? 

I wouldn’t, however, use the term “oriental” when referring to people or cultures. From what I can tell, it’s used for things, like furniture or rugs, not cultures. Asian is a better term, and I think the particular Asian culture you’re using is better, like Korean, Indian, Japanese, etc. 

I don’t see this question as racist, but I do think you need to do a bit more research into Asian cultures in order to write a story inspired by them. Why are you writing an Asian inspired story anyway?

Like I said, I’m not an expert on the current thinking about how write this kind of inspiration. I was raised Buddhist and grew up with a lot of Japanese culture, but I’m not part of the community anymore, and besides, a lot has changed since the 80s. I would be wary of being influenced by anime or manga. (also not my area of expertise.) We do have to be careful that we are not exoticizing another culture, or fetishizing them.

Yay. Yes. I’m here for that. I always love writing asks. Although they sometimes can take a while to answer since they’re very much ‘thinking’ questions. 

I have a hard time writing about myself, so I always liked answering asks, because they are audience driven. And it helps me to have a prompt. (This goes for fiction and poetry and art, too. I often work on prompts.) I will try to keep posting about how my writing is going and how my process is working.

We all struggle with writing sometimes, and I’ve developed some skills and habits that cope with those struggles. 

I find pinterest SO helpful. But then I’m a very visual person and a pinterest addict. So like, the platform just works for me. I can understand why it wouldn’t work for other people. So let me tell you how I use it.

I have a BILLION boards for writing and they are all titled “to write...” something. Whatever I’m talking about. Sometimes they’re about craft. Like to write stories, or to write villains. I’ve got one for nanowrimo and for poetry too.

I have pinterest board for the genres that I write. Right now that’s really romance and sci fi. I also write fantasy, but haven’t much lately, although I do have an urban fantasy that I should be querying but I’m kind of ignoring.

My first sci fi board , where I have folders for sub genres, filled up (I try to archive them when they hit 1k pins but i don’t want to archive this one because it’s a resource.)  So I started a second which I haven’t done folders for yet. This is where I put cool ideas that I might use later, that might get story ideas started. Then I have a sff characters board and that includes costumes as well as fancasting or faceclaims or names. This is so when I’m writing, I don’t have to search for characters, I’ve got my own pinboard. Also, other people are free to use them for inspiration. 

My romance board is sort of like the sff board, but for romance, except I put my personal romance projects there, and that mainly is the fanfiction that I’d like to turn into original fiction, but all those projects are on hold.

Otherwise I create boards for each project that I have. That means I have them for novels I’ve finished, novels I’ve abandoned, novels that I’m in the middle of, novels that I’m planning. I have a LOT of project boards, but that doesn’t mean they’re all active projects. At least two of them are things I’d like to write but don’t have time for, and I don’t want to forget. Right now, I have two WIPS but I’m doing to write spacewitch, while to write sleepers is on hold because I can only finish one at a time, and i’m also trying to work on to write sound of silence which is a NON fiction project on writing process. The novels can now have folders for characters or settings or whatever. That’s nice, because you can get appearance and costumes and hobbies or whatever straight.

So here’s the thing. While you’re planning or researching or even just getting into the groove, you can search for new things for your project board, but ALSO, when you’re stuck or before you start writing every day, you can go over that board to get back into the mindset. Relationships, attitude, events, history, goals, personality, setting... it can all be in your pinboard.

And while I’m writing the story, I often will need to look up new things as they happen in the story. So maybe spaceships or explosions or rebellion or a new character. Those go into the board. That means that if you start at the bottom of the board, you can actually watch the plot progress. And viewing it can remind you of the entire book you’re writing. 

I also have boards for my ghostwriting projects. I keep them on private, but I use them constantly. When I am researching, say types of ultralight aircraft, or menus for a Moroccan restaurant, I pin those websites to my board so I don’t lose my info. I pin pictures for mood. Examples of evening gowns or diamond rings. Remember I write contemporary romances, and they’re all billionaires. So I need billionaire details. Hello google. Hello pinterest. It also helps when I’m doing series, because I can use the same info for multiple books.

I use pinterest when I’m writing fast romances, or when I’m working on books that take years. It especially helps the long term books because it’s so easy to forget things and lose your mood. I was just looking at sleepers and I started to get excited for that book again, even though I don’t have time to write it right now. So I can just hold that excitement off and keep it in the pinboard and when I’m ready to finish that story I can do so. It’s a load off of my mind. And it helps the ghostwriting because I don’t need to hold all those details in my head. 

+ so unmotivated that I just hate having to move my laptop. I was always lazy, and now I'm extra lazy. I haven't written since before Christmas, but I want to. I'm lacking motivation. But still, I share pretty much everything with my boyfriend, I really trust him. Why can't I just write next to him? It's like my brain blocks. Any tips to feel comfortable enough? Thank you!

