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75 Day Writing Challenge: Momentum

I seem to be gaining momentum. For the past several months, when I would think about sitting down to write, I would cringe. It’s something I think about all the time but, for some reason, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’ve also been putting off revising the novel I wrote in 2018. I knew that I needed to read it before I revised it but I plunged in and started to rewrite it. The revisions soon stalled, of course, because I didn’t have a clear picture of the overall scheme of my novel. Yet, thinking about reading my novel also made me cringe. Another thing I wanted to do was study the process of writing. After teaching writing for over 20 years and writing off and on for nearly 50 years, you would think that I wouldn’t have any more to learn. While I’ve kept my academic writing skills honed, my creative writing skills have begun to rust.

Starting this challenge has helped me to gain momentum on all these things. I am writing for at least 30 minutes every day and I have read and taken notes on eight chapters of my novel. One thing I’ve realized is that it’s not as bad as I thought. I dreaded reading my novel because I thought when I read it, I would discover that it was crap. My draft is not perfect, but it’s not crap either. I think with some revision and editing, I can create something that I can publish. I’m not sure why this particular challenge is working when all my other attempts to create a writing habit has failed, but I’m not going to question my progress. I’m committed to keeping increasing my momentum.

Today, I accomplished these tasks…

I wrote for 30 minutes.
I read Scrappy First Draft for 30 minutes.
I read and took notes on Chapter 6-8 of Sins of the Father (https://musing550.blog/2018/11/).
I read The Scottish Prisoner for 30 minutes.
I wrote this blog post.

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75 Day Writing Challenge: Excuses…

The mission statement at the school where I teach reads, “All students, regardless of background or skill level, will have the opportunity to pursue a growth mindset that will allow them to achieve mastery and to demonstrate they can succeed in high school, in college, and in their chosen career. No Exceptions. No Excuses.” The new Head of School and I were talking about the concept of excuses. What does that mean? “No Excuses.” There can never be an excuse? We were talking about our late work policy which is rather strict. Students begin to lose credit on their papers for being one class period late. The example we talked about is a student who turned his paper in late because he is homeless and living in his car. He couldn’t turn his paper in on time because he had no access to internet. Is that a valid excuse? Should he be given full credit for his paper? Another student says she couldn’t turn in her paper because she just didn’t get around to it. Is that a valid excuse? We decided that a distinction must be made between a reason and an excuse. Being homeless and unable to access the internet until a person gets to school is a reason for turning in an assignment late. Not getting around to an assignment is more of an excuse.

I began to think about my writing challenge. What would constitute a reason for not being able to complete my writing challenge on a certain day and what would be an excuse. Yesterday, I woke up with a horrible headache and upset stomach. As the morning progressed, I began to feel worse and worse and ended up taking a sick day. If I’m too sick to go to work, wouldn’t it be reasonable that I would be too sick to write? By evening, I was feeling a lot better, so I decided that if I didn’t write, it would just be an excuse. If I had a 100 degree fever and still felt ill, then perhaps I would have had a reason for not writing.

In the past, I have made a lot of excuses for not writing. I don’t have time. I have to cook dinner. I have to clean the house. I don’t feel like it right now. When I really put my mind to it, I am able to confront all those excuses and write. I made time to write by using my lunch hour to write. I still have to cook dinner but instead of sitting on the couch after dinner, I sit back down at the dining room table and write. I write instead of cleaning the house. I don’t feel like writing, but I do it anyway. The funny thing I’ve found about this challenge is that the words are coming more easily, so I don’t need to find excuses to avoid writing. In the morning, I start to think about my blog post and what else I can say about the writing challenge and my brain obliges with an idea. As I drive to school in the morning, I think about the story I’m writing and my brain tells me what is going to happen next. This writing challenge is actually priming my brain to write. It gives me reasons to write rather than excuses to avoid writing.

