Back from a life-break: The Dean Challenge

 It's been almost two years since I posted on this blog, and the other blog I did for the year after that has vanished. Maybe I'll be able to find and recover the content, but I didn't want to spend any time on that this morning. It was more important to get back to putting the words down.

So what happened in those twenty-three months of inactivity? Well, I had a really productive year as a writer, and then I had a year of not writing a word.

During the writing year, which spanned April 2021 through April 2022, I wrote a lot. I completed more than fifty short stories and three short novels. I also blogged pretty regularly on the other blog, which was part of my now defunct website. All told, I wrote about 350,000 words, which is around 1000 words a day on average.

But that's not how the words came out.

They came out in abrupt spurts, mostly on weekends and vacations. There were several Sundays where I wrote in excess of 10,000 words, and one weekend when I wrote more than 20,000 words on both Saturday AND Sunday, almost 45,000 words in one weekend.

Productive for sure, but I never established a real writing routine, unless frantic panic-writing is what you want out of your writing routine.

I did that largely because I put my money where my mouth was and signed up for three challenges with prolific writer and mentor to many, Dean Wesley Smith. The challenges were to write a short story every week, a novel every two months, and to publish a major book every month, all for a whole year. 

I got through the short story challenge, halfway through the novel challenge, and nine months into the publishing challenge, Then, the wheels came off and I stopped writing dead in my tracks.

The first reason has already been stated. A routine is necessary, and you can only panic-write for so long until something goes wrong. I don't remember exactly what derailed me, but somewhere around the end of April 2022, I didn't leave myself enough time to get all the writing and publishing done, and instead got none of it done. It was like I'd run into a wall.

Second reason is I decided to take a promotion at work because we needed the money. I'd stepped back from the job six months before the writing streak and challenges started because I wanted to have the time and energy to focus on writing, and that plan worked. Right up until it didn't.

I didn't set our finances up for success, and made the mistake of thinking I could force them into shape through a combination of extreme discipline, gig work, and luck. 

Yeah, no.

So I took the promotion, and within three weeks I was completely swamped and focused on the job, and when I did have time to myself, I didn't want to spend it wrestling with the writing. I was exhausted, planning (and paying for!) a wedding on top of everything else, and my desire to write had been relegated to the back burner by poor choices and necessity.

That's lasted until the past couple of weeks. I've tried to restart a few times in the past several months, but other things kept popping up and taking priority. My wife hurt herself badly on out honeymoon, and has just now returned to work six months later. I took a transfer-promotion at work that was another mild upheaval, though it did put me significantly closer to home, and any time I tried to interrupt myself and establish a fresh routine that included writing, I found myself failing at launch.

So here I am, a year removed from any kind of creative writing, and I'm restarting today. The wife is back to work and feeling a lot better. The finances have been wrestled into order and a modicum of discipline and routine have been established. I'm still in the new job, but I've got in under control and mostly contained within the confines of a 50 hour work week. My friends are all too busy to make any kind of regular plans, and we've fallen off everyone's radar anyway, what with the injury and all.

And Dean Wesley Smith has started the Dean Challenge. 

Dean's been away from the writing a few months himself due to some eye issues, so he's getting himself going again now that he's healthy by offering this challenge: from April 1 through the end of the year, he wants to write at Pulp Speed One, as he calls it, which means one million consumable words a year. Anyone who wants to can try to beat his word count, and if you succeed, you get a lifetime subscription to one of five different teaching programs for writers that he and his wife, Kristine Katherine Rusch, teach on Teachable.

They are both great writers, but also fantastic teachers. In fact, Kris's Freelancer's Survival Guide series is one of the most important resources around for writers trying to understand how now to make all the mistakes I did last year. Especially the financial and time-management mistakes!

So I've jumped into the challenge. I mean, I wrote almost 400,000 words in a year once. How hard can it be to beat a professional writer with like 300 novels and more than a thousand short stories under his belt?

Hey, at least blogging counts. So expect to see one of these every day. And if you don't, hit me up and ask me where today's blog is, okay?

I'm going to need all the help I can get.

A kick in the butt

 So obviously, I stalled on streaking, again...

It was probably silly to start the streak the week I was getting my first Covid-19 vaccination, but I'm an eternal optimist, right? Anyway, I let that derail me mostly out of anxiety more than any actual side effects or inability to sit down and write. That's a relief in that I had no discernable side effects other than fatigue, but it's a disappointment that I continue to let life dictate and derail my writing.

I've come to realize that my entire life is governed by emotional responses to what might happen. Rather than being resolute, I make a lot of decisions based on my own projections and fears. Rather than take control, I worry and let the endless possible bad outcomes alter my thinking and actions. In writing, that's called critical voice, but the truth is, we all have a little nagging voice that worries and tries to keep us safe. 