+++

Okay, so you’ve got a block going on. You’ve identified it as needing isolation to write. You’re already ahead of the game. You know what’s wrong. It might be hiding something else, but you can’t figure that out until you figure out how to get over this hump. The mind finds a MILLION ways to keep us from writing, and we have to find the million ways to get us back to writing.

But let’s address this problem, here.

You need to write alone. Or you need to feel alone anyway.

You could move your laptop, but that turns out to be an obstacle when you’re already struggling. Okay, so let’s toss that one.

You could set up a writing station somewhere else. Period. And not have to move your laptop. Just keep it there. I have a writing station in my bedroom. I’ve got a chair and a small rolling desk. I did this partly because I had no energy to go to my actual office. So I had to address that fatigue issue. No I write next to my bed so if I need to lay down, I can, and then when my energy comes back, I get up and write again. I say this because it’s one way you can address an obstacle created by your personal needs. 

Maybe a better spot for you would be in the kitchen next to the coffee maker, or in front of a window in the living room so you have a view, or on the porch when it gets warmer, I don’t know. It really depends on you. I actually have different places for different activities. My studio does work for painting or planning. I read in bed.  For revising, I like to go to the porch. When it’s late, taking my laptop to bed works. I got a lap desk for that. Writing consists of different activities, so maybe some of those activities CAN work in your office with your boyfriend. Not just drafting. Outlining? Revising? Researching? You’re allowed to move for different phases of the process.

Or maybe you can convert a closet to a tiny workstation. I had a friend do that. Put up a sturdy large shelf and put a lamp and chair in there. Voila. Mini office that you can close off from the rest of the house.

No one says you HAVE to write in the office you share with your boyfriend. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean it works for you.

I might want to discuss this with him, because communication is important in a relationship and it’s also important to be open with your needs rather than silently suffering because you think you SHOULD be able to use the office with other people. Some people need isolation. Some people need the busyness of, say, a cafe. Some people need music. Some people need coffee. Some people need silence. Find out what you need and get it working. 

Your boyfriend might have some solutions also. Don’t assume that he won’t help you coordinate things. 

You can, for example, set up a schedule in the office. Maybe he doesn’t need to work there all day. Maybe he wants to take breaks from the office where you can work there alone. 

Or you could rearrange the office, not just so that you are far enough apart that he can’t read your screen, but also so that you are not in each other’s line of site. 

Think about how offices sometimes work. Or libraries. Or even schools sometimes. Places where a group of people are meant to get individual work done. You can set up a bookshelf between your two work stations, or a folding screen, or a standing white board or black board, or a curtain, essentially dividing the office into two. 

Maybe you don’t even need to go that far. A hat with a brim and earbuds with music or white noise or nature sounds might block out enough of the distraction. I happen to have a problem with noise sensitivity, and my house is unusually loud sometimes, so I do the nature sounds. I’ve heard some people like a sound track of a cafe. Murmur of conversation, clinking of glass and silverware. Like it makes the feel they’re sitting in a cafe, and that helps them focus for some reason. I assume it wouldn’t work for you... but maybe the sound of rain or the ocean might. 

+ I was thinking maybe it could help me get my writing flowing & I wouldn’t lose practice as well. Maybe it’ll give me ideas. But at the same time I’m “scared” I’ll lose the will to write both, that I won’t finish a single one. I’m a Gemini dominant, with air all over my chart (I don’t know if you like astrology lol), which means I lose focus very easily. It’s happened my whole life! I thought I could finally finish something, I was so excited! +

+ But I somehow lost it. I want to finish it, I was enjoying the story so much. So I’m really not sure if starting another story is a good idea. Sighs.

+++

Okay, so I am an advocate for reading outside of your genre to get your creative juices flowing. I do that all the time, with my story in the back of my mind as I read, and can often get inspired to get back to work as I read someone else’s narrative.

I have also found that working on more than one story DOES work for me, as long as I don’t expend all my energy on one leaving none for the other.

But like that narrative break while reading, sometimes writing a different story breaks me out of block.

I’ve got this whole theory of writer’s block which says that it’s actually messages from your subconscious telling you that something needs attention in your story. So if you don’t actively stop and pay attention to what is blocking you, you get STUCK.

Of course with the way brains work, sometimes you don’t have to consciously “figure out” what’s wrong, but you can do something else and let your subconscious work on it. What that means is that getting stuck on a story is not a bug of the writing process, it’s not WRONG, it’s actually a feature of how we write. NOT writing, even not being able to write, is part of how we write and we have to take time off of writing words in order to allow our brains room to grow the story.

