Tag: write every day

I wrote a chapter a week in Feb. Here’s what happened.

March 4, 2022 / Rissa Renae

Well, if you’re thinking the TL;DR of this post is that writing a chapter a week all month produced four chapters, well, you’d be half-right.

One of my New Years Resolutions was to work every day, in some fashion, on one or more of my writing projects. That includes everything from pounding out 10,000 words a day, to simply opening a wiki file and reading through my notes. I find that if I do something as simple as read back what I wrote previously (something older than a week), that this triggers my creativity and I’m able to write more than I set out to.

Wild crocuses blooming by the tennis court

In February, I set aside an hour in the evening every day to do “something” writing related. While all through January, the “Do Something Everyday” exercise produced good results, I thought if I could up my game to at least a brand new chapter every week, I’d be able to start a healthier writing habit than just writing something random every day.

In my January experiment, I found that I COULD NOT…

Write to a To-Do list (e.g. Finish Chapter 7, Write Chapter 10), and
Keep to a schedule of social media posts (blog, Twitter, etc)

… but I found that I COULD

Keep a running list of scenes or transitions to write, and then pick-and-choose what I wanted to write,
Write nearly full chapters if I allowed myself to bullet-point slower points (scenes or transitions), and
Use my wiki to inspire scenes or transitions.

What blog post would be complete without my goodest girl, Mochi!

So for February, I threw out what didn’t work for me, and added one more goal:

Finish one chapter a week.

That chapter could be for any writing project (I currently have four on the go. I know, bad author!). The chapter did not have to be perfect. The prose did not have to be publish-worthy. As long as said chapter was all words and no bullet points, I would consider that chapter “finished” in terms of rough draft-land.

February came to an end, and I had finished the aforementioned 4 chapters. But something pretty cool also happened. On the side as I completed a chapter and still had the writing bug in me, I continued to write. I managed to final-draft one whole novel, final-draft Part 1 of a 2nd novel, I came up with an idea for a 3rd novel (maybe/maybe not it will be a series… cuz I love my series’), and put a good dent in my high fantasy series.

A walk along the seawall in Stanley Park, downtown Vancouver

As for word count, I didn’t really blow any of my old records out of the water. I’d say I was writing NaNoWriMo-level word counts every day.

Round about the time I was writing this post, one of my favourite authors, Brandon Sanderson, announced his next Kickstarter–because somehow he found time to write four “extra” novels (aside from the million-other novels he wrote)–and pretty much broke the internet when it comes to the self-publishing sphere. I think as authors, we all strive to be as prolific as authors such as Sanderson, Koontz, and King who can crank out multiple novels in a year. It’s impressive when one of these prolific authors pops up one day and goes “Hey guys, guess what I did?” Needless to say, several of us are very jealous.

I think that also lit a bit of a fire under my bum as well. I’ve mentioned before I was hoping to make a “big leap” from self-publishing one novel a year to a whole TWO NOVELS A YEAR, but now I’m wondering if I can step up a little more. (High fantasy series, I’m looking at you!)

A view off the edge of the world from Grouse Mountain, Vancouver

Now it’s March and I’m heading into the month with a new passion, a new determination, and a hotter flame under my bum. Formatting the eBook for my next release is slowly sucking the life out of me (seriously, who thought it would take this LONG!), and I’m acquiring ISBN numbers like Pokemon. The keyboard is calling me, and the muses are coming out of their winter hiding. This spring is looking promising.

I know some say it’s not necessarily a good thing to have multiple projects on the go, but my brain doesn’t think linearly, nor does it think in-universe. So, we’ll see what I can crank out for March. At least another 5 chapters. Hopefully all in the same novel.

Until next time!

– Rissa

I wrote everyday in January. Here’s what happened.

February 4, 2021 / Rissa Renae

Strange things happen when you make a goal and stick with it. I can’t believe it took me ten years to figure this out!

The Backstory

When I set my New Year’s writing resolution for 2021, I vowed to write every day this year. I would allow myself to “skip” days only in extreme or special circumstances. Seemed simple enough.

Then, well-established crafter of words, Brandon Sanderson, released a video explaining how one could write a book a year just by writing every day. Totally coincidental, but this hit home so hard for me that I had to write about my experience doing just that in January: writing everyday.

January in Review

I’m happy to announce I only missed one day in January (and that’s because we suddenly had to buy a car… long story, totally uninteresting) Other than that day, I buckled down and committed. Every day I wrote.

Truth be told, some days were easier than others, some days were a challenge altogether. Some days it took me literally hours to write two paragraphs.

But I wrote.

Even when I wanted to throw an adult temper tantrum . . . even when I had to take a drink every time I churned out a sentence . . . even when I spent more time delaying the inevitable by cleaning, or making another coffee, or forcing the dog to play (no joke!), I wrote.

The first week was a breeze. I’ve got this, I thought. I’ve done NaNoWriMo for nine years in a row. I’ve got this!

Wanna be my writing buddy? I’m RissaRenae!

The second week was a bit of a slog, but not too difficult. The writing quality took a hit, but still, I wrote.

The third week suck-didily-ucked.

But the fourth week. Eureka! Something clicked. Suddenly writing every day wasn’t like a chore. Suddenly I was cranking out 700-2,500 words a sitting as opposed to my measly 200-400.

So What Happened?

I developed better writing habits.

I turned off my phone and my tablet. At times, I disabled the wi-fi on my laptop.
I beat the sh*t out of my internal editor and told them to shut the eff up!
I didn’t worry about writing “crappy” sentences. I just wrote.
I became a willing participant in my ‘write every day’ goal.

I became a willing participant in my ‘write every day’ goal.

Throughout the day, I would think about the scene I wanted to write.
I stopped procrastinating and distracting myself with other work—cleaning, organizing, etc.
I set aside a specific time and dedicated that time to writing for one hour.

I stopped seeing writing as ‘work’ and turned it in to ‘fun.

I didn’t stick to one story. I mix-and-matched.
I allowed myself to write whatever-the-heck I wanted, even if it would never make it into a novel. (I even dabbled in Romance. Ooooh, the forbidden genre!)
I found music and other inspirations to keep things interesting.

As I’m writing this blog post, I have an ATEEZ dance mix playing on YouTube to keep things peppy and interesting.

What did I accomplish?

For months since pandemic lock down started in Canada, I’ve been in a creative rut. My next novel was supposed to come out at the end of 2019. Now I’m aiming for winter of 2021, a full two year delay! Ugh!

I got stuck in the middle of the novel while getting my characters to a critical turning point in the plot. I had written that plot point already, I had gotten my characters out, I had them suffer the consequences already. But getting them to that point had me throwing adult temper tantrums.

So for January, I was hell-bent on getting over this hump! It’s not like this point in the story was boring, far from it. Something in my brain kept me from writing this transition. So when I sat down to pound keys on Jan-One, I was determined to complete this scene, even if it was complete garbage.

And I did!

As I worked through my road blocks, the ideas started flowing. I hoped in January I could complete 3 chapters in my Fourth Book, and I did that and more. I figured out plot points in my epic fantasy, I reworked issues in a sci-fi/speculative fiction I had been writing. As January came to a close, I had written close to 9,000 words. Sure, that’s no NaNo, but I thoroughly impressed myself!

January writing progress as recorded in my bullet journal.

Plans for the Future?

Now that I know my crux and how to get past it, I think this write-every-day thing is gonna be a breeze.

If I could give one piece of advice that I’ve learned, it is this:

Even if it sucks, just write it. You can’t edit a blank page.
Rissa renae

Until next post!