Today, I have accomplished these tasks…

Wrote for 30 minutes
Read Scrappy Rough Draft for 30 minutes
Read and wrote revision notes on Chapter 4-6 in Sins of the Father (https://musing550.blog/2018/11/)
Finished reading Magical Midlife Love and began reading The Scottish Prisoner
Wrote this blog post

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75 Day Writing Challenge: The Honeymoon Period

Whenever I start something new, there is always a honeymoon period at the beginning. Whether it’s a new diet, exercise routine, or a writing project, I enjoy the novelty of the new activity and give it 100% until, suddenly, after a couple of weeks, it starts to feel more like work than play. I get tired of slogging through the lessons or following the routine. I start to skip a day or two. I think to myself, It’s just one day. I just need a little break. I’ll get back to it in a little while. Before I know it a couple of days become several and a little while turns into never.

One of the reasons I chose to pursue this 75 Day Challenge was to confront this tendency I have to give up on things when they lose their glitter and turn into drudgery. I want to teach myself that I can stick with my goals even when they get hard or I get bored–that it’s worth the effort I put into it. While this challenge is focused on my writing, I am hoping that the discipline I develop from this challenge will help me fulfill other goals in my life, like losing weight and getting into shape or finally organizing my house.

During the pandemic, I’ve heard a lot of messages that I need to be kind to myself and I need to forgive myself for my mistakes. Sometimes, though, being kind to myself really means that I am making excuses for not following through on something I have committed to doing. Today, for example, I got to work at 7:15 and worked until 5:00. I could have told myself that since I had worked so long I didn’t have to go home and work on my writing challenge. It was understandable that I wouldn’t be able to complete all the tasks I had set for myself. I didn’t do that, though. After dinner, I helped my son with his homework and then I got to work. I really wanted to sit on the couch and play a game on my IPad, but instead I sat at the dining room table and worked on revising my novel. Maybe, I was able to fight off my fatigue because this process is still novel and fun. Whatever the reason, I was able to stay committed and finish Day 3 of my challenge.

Today, I completed the following tasks:

I wrote for 30 minutes.
I read Scrappy Rough Draft for 30 minutes.
I began reading the rough draft of my finished novel.
I read for 30 minutes.
I wrote this blog post.

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Coffee Klatch

Since the lockdown began in March, I’ve become obsessed with planners. I’ve purchased four or five different planners hoping to find the one planner that would finally motivate me to achieve my goals and get my life on track. My most recent purchase is called “The Perfect Notebook.” It is customizable and streamlined. Surely, a perfect notebook would be the key to ending my procrastination. When the perfect notebook arrived, it sat in its envelope for three weeks until I finally opened it. Then, it sat on the coffee table until it grew dusty. I decided that I needed stickers to decorate it, so I ordered a bunch of stickers. Then, the notebook and the stickers sat on my coffee table until they grew dusty.

Then, last week, I learned that I was exposed to Covid. That same day, my mother fell and broke her hip. Just like that life changed. I thought to myself, What am I waiting for? I want to write, but I use a lot of excuses to avoid it. I have too much to do with my new teaching job; I have to help my son with his homework; I’m tired and it’s easier to sit on the couch and play video games then to write at the end of a long day. Life is passing me by in a blur of excuses.

I finally dusted off the perfect notebook and the stickers that I purchased. I set up the customizable notebook and began to map my goals. I realized that it doesn’t matter what planner I use: a $100 planner imported from Great Britain, a dot journal that I create myself, or The Perfect Notebook. The only thing that matters is me.

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Coffee Klatch

To stay on track while working from home, I have been following the “eat a frog” approach to task management. The “eat a frog” approach is a method for curing procrastination. Procrastination I feel is the biggest challenge I face to my success. The “eat a frog” approach advocates completing your least favorite task first, so that you have the rest of the day to work without worrying about the onerous task. With this approach, I decided I should do my teaching tasks first, then work on my dissertation, and then my writing. Of course, if I am being truthful, my most onerous task right now is my dissertation. I should probably work on that first every day and then get on with things. I’ve noticed a pattern, however with this method of task management. As the week progresses, I lose my motivation and momentum. By the time, I’m finished working on my teaching duties and my dissertation, I don’t have a lot of energy or creativity left for writing. Then, writing becomes the one thing I procrastinate. Writing is the one thing I want to do in my life and it is always last on my to do list. By the end of the week, I am cranky and sapped of energy. I end up avoiding everything and sitting on the couch playing video games all day. While the members of my guild love my dedication to the game during guild challenges, it doesn’t really help me achieve the goals I’ve set for myself.