I say this even as a person who writes a 50k novel in 18 days. It’s not JUST about moving forward and putting words on the page, it’s also about stopping and processing and allowing the story to sink into you so you know how to keep going.

NOT writing is part of it. Staring out the window, reading, going for a walk, envisioning characters, talking about it, taking a shower, drawing or journaling, sleeping...while that’s happening, a part of your brain is still working on your story... as long as you give it room to. If you have anxiety over not writing, it’s harder to allow the brain to process. If you spend all your energy thinking how you suck because you’re stuck or how you SHOULD be doing other things, then you might not have room in your brain to process story.

The idea of writing two different stories can be a way to hack that non-writing processing time. Because you are actively writing something else while passively letting your brain mull over the original story.

I remember doing this a couple years ago when I was both writing my original novel and doing fanfic. The fanfic was the easier one and when I got stuck on my novel, I’d switch over and let it flow with the fanfic.  When the fanfic got stuck, I’d go back to the novel. I never got a serious writers block because I never stopped writing. And yet, I still gave the story time to breathe.

Granted, I was writing fewer words in the novel than I did when I was only working on it, but overall, my wordcount went up by a lot. 

I don’t actually do that all the time, work on two stories at a time, but I believe that period of time had me writing almost every single day for the whole year, which was awesome for me, because I often go through weeks or months after a project where I can’t write at all. 

But you can also do other writing besides fiction. You can write essays, metas or blogs. You can write poetry. Maybe a play or songs? Short stories instead of novels? Or switching genre. One can be scifi, one can be romance. I do wonder if writing two novels of the same genre might bleed together, but I mean, if it works does it matter?

Would writing two novels at the same time work for you? Maybe it would. Maybe it’s too much. Maybe you’ll get distracted and lose focus. IDK. You really have to find the way that YOUR brain and your writing process works. Maybe by switching between novels, you never lose that writing momentum that has you going off to do other things. Or maybe you end up preferring one book over the other. 

Sometimes I need to be doing more than one thing at a time... i’m not sure it’s the best way, but like, I used to paint while I watched tv. It seems counterintuitive, to spread yourself thin like that, but the tv took the top part of my brain, allowing the lower part to paint, and I wouldn’t get distracted or exhausted. “Top part” and “Lower part” are technical brain terms.* However, I’d never be able to do that with writing, because hearing words on tv will interfere with me writing words on the page. This is also part of why I don’t really listen to music while writing and if I do it’s instrumentals. I know for certain that isn’t how other people write, so you have to find out what works for you and how you can hack your brain to get the stories onto the page.

There is no ONE way to write. There is only writing. And if you find a way of writing that works for you then that is how you write. And sometimes that process changes. There is no one way for YOU to write.  You just have to write and figure out what works for you and when that isn’t working, you try something else, or you switch it up, or you find a guideline, or set a timer or take a class, or read a book.

Whatever way it is, find your process, and get back to doing the writing that you love. 

I am in a similar bind with an ecourse I’m writing on... ironically writer’s block. Oh the universe laughs....

So. Let’s look at your problem and maybe I can solve mine.

First off, understand that this is the holiday season and things are weirder this holiday season than normal, due to covid and *waves hands* everything. This is NOT a good time to get stuff done, especially, frankly, in writing/publishing. Publishing closes down at this time of year. EVERYONE is...frantic with it all. End of the year, holidays, travel plans (please don’t travel it’s quarantine time,) family, holiday blues, work expectations etc. 

Now this doesn’t mean you can’t write,  but I think it’s beneficial to not give yourself a hard time about not doing your writing and remember that there are extra obstacles to getting focused. Your brain is BUSY. With stuff or work or anxiety or holiday blues or whatever.

Okay. So what that means is you have let go of the guilt and the “shoulds” of it.  The guilt and shame and failure and anxiety of not writing when you think you SHOULD be writing can be debilitating. You feel guilty so you avoid writing then you feel ashamed for avoiding it then you feel like a failure for not being able to write because what writer can’t write when they have the opportunity? then you fill up with anxiety because you suck and fail and blah blah blah. Writer anxiety/block spiral.

It’s quite likely that your brain is off the story because your brain is busy with all the other stuff. This is not something to be ashamed of, it’s just life. Life has cycles of productivity and rest. It just does. That’s how things work. You work. You take breaks. You are active. You are resting. You write. Then you don’t write. Let yourself have your cycle. 

Okay. That said, if you want to take a break and just not worry about it. Go ahead and do that. Maybe set a plan to start writing again at a time when you have the freedom to focus. Make a date with yourself and your project. Why not? Take that dead day at work and plan out what you want to do next and where and when. Actually, considering that, if you actually take your lull at work and PLAN your writing for next time, you might very well find yourself back in the project. 

