Lately, I’ve been thinking about how it feels to be a writer.
While I wasn’t writing much this spring, I carried this annoying little ball of worry around with me that said I was wasting time and being unproductive.
Every article about the latest must-read book would make me tense with jealousy and frustration.
I want my novels published and I don’t want to keep waiting for it to happen. I want to be an exciting new author with a killer book everyone’s talking about.
Yet, that’s not how writing works. That’s not how publishing works, either.
You can’t worry yourself into a book deal or fill yourself with so much envy that it manifests a literary agent.
It’s also not what I want for my writing life. I want to feel my ambition and keep the joy of writing at the forefront of my process.
I’m sure you want that, too, right?
Instead of feeling like you’re behind or you’re not writing enough, wouldn’t it just be nice to feel proud of your desire to write and find a sense of satisfaction and enjoyment with each writing session?
If so, I have a small summer writing challenge for you.
But first, I want to let you know that my posts and newsletters will go from weekly to every other week after today through the end of the summer.
By this weekend, I plan to be done with the first draft of my second novel, a book I started exactly one year ago. I want to free up more time to revise it and work on short stories, too.
But back to that summer writing challenge I mentioned.
If you’re like me, you might be drawn to small writing challenges that ask you to stretch yourself or try something new.
I wrote my first novel as the result of a self-imposed 100 days of writing. It truly was one of the best things I’ve ever done for my writing life.
That’s the thing about tiny challenges: you never know when one will have a huge impact on your writing.
So, try this with me. You’re in charge of what you do and for how long, but if you need some suggestions, let me know.
Pick something off the following list and commit to doing it for a set amount of time, like 21 days, 50 days, three months. Shorter is sometimes better, yet there’s something to be said for committing to yourself longterm.
- Write daily for 5 minutes
- Write 3 sentences in a notebook each morning
- Complete a writing prompt or exercise each morning
- Submit a piece until it finds a home (you could try to amass 100 rejections, like me)
- Establish a word count goal and try to hit it each week
- Block off time that’s just for writing
- Leave your usual surroundings and write elsewhere
- Write something unexpected and totally out of the box for you
This list isn’t exhaustive. Maybe you want to write one new short story a week, or a chapter of your novel every few days, or a poem a day until you have 50.
The challenge here is simply to challenge yourself and commit to yourself.
There’s amazing power in deciding that you’re worth it. And even more power in deciding that your writing ambitions are worth it, too.
The key to writing more and worrying less is this: build a little challenge for yourself, commit to it, and be so focused on your mission that you don’t have time to worry about what’s coming next.
Keep your expectations at zero, but be prepared for the results to be more than you could’ve imagined. And don’t think too much into the future or worry about what you could’ve done in the past.
Start here, now, today.
Make the next couple of months about rediscovering why you ever started writing in the first place.
Tell me in the comments, what will you commit to doing for yourself and your writing life this summer?
My writing did not go how I wanted it to go this spring.
Although I published a short story as well as some nonfiction (yay!), the first draft of my novel totally stalled out while I dealt with some health issues for a couple of months.
I’m working on the resistance of getting started again, and with that comes planning for summer, which is one of my favorite times of year to write.
Maybe it’s the extra daylight or how much lighter everything feels to me this time of year. Whatever it is, I just know that when summer rolls around, I’ll be writing again. But first, I want to set some intentions and make it super clear how I’ll reach my goals.
If you’re ready to also set your summer writing intentions (and MEET them), I’m here to share my best tips with you.
Start Where You Want To End Up
What would you like your writing life to look like by the end of the summer?
You can accomplish a lot in three months even with limited time (hello vacation and kids home from school and weddings and baby showers and parties and beach outings and all the things!)
If you know your destination, it’ll be so much easier to plan your route getting there.
So before you even begin working on your summer writing project, make a realistic decision about what you’d like to have accomplished when fall rolls around.