What if it's hot? What if I fail? What if I die? 

That voice in our head is there for a reason, and the reason is, our brain prefers as little stress as possible. It guides us towards the path of least resistance if we let it. Unfortunately, that voice is in direct opposition to our own growth potential as humans. If we listen to it too much, we stop growing entirely.

Yeah, I listen to it way too much.

Despite that, though, I keep coming back and trying. 

I signed up for a workshop with a writer I admire, Dean Wesley Smith, about a month ago, and just completed the week three coursework. The workshop has definitely made me think about why I have so much trouble staying consistent with writing, and has made me realize that there are many more ways for the Critical Voice inside me to keep me out of the writing chair and full of worry and doubt than I could have imagined. In essence, what people call writer's block is just their critical voice being hyperactive, an winning the battle against actually writing. I even see now why folks like George R. Martin and Patrick Rothfuss have had a terrible time finishing (starting?) the books that everyone is waiting for!

Anyway, the workshop, combined with my recent entry to the NYCMidnight Short Story Contest, helped me see something clearly - I write well under pressure, which is to say, with a deadline. I don't mean the quality of my writing improves. What I mean is, I have an easier time getting in the chair when I'm under the influence of some outside accountability. In the case of the Contest, I had clear deadlines, and I met them. Just like handing in my homework, I always found ways to make the time to do the work and get it in on time.

So, I decided to take matters out of my own hands and signed up for three distinct challenge workshops that happen to coincide with what I want out of my writing for the next twelve months. Starting in May, I've signed up for both the Great Short Story Challenge and the Great Novel Challenge over at WMG Publishing. Then, in June, I signed up for the Great Publishing Challenge.

What does all that mean?

Every week, I have to write a short story and turn it in by Sunday at midnight.

Every two months, I have to write a novel and turn it in by the end of the second month.

And, starting in June, every month I have to publish something, either a novel, or a collection of five or more short stories, and send in the link. In addition, I get better rewards if I send in a print copy of the book, which I plan on doing once I figure out how.

So basically, for the next twelve months, I have to act the part of a professional writer. I have to write a lot, I have to learn how to publish what I write (formatting, covers, sales copy, learning copyright, learning how to get my books in online stores, learning how to get my books in print and into book stores, etc.), and I have to learn how not to stop. Ever.

The reward for that is a lifetime subscription to pretty much every course WMG publishing offers, which is a lot and a huge continuing education for any writer. 

But the bigger reward is that at the end of the twelve month period, I'll have written at least 52 short stories, at least six novels, and published at least twelve books. I plan on publishing everything, and hopefully writing even more than that, but even if all I do is meet the bare minimums, I'll have had an incredibly productive year as a writer, have a ton of my work out in the word and for sale earning money, and will have learned more in twelve months than I have in the last forty years about writing for a living.

All while keeping my day job.

It's going to be tough, but I know it will be worth it.

Alright, breakfast is getting cold.

See you tomorrow.

Quick streak update before bed

 Good evening. Just a short entry to follow up on this morning's goal setting. I had a drag of a day at work, came home tired, had some dinner, watched some of the Yankee game, and thought the whole time about the writing streak. Finally, at just after 9 p.m., I sat down, opened up my laptop, put on my headphones, and started writing the new story. An hour later, I have just over 1100 words done and am on my way.

So the streak stands at 2 days of writing, 2 days of blogging. Technically, I've written creatively four days in a row now, since I wrote the contest story Friday night and wrote the first assignment for the Killing the Critical Voice class I'm taking with dean Wesley Smith, but that wasn't really a story, so I won't count it as a streak from Friday. Two days.

It's a start.

See you tomorrow.

A morning blog for a change - time to get streaky!

I'm sitting here at the writing desk thinking about the short story I want to start, and I'm struggling. My brain is telling me to relax and read this morning, and save the writing for tonight after work. It's an age-old struggle, man versus himself, and this morning my procrastination voice is particularly strong. 

I'd guess that's because I spent three hours last night writing the contest story, and my "free time" monitor is going haywire. There's this part of my brain that resents anything that resembles work when I'm on my own time. It's a terrible influence on me, and if I let it get the best of me it will be three months before I know what happened and I'll be back here posting another restart blog. I'm tired of doing that, so instead of giving in to the lazy bastard that lives in my brain, I figured I'd jump on a different task - blogging.

I very much want to start both a blogging streak and a creative writing streak. Yesterday would be day one for both, so I'm going to openly setting my goal here.

Goal: Starting yesterday, I will write and post a blog every day, write at least 1000 words creatively every day, and count the streak for both.

There, goal set. I'll use the blog to record the streak and keep myself accountable. I've tried this before, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't try again. Try, try, until you succeed, right?