One of the things I do when I want to write but am not in that place to write is go to the pinterest board I made for my project (I like keeping those, they help me visualize and plan the story.) If I spend some time perusing the boards, I remember the story. I remember the feelings. The things that get me excited. The characters. Or, I search pinterest for things essential to the story and pin them. That’s a way to get your brain back in the story without actually producing new words. It helps with the lack of focus while not being demanding of a unfocused mind. I think it’s another part of the brain being used, not the verbal one or the logical one, but visual and subconscious. This image “feels” like the story. That image sets up a resonance with a theme.

If pinterest is not your thing, you could try organizing your thoughts instead of writing them. Draw a map of your setting. Or a floor plan. Look for costumes that would fit. Make a menu. Or a playlist. Create a family tree. Outline a little backstory. Or outline the story you’ve written so far if you’re a pantser rather than a plotter. Do a tarot spread for your characters or story or figure out their Hogwarts House or astrology sign. Or their favorite food or childhood pet. The idea here is to think AROUND your story rather than addressing your story directly. If one part of your brain doesn’t want to work on it right now, use another part that you find inspiring. I’m a visual person that’s why pinterest works for me. But music might do it for you. Or (if you’re not stuck at work) maybe you like to MOVE to get your brain going and going for a run does it. 

Another thing I like is to take a narrative break. For me, instead of trying to write write write, I need my brain to start thinking of stories again. Not writing the next word. So I step back, pick up a nice, easy, not too demanding book, and just read. It’s a break for me but it keeps my brain in narrative mode. Often, in the middle of my reading break (20 minutes is a good time) my brain starts connecting back to MY story and I jump up because I’ve figured out how to write again. Sometimes I need the break more and I keep reading for another 20minutes or more. It’s not uncommon that I just keep reading for an hour, but that’s okay too.

Now, your suggestion of reading the project over to get back into the story which you’ve forgotten and have gotten out of is an EXCELLENT way to get back in. I do that on a regular basis, especially when I’m binge writing 3k word a day or so. I sit down at the computer and go over what I wrote the day before, so that no matter what I’ve been doing since (working or scrolling or errands or reading or whatever,) I’ll remember where I was and what state of mind I was in.

It also gives me a chance to edit what I did the day before, tighten it a little, emphasize anything I want to put in there and THEN I just keep going onto the next scene/passage/chapter when I get to the end of what I already wrote.

+ even add a side story that I was meant to put before, some years ago, but now decided against because I thought it would become too long? Guess I crowned myself though lol. I guess I’ll try to write this plot as it is and finish it and then worry about length when editing. Is this a good choice? Hope my anxiety lets me because I was really enjoying it

+++

Oh. Don’t worry about the length right now. Just don’t worry about it. You’re just telling yourself the story at this point.

Write the story. Get it DONE.

You can absolutely fix the length later. 100%. Especially if you have things you left out. Sometimes the subconscious knows more than the conscious mind when you’re writing. You probably needed that extra side story for the length/pacing/complexity, but you second guessed yourself. Luckily you have it to add in. Subplot? Excellent for new words. It will probably deepen the rest of the story. 

But here’s another thing.... a little while ago, I pantsed a story (I prefer planning the ending at least,) and I got to the end, and it looked to be about 80k. Like you, I’m used to writing epics and space operas, so like 100-120k. And I just couldn’t find an ending for the damn story. I was going to make do with the 80k because it’s kinda in the range, but then after forever not being able to finish, I realized WHY.

I had only written the first two acts. The story wasn’t over yet and I kept trying to force an ending. I have to add another, escalated conflict where we see the MC learn from all the growth she had, and she could come back in her new self and be victorious. This problem with the story structure has kept me gummed up in this novel. All because I wanted to right it RIGHT AWAY and didn’t want to plan. Now I’ve done intuitive pantsing before, but it did not work for this novel. 

Anyway, I’m just saying, revision is where we discover what’s missing, where we went off track, what we’ want to develop more or what we want to cut out. It’s REAL easy to add words revision, and if you have a whole subplot, you can weave that thing through the other story and add, add, add, wherever you go. Think of it like a novella all by itself.

Your first draft does NOT have to be perfect or figured out. It has to be done so you can work on it. Don’t freak out if it’s missing something.  You’re ahead of the game. You know it’s missing a subplot. And you know it’s missing some words, so you can add the subplot, add description, add backstory, add character development, add action, add dialogue. You can make your story richer. That’s the fun stuff. 

I’ve been ghostwriting these 50k word romances, and they’re just not as NUANCED as the longer novels. 

Very Gentle Writing does not set staggering word count goals and then feel bad about it. No! Very Gentle Writing for me sets an extremely low word count and then feels magnificently productive when the low bar is exceeded (which is easy…it’s a low bar, I mean really low). 