For me, I want to finish the last 10,000-ish words of this first draft and do a full revision. I also want to be back in a routine of writing more consistently, sending out short stories, and selling more essays.
What about you? Where do you want to end up?
Think about it and be as specific as possible. Clear goals are much easier to reach than vague ones.
Plot How You’ll Use Your Time
I have one day a week when my toddler goes to daycare. The rest of the time, I’m with him and squeezing in my work during naps (and sometimes evenings, if I’m not totally exhausted).
Even though he’s been going to daycare once a week for nine months, I still overestimate how much I can accomplish with my free time. So I totally understand the feeling of disappointment when the time you have to write doesn’t fit with the actual writing you want to do.
To avoid feeling bummed or stressed by what you don’t accomplish, plot how you’ll use your time before you start.
Be conservative rather than ambitious. It feels so much better to get more done than you expect rather than run out of time and be nowhere close to your goal.
You can always go back and work on something else if you have time to spare, which will make you feel like a superstar!
So first figure out how long each part of your process typically takes, then add some time onto that. Always build in extra room for delays like resistance, bad writing days, or just life happening.
Better to be safe than sorry.
Break Your Intention Down Into Smaller Chunks
Once you have an idea of how long it’ll really take you to accomplish your goal, it’s time to break it down into smaller chunks that you can tackle each day, week, and month.
Try to be super specific here, too.
It’s not only satisfying to cross a specific task off your list, but it also helps avoid the paralysis that can come from being overwhelmed and not knowing where to start.
Below is an example of how I would break down the goal of writing half of the first draft of a novel over the course of the summer if I wanted to start something new.
This example operates on the assumption that I expect to write daily, or pretty close to daily, during the summer. Your version of this may look drastically different, so make sure you tailor it to what’s realistic for you!
- The draft will be roughly 40,000 words, so that means I should write around 13,500 words each month for three months
- 30,000 words a month means my word count aim each week is 3,375
- That means I’ll write about 482 words a day on average
- I have a loose outline of my story, so I know my story’s four emotional markers (read The Plot Whisperer!) and what happens at each one
- For the first month, I’ll focus on the first emotional marker and writing toward that specific scene
- The second month, I’ll focus on the portion between the first and second markers
- The third month, I’ll focus on the second emotional marker, which is the midway point of the book
- For X week, I’ll write the first three scenes of the opening chapters. Those scenes will cover XYZ.
- So on and so forth…
Your plan might be much more detailed or much looser than this, but the key is to have a plan for how the months, weeks, and days will break down. Even if you miss a few days or even a week, you can rework the plan to get back on track.
And keep in mind that this can be fluid. You can change course whenever you need to, but it definitely helps when you set out with a plan.
Get Some Accountability!
Without a doubt, this is one of the best things you can do for your writing when you have a goal or intention you want to reach.
I offer accountability as part of my writing coaching service, but you can find accountability with your writing partner or group or any other creative in your life who might also need some support.
Accountability isn’t necessary, but when I’ve had other writers cheering me on, I’ve written so much more than I would’ve on my own.
For many writers, it just helps to feel a sense of camaraderie and support when we’re working on a project.
What are you working on? Tell me about your summer writing project in the comments!
We all know about the “shitty first draft.”
This concept says your first draft of anything is always going to be bad, no matter what.
I understand where this idea comes from, but I’ve always had a little trouble with it.
It’s true that first drafts are often a meandering, disorganized experience and the end result is far from polished. But after writing two novels and many short stories over the last decade of my writing life, I have a different take on first drafts.
I don’t believe that a first draft is inherently awful. Far from it, actually.
First Drafts Are Messy, Not Shitty
Instead of proclaiming all first drafts are shitty, we should actually make a clear distinction between a piece of writing that’s messy and one that is truly shitty. Because… there’s a huge difference.
Shitty is bad. It means unworthy, unimportant, meh. Not worth your time.
Your first draft, that thing you spend hours and weeks and maybe even years of your life working on, is far from unworthy.
