Tag: growing

November Update

Photo by Kelly Sikkema

This year has been the most difficult year I can remember. Emotionally, I’m drained. Physically, I’m tired. Mentally, I’m frazzled.

But I am on the mend.

All of 2024 has been one shit show after the other, starting 6 days into the new year! Tragedy after tragedy, death after death, loss after loss. But through it all, I’m still kicking and screaming. Sure, there were times when I thought this year would break me. Times where I felt like I was drowning and the usual mechanisms that could save me were broken and sinking.

After a difficult few months, and the literal feeling like I was drowning, I started taking anti-depressants. They helped me feel better, but for the first time in my life since I decided I wanted to be a writer: I couldn’t write.

I feared that writing had been my depressive addiction, that I used writing to avoid the difficult things in life. While I definitely used it as a distraction before medication, I worried I would not be as creative on the medication. That was a big roadblock.

Another roadblock to writing was the loss of trust in NaNoWriMo. I used to give them the benefit of the doubt on most things over the years as an ML (Municipal Liaison) for them, but after the allegations of child grooming in 2023 and then the increased vitriol and hatred, finally culminating in a series of “unimportant” emails that were actually important (shocking!) where all the MLs were nuked. I have moved on.

That transition was difficult. I had used the monthly writing model for years, ever since I found NaNoWriMo in 2009. I had built up monthly writing goals, editing goals, word count goals, but after that experience was tarnished, I felt like everything else was tarnished too. So I stopped writing.

November used to be NaNoWriMo. I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year, but I am planting seeds for 2025 and making plans.

This year did not go as I intended it to go in any of the ways I had planned. Wave after wave of grief and loss. The medication helped, but it brought out some focus issues. Which led me to be diagnosed with Inattentive ADHD.

Once I was diagnosed (and medicated), all the little quirks, little issues, big issues and avoidant tendencies suddenly made sense.

Looking back on basically my whole life with the new lens of “I have Depression and ADHD” was absolutely wild. I had to spend some time cataloguing my entire life and noticing both what I had missed out on thanks to the anxiety and fear from my depression and ADHD, but also the signs that I missed of both my depression and ADHD. That was definitely a mindfuck and a little pity party, but it was needed. Now I know how to move forward.

I took a break from writing this year and that’s OK. It was more like I was forced to take a break, but that’s a good thing. I needed to pause, evaluate and figure out how to move forward.

I’m currently in an MFA program for Creative Writing (timing is great, isn’t it?) and that has been rough. I’ve always been a good student, but these first few classes have been a creative struggle and a lesson in how to adapt. One of the classes is “The Business of Writing” and I’m seeing the places where I fall short.

I’ve had great intentions for putting myself out there, but I have always fallen short. But now that things are on the mend, I am going to do my best to improve.

Along with not writing this year, I picked up gardening, knitting (and some crochet- still learning), built a lot of furniture for the newly opened side of my house, and created a space that makes me truly feel happy and creative.

I’m making plans to be more present for 2025. I’m making plans to get back into writing and not make it feel like such a struggle. I’m working on putting myself more out there with my writing and my art despite my intense fear of heartbreaking rejection.

You’ll see more from me over the next few weeks of 2024 and in 2025!

 

What I’ve Learned…

Since 2023 started, I have written something every single day. As of August 1st, I have almost 240K to show for it. This is not the longest streak of writing I’ve ever had, but I will say I have learned a lot.

Here are some of my biggest takeaways.

Have Multiple Projects…

In the past, I’ve liked to work on one project at a time. In the past few months however, I have learned multiple projects means multiple places to jump around and put words if I feel like working on something else. I usually have a few “main” projects I try and hit every day, and then a few “side” projects that I can hit every day, or I can go back to whenever I feel like it. A few sentences in each every day yields a larger word count than you expect. On the flip side, having too many projects can be tough too.

…But Not too many that it feels overwhelming

Over the last few years that I’ve been taking writing seriously, there have been a lot of projects that languish and grow dull and lose their spark. Some days, I feel like writing a little bit in everything. Other days, I feel like throwing the project in the garbage. On those days, I move past that project and hope I feel more inclined to work on it in a few days. There are so many new sparks of ideas that come to me, many of which are those projects that have languished. So I have learned that the idea can be as fun as it wants, but that doesn’t mean I have to start it right away. Adding more projects to the massive list I have (oh and homework for my bachelor’s too), would be too overwhelming.

A few sentences a day go a long way…

There have been several days when a few sentences in a few projects will give me anywhere between 500 and 1500 words. If I have a short amount of time (hello, busy work and school life), I’ll write a few sentences where I can in a few projects. I’ll usually keep that streak up for a few days, then get busy and focus on a large project (like editing), but it helps to keep the momentum going by coming back to a project every day or even ever other day.

…But Sometimes momentum feels stilted.

Sometimes, when I give myself what I have been calling “5 Sentences and a thought” (Cute, right? 😂), the action of the scene can feel stilted, or worse, it takes me a month to write one scene. Depending on the day, sometimes 5:AT feels like slogging through mud. “I want to say this, but that is 6 sentences!” Or I don’t know where I want to go so I spend 5 sentences describing something mundane or describing a character’s inner thoughts badly. It can get comical, and at least I’m making progress, but most days after those sentences I tend to berate myself. “Really me?! No direction for today?”

Overall, the most important thing for me, since so many of these projects are first drafts, is getting the words down on the page and working through the story. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to get done. These are things that I’ve learned over the last 180+ days, and maybe in the next 180, I’ll throw it all out the window.

I’m learning, and I am growing. Most importantly, I’m writing every day.