Meanwhile, I have a whole new critical voice issue to deal with - submitting for publication, or just publishing stuff myself.

I'm actually writing and finishing stories, and I'm not feeling the need to edit them to death, which is good. I've taken to what Dean Wesley Smith and others call "cycling," which means going back through your writing as you write it and making small corrections and adjustments. Here's how that works.

I'll write until I start to feel fatigued. Now, in the past, that would mean I'd be done for the day, but the contest has me on deadlines, so that wasn't possible. Turns out, that's a good thing. Instead of walking away and doing something else, I take a short break, refresh whatever I'm drinking, and then go back to read the last session's writing, usually about a thousand words, maybe a little more. I fix typos, maybe adjust a sentence or two that doesn't sound right, and within ten minutes or less I'm back to where I left off and ready to resume writing another thousand words or so.

It's a good feeling, and when I'm done with a story, the copy is very clean. I do go back over the whole thing once more, mostly for typos. Last night, the contest story took me about a half hour to do the final run  through, but that was because I had to cut 200 words. Normally, it seems to take me about twice my normal reading speed, so no more than ten minutes per thousand words.

For whatever it's worth, the cutting was not a good feeling, but it probably made the story stronger. Because I was writing to a word limit, there was stuff in the first half of the story that I wanted to use in the second half, but word count limitations dictated otherwise, so most of the words that I cut were things that ended up not being important to the final version. Without the word count limit, it's hard to say if cutting those words would have made sense. There were probably a few spots where I could have tightened up the sentences, but because I felt the word limit crunch towards the end of the story, I left out a lot and stayed strictly on a single conflict resolution. 

I suppose in a short story, narrowing the scope makes the story stronger. It's good practice, and maybe that's why so many writers start learning the craft with short fiction. Being able to only write what is pertinent to the story is a skill in an of itself, and one more easily learned through short fiction, I'd guess.

Anyway, the point is, I'm doing a better job following Heinlein's Rules 2 & 3, "You must finish what you write," and, "You must not edit except to editorial order." I never liked line edits much, anyway. I always prefer to write it well the first time and then cut for clarity, but some old college writing courses had me thinking a line-by-line edit was the most important part of writing the story. There are plenty of authors who spend years editing a single novel. 

No thanks. That's not fun, nor do I feel like it's necessary if you are trying to write well from the get go. If anything, cutting the story down last night felt like I was trying to make it sound like someone else had written it. I was removing parts of what make the story sound like I wrote it, which is to say I was removing my voice in spots purely to meet word count. 

That's probably a bit of an exaggeration, but imagine if you spent twice as much time editing something as you did writing it! You'd be trying to make it so clean that any shred of your voice would be gone almost entirely, which might leave a decent story, but it would sound like anyone could have written it. No thanks. I enjoy the authors I enjoy not because of the plot or even the resolutions they have, but because of the way they develop their characters and the way their writing feels and sounds. You know when you are reading Stephen King or Dean Wesley Smith or J.R.R. Tolkien because they have distinct styles, and editing a story to be "clean" can remove much of that style. I'll pass.

Granted, my style is still developing. I need to focus on Heinlein's Rule #1: "You must write." That's what the streak goal I set today is for. But I also have to start working on Rules # 4 & 5: "You must put your work on the market," and, "You must keep it on the market until it sells."

But first, let me get through a seven day writing and blogging streak. Once that is done, this weekend I will sort out my submission and publication process.

Well, I'm awake now. Time for some coffee and breakfast, followed by a shower. At that point, I'll have an hour or so before I have to leave for work, nd I'll sit down and start this short story that I've false started more times than I can count. By tomorrow, I hope to have the story written and out of my system at last.

Have a good day. See you later.

Another story done and submitted

 All in all, this has been a good start to the year. Tonight I wrote another short story, this one for round two of the NYCMidnight Short Story Contest 2021. I had to cut about 200 words to get in under the 2000 word limit, but I always write long, so cutting 10% wasn't too difficult. I liked the story, which means I enjoyed writing it. I have no idea if its "good" or not, and I'm learning that's okay. 

One of the nice things about short stories in this word count range is that I can write them in one sitting, which leaves me almost no time to worry that they suck and sabotage myself. I'm on a ride for two or three hours and its just fun, and when its done I submit it and forget about it.

For example, when I got the feedback for the round one story last week, I was confused at first because I didn't remember the names of the characters in my story, and the feedback mentioned all of them by name. It took me a few minutes to recall enough of the story for the feedback to be meaningful. That might sound weird, but try to think of what you ate for lunch three months ago. It's almost impossible, assuming you eat something different most days. Writing a story works the same way.