Yeah, you’re not going to take your first draft directly to an agent without even giving it a second read and try to pitch it, but that doesn’t mean it’s inherently bad. It just means it’s messy and unpolished.
The First Draft Is Your Chance To Try It All
OF COURSE your first draft is a mess!
If you’re taking full advantage of the landscape of a first draft, it means you try everything.
Every idea that seems remotely important, every style of writing that feels good, every character you want to explore. You do it all, try it all, write it all.
Because so much is going on in a first draft, it’s often a bit of a mess. But that’s truly the point!
You only get one shot at a first try, when the story is brand new and exciting and has ALL the potential in the world. You SHOULD be making a mess while you’re figuring it out.
Second and third and fourth drafts will require you to refine your vision and scope, but in a first draft, you’re free to play.
Don’t save anything for later. Put it all on the page and let future-you deal with cleaning it up.
Give Yourself Permission To Make A Mess While Still Writing Well
Part of what I hate about the “shitty first draft” is that it feels like a cop-out for lazy writing.
I think that even in a messy, uncertain, disorganized first draft, you should still write with care.
When you respect your writing, you want to do it well even when you’re making a mess.
Give yourself permission to write a messy draft while still caring about craft. You can write something that needs to be totally overhauled later but still pay close attention to the way you’re building the story.
The macro of your story might be a mess, but that doesn’t mean the micro needs to be thrown together carelessly.
Sure, maybe later you’ll have to fix some typos or grammar and tense issues. That’s simple enough.
I’m talking about the way you describe things in your story, the choices you make about dialogue and sentence structure and language. You can still give those elements of writing all your care even if the piece itself needs a lot of work.
I believe the more you love the sentences you’ve written, the more you’ll care about revision later anyway.
When you care about what’s inside your house, you want to make it as structurally sound as possible, right? Same idea with your writing!
Stop Trashing Your Work, Period
It might feel logical or safe to qualify your work as a shitty first draft when you share it with others for feedback, but I think it’s time we stopped trashing our own work.
Remember, calling something shitty is akin to saying it’s bad and unworthy. Why would anyone want to read something you claim is bad?
Here are some other things you can say about your newest work instead:
This is a brand new story, so I’m still working out some kinks, but I’m proud of it so far!
I haven’t done a round of revision yet, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on this draft.
The story as a whole is a little messy still, but that’s because it’s the first draft.
I’m so excited to start my next draft and see how much stronger this piece will be after revision.
It really doesn’t serve you or anyone who reads your work if you’re in a self-deprecating mindset when it comes to your first drafts, so try changing how you talk about your work entirely.
Let other people know it’s still early, but you’re proud of what you created so far. There’s no shame in that!
What are your first drafts like? Do you make a mess and enjoy the process?
Tell me below!
If you’re like most creative people I know, you’ve likely felt waves of doubt before.
Maybe they’ve been small waves, like wondering if a particular sentence should stay in the story or not.
Or maybe they’ve been huge ones, like questioning your entire life as a writer.
You’re absolutely not alone in this. I’ve had to literally talk myself out of doubt-spirals in the middle of writing sessions!
I’ll sometimes be in the middle of working on a scene and feel a creeping sense of dread that tells me everything I’m doing is wrong.
This little voice says, “Who will even want to read this? It’s so boring. It sounds amateur. This has all been done before. Who am I to try and write a book? I don’t know enough to tell this story. etc etc etc”
I’m sure you know the drill! Here are some of the best things I do for myself when I start to doubt my writing.
Take A Break
Sometimes, for me, doubt happens when I’m so deep in a project I can’t really tell what I’m doing anymore.
Mostly I experience this when I hit the middle or end of a novel, or when I’m doing a revision that requires big changes.
It’s a lot like walking a long trail in the woods.
For a while, you can look back and see where you came from, but at some point, the path becomes overgrown. You look back and see only trees. You look ahead and see the same.