Very Gentle Writing is about saying hey yo maybe I just want to listen to a chill playlist for a while and feel one sentence spill out. Go me! 

Very Gentle Writing is kind of about realizing I have a really limited amount of time to write in between work, and adulting, and taking care of a thousand life responsibilities, and trying to heal&deal from trauma in 2020. So I want that writing time to be….just…..nice. 

Very Gentle Writing means I have a goal of enjoying every single time I sit down to write. Really. I use all the fun words first. 

Oh goodness no!

Don’t stop wanting to draw just because you think you’re no good.

Art (and any creativity) isn’t actually about being good. It’s about being curious, passionate, experimental, joyous, serious, compelled, or whatever you’re feeling.

It’s absolutely true that if you stop drawing when you’re a kid and you pick it up again later, your art skills will be in the same spot when you gave it up, but your concept of art and your appreciation of it will have matured with your experience. So the problem is that you now have higher expectations of art and of yourself than you did the last time you drew.

And I get how this is frustrating, but this isn’t a reason to stop. You draw because you have the URGE. You want to explore your love of these characters. It’s the exploration and adventure and love that is the point of your drawing, not your quality as an artist.

I assume you’re not doing it because you want to sell it or publish it or be a professional artist. Stop comparing yourself to professionals. Art has it’s own intrinsic value. That’s why you’re doing it. 

As a writer and an artist, I think the two arts work together beautifully. You can use visual art to illustrate characters or draw a map or setting. You can create a book cover. You can paint the mood of the book. You can do a collage as an inspiration board for your story. You can draw a little comic of your dialogue. You can sculpt an idol or queen from the story. Or you can doodle a page of flowers while you think about your story. Practicing drawing doesn’t take away inspiration from your writing, it adds to it. 

AND there are so many different ways to draw or do art. You can look up a tutorial on how to draw that you like, and follow that tutorial, making variations on it for each character you draw, without spending all that much time on “learning how to draw.” If you get your skills to the basic level where you feel like you can have fun with it instead of being demoralized by it, then the drawing can kind of disappear and you can just bring the world in your head onto the page. Or, you know you could try a different medium. Collage could be fun because you don’t have to draw, so your skills are not challenged enough. Or sometimes you could do a loose watercolor, which would be a different style, maybe more impressionistic. Or maybe cartoon style. 

I’d also like to say that when I stop drawing for a while, which does happen with me, whenever I want to get back into drawing, I always have a hard time and struggle with feeling like everything I draw sucks. The feeling of suckage isn’t limited to people who ‘can’t draw.’ It’s like one of the pitfalls of being any kind of creative. Sometimes you don’t like what you do, and you have to deal with that.

I deal with it by doing a lot of my drawings in my journal, so if I don’t like them, I just turn the page and no one ever has to see it. 

+ helping. Those things were making me feel stressed because I'd feel like I'd have failed and would feel very guilty about not doing them. Giving up on it probably isn't the best way to work on that guilty feeling, but it was giving me unnecessary stress and anxiety and affecting me as a whole. Maybe it's best not to participate on NaNoWriMo this year. Maybe it's best to allow myself to have my own pace. To write when I want, and even when I don't want, but without the weight of a deadline.

+++

Nanowrimo isn’t always the best way to take care of yourself and your mental health. It’s a HUGE drain on your resources, and because it’s just writing, I think we often underestimate how much energy it takes. It’s not REAL work because it’s just sitting there in front of a computer making stories up. 

But let me tell you, writing is EXHAUSTING. 

I’m still not quite sure why writing takes so much of your brain and I’m not sure why brain work is so draining and exhausting, but it is. Like, I understand what it’s like to work on your feet all day, or run a marathon (ok not personally) or stand in front of a class teaching or building a house or goodness whatever, but WHY is writing just as draining? 

I’m pretty sure this is part of my own issues with the puritan/protestant work ethic that tells me I have to work constantly and suffer and not get anything out of it but also be paid for my work or it isn’t real work and I’m not being productive. That is one HECK of a brain doozy and I resent the hell out of it, considering I’m not even Christian, but for some reason it’s baked into our society.

But, anyway. I recognize how hard it is to write now, and how you need those mental and physical resources to do it. 

AND I want YOU to recognize that this year is a REMARKABLE year. We are all STUPID stressed out. The anxiety of the upcoming election, the long term pandemic, all the changes from that, the social upheaval with the continuing war against Black people, gay people, women, immigrants, non-christians, poor people etc is just, omg it’s too much.

I personally write for my mental health. Writing stories makes me feel better. It helps me escape a bit from the hell we’re going through. But that may not be the case for you.