Now, as I mentioned a couple of days ago, I wanted to use this as a kick in the ass to start a new writing streak. Thus, tomorrow morning, I start a new story. I plan to write this story in two days, so my deadline is Tuesday night. Then, on Wednesday, I'm starting a novella that I plan to complete by the end of the month.

Yes, I'm asking a lot of myself. But honestly, I have to shit or get off the pot. If I come in a little late, well, that's not ideal, but its fine as long as I finish the stories and submit or publish them.

Time to unwind with a good book. Early wakeup tomorrow. Have a good one.

Rabbit holes and the eventual resurfacing

Hello, folks. I've been down a couple of rabbit holes the past two months, one for RPGs and another for baseball. Both have involved some writing, but it's pretty normal for me to have writing spurts and then take off on tangents. I'd like to get a regular writing habit, but I always find things to distract me from the task.

You may recall that, back at the end of January, I entered the NYCMidnight short story contest. I had a week to write a 2500 word story to three prompts and submit it for judging. Well, those results just came back, and I'm on to round two! I came in third in my group in round one, and received very favorable feedback. So, tonight at midnight, I'll be give another assignment, but this time I have to write a 2000 word short story in three days! That's not all that bad, really, as I tend to write a pretty clean copy from the get go. I figure I'll wake up in the morning, get my prompts, and take the day to let the story come to me and evolve. Then, on Saturday morning, I'll bang it out and submit it. 

Meanwhile, I decided to address the root of my writing pattern problem. I have written in short spurts for years, and always have trouble finishing longer works, like novels. I always talk myself out of going on after a week or less, and usually because I'm struggling with whether or not the writing is good, or if I'm doing it the right way, or some other thing has distracted me and I've happily let myself enjoy that distraction because I don't want to deal with the negative voice in my head. 

Well, that voice is called the critical voice, and its a dick.

So I signed up for a workshop with Dean Wesley Smith called Killing the Critical Voice. I'm enjoying the first week. I've watched all the videos for this week's introductory lesson, and have my assignment, which I plan to wake up early tomorrow and complete before work. The workshop is a six week program, and I hope that by the end of it, I'll have the tools I need to get out of this two decade long habitual rut and launch myself into a daily writing habit.

Its already paying dividends in terms of my attitude. I took some time today to sketch out a preliminary productivity schedule for the rest of the month and the next twelve months. Lots of great writing ideas that I finally need to sit down and execute. It will all come down to following Heinlein's Rules of Writing and getting my work out there for public consumption. If I can get into a daily habit, stick to my deadlines, and keep on rolling come hell or high water, the next twelve months will be incredibly productive. And this is coming off my best writing year by far.

Long story short, I'm still here, I'm still committed, and I'm trying to learn to come at things a different way. The only way to get new results is to change the approach and method, right?

And yes, I'm trying to get into a nightly blogging routine. If I can just remember what is important and make sure to put it first, then everything else will be so much easier. So, that said, I'll see you tomorrow.

Another story done!

 I ended up being completely unproductive yesterday. I spent most of the day on the couch watching T.V. and watching the snow begin to accumulate. Today was more of the same, but that little voice in the back of my mind kept reminding me all day that it was February 1st and I wanted to start a new writing and blogging streak today. I ignored it, not sure why, right up until I took a shower and got a message from my boss that we would have a delayed opening tomorrow. I guess some part of my mind was waiting to put that piece of business to rest, because as soon as I had that information, I felt like I was able to relax and sit down and write.

I had no idea what I was going to write about, but as soon as I was in the chair with the headphones on and the music cranked, Word open in front of me, I had a scene to start with and began writing. Almost two hours later, I had another finished story.

Meg read this one as soon as I was done. It made her cry. I'll take that as a win.

So what am I going to do with these stories?

Well, the story for the contest is in limbo until the judging is done, but the nice thing is I own the rights regardless of the outcome. I have to review the contest rules again, but as long as everything is the way I think it is, I'll probably submit that if I can find a market, or publish it myself.

This other story is very different from the first, and I'll probably send it in to a couple of places and see what happens. Honestly, as much as the submission and publication is a part of the process, right now I need to focus on the writing.

February goal is simple. Write and blog every day. At least 2000 words of new fiction and at least one blog entry, however long. Ideally, I'd like to write at least one short story a week and work on finishing a novel this month.

Tomorrow is going to be another weird day. At least, we will have a delayed opening. It is still possible, as snow continues to accumulate outside, that they will decide to close us entirely. I'm going to assume that won't happen. Therefore, the morning is going to be shoveling and getting ready for work. That leaves the evening for writing. 

I think I'm going to go watch an episode of Preacher before I head to bed. I'm on Season 4, Episode 5, so trying to wrap that up.

Hope you had a good Monday. See you tomorrow.