You start to wonder if you’re even going in the right direction anymore. It seems like you are, but then again, there are a dozen other paths that also look right. But they also kind of look wrong. It’s so hard to tell.
So you question your instincts, you start to doubt what you’re doing, and before you know it, you’re ready to quit.
When it starts to feel like this, I take a break from writing. Even a short break will help, whatever short might mean for you.
The idea is to put some space between you and the work so you’re not tangled up in it. Once you do that…
Look At Your Writing Objectively
Sometimes a feeling of doubt is actually your instinct telling you something is off, but it isn’t telling you what, exactly.
If there’s a chance your feeling of doubt is related to something on a story or craft-level versus a false sense of inadequacy, try to look at your work objectively.
A few days or weeks away from your writing will help you read the piece with fresh eyes. Try to read it as though someone else wrote it and consider if there’s something amiss that you can later fix, or if the piece is truly a lost cause.
Spoiler alert: it’s almost ALWAYS a matter of something you can fix in revision.
And if it turns out it’s not, and the piece really needs to be scrapped, it’s still better to look at that decision objectively rather than make it a negative commentary on your ability to write.
Get A Second Opinion
This is the easiest and fastest thing you can do, and if this isn’t reason enough for you to have a writing group, I don’t know what is!
Get yourself a second opinion from a trusted writer (or writers) in your life.
Ask the writers in your life to help you determine if your doubt is pointing to something you should fix within your story or if it’s actually true that you’re a fraud who will never amount to anything.
(I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this!)
A good writer friend will always help you see things clearly.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to my writing group with major doubts about my skills, my story, my life as a writer in general. They listen, validate, and give me a reality check every time.
And this isn’t about seeking people who will only tell you what you want to hear!
This is about allowing someone else to help you see your doubt for what it is. It’s almost never true that a nagging feeling of doubt means you should burn your whole writing life to the ground.
It almost always means you’re a normal writer experiencing a normal human emotion.
One thing to keep in mind is that most writers who are truly bad never doubt themselves. Usually, self-doubt is reserved for the writers who don’t need to be so critical of themselves.
And at the end of the day, don’t be afraid of living with a little bit of doubt.
You can FEEL it and still write whatever you want. Just because the feeling is there doesn’t mean it’s a signal to stop.
Tell me below what you do when you start to doubt your writing.
Is there anything in particular that helps with your self-doubt?
At the end of 2018, I shared my goal of getting 100 writing rejections this year.
It’s been three full months of actively submitting pitches and stories, and I have some exciting news to share…
It’s working!
In the process of accumulating rejections, I’ve also received two acceptances. One for an essay I pitched and another for a short story!
If you’re curious about the numbers, here’s how it broke down for the short story:
33 submissions = 11 rejections, 1 acceptance with the rest still pending at the time of acceptance.
The essay was a little different. I saw a call for submissions in a Facebook group for writing jobs, sent in a pitch, and had the piece accepted and commissioned.
While I’m thrilled to share these wins with you, I think it’s more helpful if I give you some actionable tips you can implement in your own writing life.
Here’s how I planned out and started to execute my goal of getting 100 writing rejections this year, as well as my next steps as we head into the second quarter of the year.
Give Yourself Lead Time
I decided on this goal in the fall and knew I’d edit and polish a short story in preparation for submitting it starting January 1st.
That lead time was important because it gave me a few months to get organized, revise the story I wanted to publish, and come up with a game plan for myself.
There’s no harm in starting your own 100 rejections project today if you’ve just decided to do it, but I can vouch for the peace of mind that comes with having a little bit of time to get organized and prepare.
On that note…
Get Organized
To get 100 rejections, you’ll need to submit your work to a lot of places, and because of that, I recommend keeping track of each submission.
I use two systems for tracking: one is the submission site Submittable and the other is a private spreadsheet.