If Nanowrimo is too stressful for you right now, don’t do it. OR do it as a rebel. Don’t make your goal 50k. Or don’t write a novel. You could write fanfics. Or you could write non fiction essays about your anxiety and try to work through it. Or you could write a poem a day. Or you could have a goal of writing one hour a day. Or WHATEVER. 

Well. Writing is hard.

Should it come naturally? IDK. It’s hard. I write so much and it doesn’t always come easily. Sometimes I struggle a lot. And it’s super easy to give up on it when you’re struggling.

If you have a deadline or a commitment, then you can’t give up when it’s hard. Writing a novel takes commitment. Nanowrimo is a commitment that you make TO YOURSELF. There’s no one else who is going to hold you accountable if you don’t do it.

If you want to write a novel, that’s a commitment, no matter how many words you write. Sometimes our inspiration comes and sometimes it just does not, but when you show up to the page, that’s how you write a novel. You keep showing up. You face down the lack of inspiration and the tiredness and the boredom and the confusion and the feelings of failure and the overwhelm and the mehs. 

Or you don’t. It’s okay if you don’t want to commit to nanowrimo. I give you permission to not do it. It doesn’t actually work for everyone. 

No one is making you do nanowrimo and it IS a big commitment if you don’t want to do it. So if you don’t want to, then don’t. So figure out your reasons for WANTING to do nanowrimo... if it’s just because other people are doing it and it seems like a good idea, then that may not be enough. But if it’s because you want to write a novel and you want or need the challenge to get through it... then maybe it’s what you want to be doing and if that’s the case, then figure out what’s holding you back today and fix it, and keep going.

Is your story missing something? When I get stuck like that, I take a completely unrelated concept, question or story idea, and stuff it into the current idea. Like I had the idea of a kind of Han/Leia space freighter/runaway princess story, and I shoved another concept of an alien goo biomechanically engineered onto spaceships into the story, and ended up with the energy to finish a 130k novel. The disparate ideas bounce off of each other.

Are you THINKING too much? A lot of people are pantsers and they just take an idea and keep going, allowing the plot bunnies to multiply and following whichever way they hop. 

Or are you NOT THINKING ENOUGH??? Some people require more structure to their stories and need to know what the plot is. If you don’t have one, google a three act structure format and fill your story in and get back to work.

Maybe you’re starting in the wrong place and the action or conflict hasn’t gotten there yet. If that’s so, then jump right into the middle of things and start en media res. Don’t set it up. Get it going. 

Also recognize that 538 words is nothing to sneeze at. Do that for three months and you have a novel. If you need a lower count for your novel writing, if you need more than a month, that is PERFECTLY FINE. Even when I win nanowrimo I almost never finish a novel in one month. 

Struggling for one day is not a sign that you can’t or shouldn’t do it. Maybe Camp Nano is a better speed for you when you can set your own goals and still have a community around you, even if not EVERYONE is doing it. 

Yes!

Yes it is okay to take a day off or a week off or even, who knows? a month off or more.

The concept that writers must write every day or they’re not real writers is, I believe, a rule that someone came up with, I’m not sure who was first, and told other that was the hard and fast rule. “Writers write.” And while that’s true, writers do write and that’s what makes them writers, that doesn’t mean that you are only a writer while you’re actively writing. Some people write every day because they build a comfortable writing practice into their day. Some people can’t stop writing, like a compulsion. Some people are weekend writers. Some people keep notebooks with them where ever they go. Some people only write when they have a story to tell or when it’s vacation or when there’s a challenge or an assignment they have to write.

I, personally, am a rather compulsive writer. I need to write, not in order to call myself a writer or to keep my stories going, but for my mental health. I have been keeping a journal for thirty five years. Almost daily. There are periods where that slows down and I write less. Often because I’m writing somewhere else, like on a blog, or writing in school, or writing poetry, or writing analysis of a favorite tv show. There are other times when I set myself a daily wordcount for writing fiction. Over the years that has gone from 300 words a day to 3000 words a day. Let me be honest. Neither is right for me. 300 makes me feel like my progress is too slow and 3000 exhausts me, but I sometimes have to do it for work deadlines for weeks at a time. And let me tell you... when I hit my deadline, I just STOP writing for a while. I rest. I recover. I binge watch tv shows in bed. 

And the truth is that while a daily writing practice is necessary for SOME writers, it isn’t necessary, wanted or possible for EVERY writer. 

The thing about being a writer is that we ALL have different writing processes, and those writing processes can change throughout our lives. 

Life is hard and chaotic and unruly, whether we’re talking about external responsibilities or your own health and mental well being. Sometimes we have to redistribute our energies. 