While reading 52 Small Changes for the Mind, I was reminded of another analogy for time management. In this analogy, important and less important tasks are compared to rocks and sand. The rocks are the important tasks that you need to complete and the sand is the minor tasks. The jar represents the time you have on any given day. If you prioritize the less important tasks and complete them first, you end up running out of time for the important tasks. If, however, you focus on the big rocks first, you can fill in the gaps of time in the jar with the sand and smaller rocks. Using this analogy, I decided that I have three big rocks: my writing, my teaching, and my dissertation. My smaller rocks and sand are all the other less important tasks, like checking my email, making phone calls, and chores. I thought to myself, as long as I put all the big rocks in the jar every day, what does it matter what order I do them in? So, this week, I am trying an experiment. I am writing first and then working on my teaching tasks and dissertation. While proponents of the “eating the frog” approach say doing an enjoyable task first will lead to procrastination, I disagree. By writing first, I am honoring my commitment to becoming a writer. When I write, I lose all sense of time and place. Why would I deny myself this pleasure merely because it’s enjoyable? In the long run, I think I will have more success fulfilling my other obligations, because I will no longer be denying myself the one thing I love to do.

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Coffee Klatch

I have been following a diet plan called Noom for the passed 14 weeks. On Saturday, I posted to my support group about my committing again to the program. I berated myself for straying from the program yet again and having to commit myself again, but then I stopped myself. I have made a lot of progress on the program. I have given up a lot of junk food and am making better choices. I have lost 16 pounds so far. Why should I be mad at myself?

I always get mad at myself for failing to follow a program like Noom perfectly. I also get mad at myself for having to restart my writing routine. This weekend, however, I realized that I haven’t given up like I usually do. I continue to re-commit myself to my health and to my writing. One of my friends told me a while ago that she was really impressed by how much I had accomplished with my blog and how I was inspiring her to write. She said this at a time when I was feeling bad that I had quit writing my blog. Again, I had overlooked what I had already accomplished. I was mad at myself for letting my writing slip, but here I am, again, starting to write.

Whenever I think about changing the theme of my blog, “Beginning Again,” I realize that we are always making new beginnings. No one is going to pursue any activity perfectly, never missing a day. The important thing is that we keep coming back to our important pursuits–that we don’t give up. We keep trying.

Coffee Klatch

For the past several weeks, I have applied for over 20 teaching jobs. I started to get the refection emails last week. I would have been discouraged, but then, out of the blue, I got two inquiries about working as a freelance writer. That started me thinking.

Every Sunday, my husband and son watch Joel Olsteen. I usually watch him too, but I’m not a religious person. Joel is always preaching about signs from God and how God has something greater planned for the future. I’ve gotten really sick of this message as I’ve been turned down for opportunities and nothing in my life seems to get any better, but then these two writing opportunities happened. Maybe, these opportunities are some sort of sign. I’m not saying they’re a sign from God, but maybe they’re a nudge from the universe. Go this way-not that way. Teaching no longer seems to be a viable option for my career, but maybe writing can become one. This also happened the same week, I seriously re-committed myself to writing every day.

My email has also been flooded by messages from other writers who do make their living writing. More signs? I don’t know. What I do know is that I can’t really control what happens with a teaching career. I teach what I am assigned to teach. Someone else makes my schedule and tells me what to teach. But with writing-I am the one who is in control. I am the one who decides what I will write and when. I think it’s worth heeding the signs.

See you next week!

Coffee Klatch

So much for having balance in my life. I got so behind on my work for my teaching that I had to focus exclusively on that for a while. Now, I’m starting to get a handle on it again, and can finally get back to writing. One thing that is still holding me back is procrastination. I waste a lot of time that could be used to work on my teaching or my writing. Last week, I started to work on scaling back on time-wasters and focusing on work that should take a priority. Instead of binge watching shows all week-end, I focused on working for a couple of hours each day. I didn’t work all day on both Saturday and Sunday, but I worked enough so I could maintain the progress on my work last week. I vowed that this week I would get back to writing again.