The reason I use two systems is that some journals, oddly enough, don’t accept submissions through Submittable. To be honest, of the 33 submissions I made from January through March, only ONE wasn’t via Submittable, so the vast majority do seem to utilize this service.
The one journal that didn’t use Submittable was Ploughshares, though, and I really wanted to submit to them even though they use their own submission platform (which, honestly, I found quite cumbersome and unintuitive).
My suggestion is to use Submittable when possible, but also track every single submission in a separate format that works for you.
Here’s a snapshot of what my spreadsheet looks like:
I knew that I wanted to tally my submissions, track the date of each one, the method for submitting, the journal name, the story title, the outcome, and of course, payment in or out.
You may have other data points that are important for you to track, but this is what has worked for me.
You’ll notice I also have links for two articles at the top. One is a VERY comprehensive list of literary journals and if they pay, and the other is a list of submission strategies. I like having those handy.
Something else to consider before you start submitting is where you’ll send your work.
I spent a few weeks researching many of the journals in that Erika Rouse list I mentioned, reading submission policies, organizing journals by open reading periods, and figuring out which ones were going to cost me a reading fee or not.
(The whole reading fee thing is a rant I’ll save for another day, but keep it in mind. READING FEES ADD UP.)
Many literary journals have open and closed reading periods, which means there are whole chunks of the year where you may not be able to submit to a journal you really like.
Planning ahead will give you a chance to see which journals are accepting submissions and when. Then you can be strategic about what you submit and how much you’re spending on fees.
One final thing to consider before you start is, on average, how many submissions you’ll need to make on a monthly basis to hit 100 rejections.
I wanted to submit my work about 8-9 times per month, if not more. Having this target number in mind made it easy to plan the time each month to send out my work and gave me a concrete goal to hit on a short-term basis, too.
Be Strategic When Submitting Your Work
For me, being strategic meant submitting my story to a mix of both higher-prestige/higher-readership journals as well as smaller ones that still had clout.
It also meant making sure I wasn’t submitting to more than a handful of journals each month that required reading fees.
After my story was accepted, I had to go through all of my pending submissions and withdraw my story from consideration.
The painful part is, you don’t get your reading fee back if your story is accepted somewhere while out on simultaneous submission, so it’s wise to not over-submit to journals with fees.
Even if they haven’t read your story yet, you still lose the money for that submission.
Work On Something Else!
This piece of advice has completely changed my writing life over the last year. And it’s such a simple and obvious one at that!
When you’re in the process of finding a home for your work, whether you’re looking for an agent, submitting a short story or poem, trying to pitch an essay, or literally anything else…
Work. On. Something. Else.
Once you’ve deemed a piece of work complete and ready for the world, send it out and turn your attention elsewhere. Continue generating new work while your current work is out there looking for a home.
Don’t be a helicopter parent. Don’t hover, don’t revise endlessly, don’t tinker with it until each punctuation mark is just right.
Let it go and work on something else. You might be astounded to realize how little attachment you feel to the piece you’re submitting if you’re working on something new.
Know When To Fold
Decide early on how much rejection you’ll allow for each piece you’re submitting. Sometimes it’s truly a numbers game, and the more times you submit, the more likely you are to be accepted.
Other times, there’s valuable feedback to gain from a high number of rejections on a single piece of work.
Decide what your personal threshold is and know when to pull a piece out of the rotation, either to revise it or retire it.
The good news is, if you’re working on new stuff, you should have more work to send out if you need to take something out of the running.
Don’t dwell on it if you have to do that – just start submitting your next piece and move on.
What I’m Doing Next
Cheers if you’re still with me on this epic blog post!
Here’s what I plan to do now that my short story has found its home:
- Finish the draft of the novel I’ve been writing for the last 9 months. I’m about 10,000 words from the end, so it should be wrapped up soon
- Start a couple of new short stories
- Revise an existing short story so it can be the next piece out on submission
- Pitch a few more essay ideas to the site that accepted my first pitch
- Celebrate when my pieces are in print!