I have gone through long stretches of time where I do NOT write. I don’t particularly like it and it starts to make me anxious if I don’t write for too long, but taking a break doesn’t mean you’re not a writer. 

Particularly in this current writing climate when lots of people do nanowrimo and binge-write hard for a short period of time. If you write like that, without conditioning yourself to write that much daily, you are at risk of burnout. Believe me. This is my 15th year. I didn’t understand at first why I couldn’t write after doing nano, but now I get it. 

Your brain and your creativity and your body all need to rest sometimes. Just because you’re sitting in front of a computer, sedentary, does not mean that you are not expending a great deal of energy. Learn to pace yourself. If that means not pushing to binge so hard, then so be it. If that means to take a rest after you write for awhile, to let your brain settle or let the story settle, then that’s okay too.

There IS a danger, when you stop writing, that you will fall off the writing habit and stop writing. You have to recognize that.

Sometimes it’s harder to get started writing again than it is to just keep writing, oh, 300 words a day, or a journal, or character outlines in a notebook. Just like being an athlete, if you stop exercising, and stop playing, you lose your muscles, the habit slips away, and in order to get back into top form, you have to work out again, build those muscles up, condition yourself to the marathon of writing a novel or the football season or the olympics or whatever sports metaphor rocks your boat. Wait. Don’t ask me about sports. Bad analogy for me... but GOOD analogy for writing. 

TAKE CARE OF YOUR BRAIN AS A WRITER THE WAY AN ATHLETE TAKES CARE OF THEIR BODY AS AN ATHLETE. It’s your tool. And writing is hard work. If you STOP stop writing, you have to build it back up again. But if you take a rest day now and then, or BUILD time off into your writing schedule, or take a vacation, that doesn’t mean you’re not a writer. 

It means you’re a writer who is filling the well, taking a rest, gaining experience so you have something to write about, mulling over your next story, giving your mind some air so you can go back and revise, going on vacation, taking in some content via movies or books so you can check out how other storytellers work, or you know... you’re a writer who is living their life, because you’re not JUST a writer, you’re also a person.

+ of the real world, and how nothing is as pink as she thought. Some secondary characters do fit the other boxes, when it comes to different cultures, races, classes, ethnicities, etc. I don’t want to make superficial changes just to be politically correct, I want my characters to be meaningful and for people to see themselves in them. I hope I can deliver! I’ll think a bit more on your answer and how I can apply it to my story while keeping its essence. Thank you once more!

+++

Excellent. I’m glad I could help. Sometimes I do need to think about asks, and this one required a couple days of thought.

It actually sounds like you ARE working diversity into your book. Maybe diversity is not the same thing as having Captain Planet and the planeteers with one character representing each of the continents or whatever. Often when we see diversity it IS that way. And sometimes it feels a bit like tokenism.

Having diverse character should feel AUTHENTIC. But that doesn’t mean that their intersection is NEEDED for the plot. Like you don’t have to build the plot around them BEING diverse. Because people are just diverse irl. They’re different because they are. And if you have, say, an office comedy, it doesn’t AT ALL have to be about the characters’ intersections. Your CEO can be in a wheelchair and your new secretary can be a Korean Lesbian and your love story could be with a jewish woman and a muslim man. IDK. Actually except for the love story, none of those intersections sound like they need to be a plot point. But you don’t have to have a reason to write diverse characters into your story. They can just be.

This is a good and complicated question. I’m glad you asked.

There are problems here, and I think you’re finding you’re confronting them but you can’t quite identify them.

The thing about inclusiveness, about adding diversity to your work, is that it can’t really be solved by surface changes like-- oh this character is black now, all better.  BECAUSE diversity is actually about more than just the color of a character’s skin.

Diversity is about differences of life experience, culture, mindset, history, perspective, values. It’s about recognizing that the world is not just one, standard existence, but a multiplicity.

We are in a time now that is *changing* the way we understand people and identity. 

You started this story when you were a child and didn’t recognize all these complexities, and to tell the truth, society itself didn’t really recognize them at a larger level. There’s a reason why you as a kid didn’t see them.

Because our culture as a whole has identified white people as the default people. Specifically white, middle/upperclass, christian, able bodied, straight, cis men as the default person. ANYTHING you have other than that has to be identified, otherwise, we assume they are the default person.

The HERO is always this default person until we define them as otherwise, female, Black, poor, atheist, deaf. Oh look. There’s a new character who has a distinctly different experience than our default person. And you then have to WRITE them with that experience in mind, or you’re just writing the default person in a mask that is only skin deep.