Over the week-end I received an advanced copy of a book on writing from Martin Meadows, Self-Discipline for Writers. I will be posting a review later this week. In his book, he suggested several time-management tools. One method is called Pomodoro. Pomodoro is the Italian word for tomato. The man who devised the Pomodoro method uses the word pomodoro for the tomato-shaped kitchen timer he uses to time himself. The Pomodoro Method is structured in 25 minute increments. You set a timer and work for 25 minutes on a task. Then, you take a short five-minute break. When I read about this method, I thought to myself: I can do anything for 25 minutes. I downloaded a free Pomodoro app and gave it a try this morning. Using the Pomodoro timer, I worked for 50 minutes on revising my novel, and now I’m writing my blog post. It’s only 11:00 in the morning! I haven’t been starting to work until afternoon in previous weeks! (Procrastination again).

Another piece of advice Meadows shares in his book is to focus on one project at a time. I tried to participate in Camp NaNoWriMo this April, but instead of focusing on my novel revision project, I started a new one. I didn’t really make any headway on either project. I’m going to shelve the romance novel I was planning for a while and focus on finishing this first novel.

The past couple of weeks have been hard. We are surviving on one part-time salary. I’ve tried applying for teaching jobs and writing jobs, but have not had any success. I decided to begin treating my writing like a business, another piece of advice from Meadows. I am going to write every day until my novel is finished and then I’m going to focus on self-publishing it and earning some money. While I know I’m not going to get rich, I think I can create a supplemental income if I’m willing to work at it.

It seems like I’m always starting over on my goals, but that’s the point of my blog, Beginning Again. I need to remember that even when I slip up, I can always start anew.

See you next week. No more procrastination!

Killer Preoccupation

“When are we going to finish watching that show?”

“What show?”

“You know. Our new favorite show–MindHunter.”

“Our new favorite show? Like we have something in common?”

“Sure. We have a lot in common. We both have a son. We like to read the same writers. I’m a serial killer. You’re ….”

“Hold on there.”

“I was going to say, you’re studying serial killers.”

“I’m only studying serial killers so I get you right.”

“We’ve discussed this before. You can’t get me right. I already exist. You’re just channeling my reality from another dimension.”

“Not this again.”

“Anyway, when are we finishing our show?”

“I already finished it.”

“What? Without me?”

“Well, you were busy. I’m surprised you even like the show. You’re the one that said that what they say about serial killers is all bullshit. MindHunters is all about how they came up with the bullshit. The FBI agents who interviewed all those serial killers. They based all their theories on serial killers on those interviews.”

“Not everything is bullshit.”

“Like what?”

“Like, how all the serial killers try to control the interviews even though they no longer have any control. That’s spot on. That’s why we do what we do–for control. We control who gets to live and who gets to die. And we’re intelligent. We have to be to do what we do and not get caught. Of course, all those serial killers aren’t that smart after all.”

“Why not?”

“They got caught, didn’t they? They’re sitting in prison spilling their guts to FBI agents. That’s not too smart. And they’ll die in prison, too.”

“So you’re smarter than all those guys, huh?”

“Fuck yeah. I haven’t been caught yet, have I?”

“We’ll see.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Never mind. I found a new series. You’re going to love it. It’s called I Am a Killer.”

“Shit. You need a new hobby.”

Hypocritical Writer

Yesterday, I wrote a blog post about how detrimental romance novels are to our realistic views of love, relationships, and commitment. Yet here I am embarking on another project for #NaNoWriMo–a 50,000 word romance novel that I will write this April during Camp NaNoWriMo. I could write the sequel to the thriller I wrote in November, but I am currently revising and editing my novel, Sins of the Father, and I am elbow-deep in blood and guts. I need a light-hearted writing project that would remind me that there is more to life than gore and serial killers.

The challenge for myself is to write a romance novel that follows the features of the genre, but that is also well-written and engaging. My working title is Forget Me Not and revolves around a working mother whose son ran away to find the father he has never met. When she and her former lover finally meet, she realizes that he has forgotten all about her. I will begin posting it in May, so romance-haters beware! Or maybe check it out to see if I improve the genre.