So what I’m trying to tell you is that it’s not really diversity if you just change the color of your character’s skin without letting it reflect upon who they are as a person. And then how that affects your story. You can’t JUST make someone in a wheel chair without changing their part of the story on a fundamental level, don’t you think? If you switch your character from non stated but assumed Christianity to Judaism... how does that affect your story or character? And if it doesn’t, well lets say it’s irrelevant to the story, then how do you share that bit of background of the character, make it authentic and not seem as if you’re just checking boxes on the diversity list?  Do you even know enough about Judaism to write them fairly or will you just toss in some yiddish-- “Oy, what a shmuck!” and leave it at that? Ok well maybe your fantasy world doesn’t have Jewish people. Fair enough. 

But now I need to question your world building. Is everyone in your book of the same culture? Are there different races, religions, creeds, classes, ethnicity? If there aren’t, why not? Are you writing a world where no one travels? Where there’s an oppressive force that requires everyone to worship the same gods? Even JRR Tolkien had multiple races, languages, belief systems and cultures. I say “even” because Tolkien is often taken as the “whiteness model” of fantasy. The British/northern European ideal.

You might be attached to the way your characters look. You’re also probably attached to the world view that white is the default. We all are, frankly. The first novel I wrote I made it about a blonde white woman from the Bronx, where I am from, where blonde white women are few and far between. And I didn’t address how this white woman lived in The Bronx surrounded by mostly brown Latinx people. To be honest, I think I had internalized that concept of white people being the default, of ALL books being about the white experience and that was just how you write a story. If I were to rewrite that book now, I would make her Latina. I could keep the main story the way it was, but switching her to Latina would require a hefty rewrite as her character, experiences, understanding, perspective and the way she looked at herself and her world would be different. 

What you need to do, IF you want to add diversity to your novel, is to do a major overhaul of your understanding of what it means to be human and how our differences and intersections shape our identity and experiences. That means a major overhaul of your story. 

OR you could leave your story the way it is and don’t add diversity to what seems to be a complete story already, just to fit the times and concerns of the day, STILL do the work of overhauling your personal understanding of diversity, and then in the next book, build that diversity in from the bottom up. 

Even if you leave the book with everyone looking the way they already do, you might try adding an AWARENESS of race, diversity, otherness, bias, bigotry, etc. White people ALSO move through this world with people who don’t look like them. Acting like white people don’t have any repercussions from living in this racist society is making a statement that not only is the white experience the default experience and the way things should be, but also racism is just a given and doesn’t need to be examined, since it only affects POC.

Well, right now I work AT home, but I have in the past written while I worked out of home. So. HOW does one do it? 

First you have to believe, really believe, that your writing is worthwhile, that YOU DOING YOUR WRITING is worthwhile. Just as worthwhile as earning a wage. You have to believe that writing is valuable in itself. That what you have to say is of worth. I personally believe that stories make us human, make life worth living, help us understand the world and even save the universe, so for me, it’s worth it. But it’s definitely something you have to decide for yourself or it just won’t be worth giving up valuable time to write. You might only need to love to write, or to enjoy yourself, or whatever works for you.

Then you have to commit to writing. That doesn’t mean you have to write every day like a job. But you do have to give it regular attention and, when you’re ready, commit to finishing something... unless you’re only doing it for yourself as a way to pass time or exercise your mind or something. But it definitely helps to FINISH. So commit to finishing.

Which probably means dedicating some time to writing. There are many ways to do this. You can bingewrite for a while long weekend. You can sign up for nanowrimo in November. You can write in a journal every morning. You can start a poetry blog where you post one poem a week. You can schedule in an hour every day to get down your novel. You can take all those hidden moments in your life, carry a noteboook, or use your smartphone, and WRITE while you’re waiting on line, during your lunch hour, picking up your kids, between two classes, before your appointments, an hour before you go to work, half an hour before going o sleep, while dinner is cooking in the oven. HOW the writing fits into your life is a factor of YOUR LIFE and where it works. Maybe you just need to stop watching an hour of tv and replace it with writing... IDK. That depends upon what you need.

Consider that writing is not JUST adding new words into a document. It is also taking notes. Doing research. Noticing dialogue. Developing story ideas. If you can get inspired from your life while working or commuting or anything, and can use that inspiration for your own writing, then even while you are at work, you are working on your writing. What’s that saying for capitalists? Always Be Selling?? Well. Always Be Writing. Even when there are no words involved. Make your life, including work, fertile ground for your writing. Writing is how you process your life and experiences and emotions and thoughts. So use your life and your job as part of that.

Sometimes I think writing while working a full time job is easier in some ways. Yes you have time constraints, but writing with a non related job can feel like a BREAK. Writing can be energizing because you it is different from your job and you use different brain muscles to get it done. It can be a relief. When I taught English, I actually used the student assignments I gave to inspire my own writing. Right now, my work/writing balance challenge is that I write for a living, so working on my own original work doesn’t give me a break. I’m still working that one out.