Writerly advice-Know your limits
Happy Tuesday, peeps!
Song of the day- Blackbird Glee Cast version
For today's post, I'm going to pass on a little writerly advice. And while I'm by no means an expert in the field (Ha! Far from it!) I recently learned a hard lesson regarding setting limits.
I'm fairly certain I've shared with you all before the fact that I write in bursts. I can sit down and pound out 20k in a week, and then not write anything for a month. My muse is happy working this way. But, for some unknown reason, every so often I get a bug up my ass and decide I need to be one of those authors who write every day.
I pushed myself with my last book, setting a goal of 1k a day for myself. Um...yeah...that didn't work out so well for me. When I pushed too hard, my muse took a vacation. When I eased up and took a few breaks, she roared back to life. Tired of the frustration, I took a hiatus half way through the manuscript and when I came back, the words literally flew onto the page. It was great! Why had I ever thought to stray from my successful formula?
The answer: self imposed pressure.
Yep. I'm not sure about other authors, but now that I have a couple of books out, I feel an enormous pressure to push forward and write, write, write. If I'm not working on something, I feel guilty. This, of course, is my own doing. No one is breathing down my neck, pushing me to shell out another manuscript in record time. I'm doing it to myself. As you can see from the picture below, I wasn't a happy camper.
This brings me to my hard lesson. I finished book three in my Hanaford Park series a short time ago and have been working on edits with my crit partners and awesome beta. I am, admittedly, burned out. Taylor's book took a lot out of me, and my well is dry, so to speak. And while I should have checked out, eased back and taken a break from writing to replenish my muse, I stubbornly pressed forward.
My poor crit partner. Bless her sweet, sweet soul. I sent her a short story I'd written a good while ago for a critique. Of course, before I sent it to her, I read through the thing, spent a couple days tweaking and editing and then sent it on its merry way.
Being the wonderful person that she is, my crit partner read through the piece with a fine toothed comb, and marked the hell out of the thing when really, she should have sent it packing back to me with a warning sign that said "Caution! Reading will cause severe eye pain and possible seizures!" Yep, it was a hot mess.
How had this happened? how could I have sent her something that wasn't ready? The answer is simple: I knew what my limits were and ignored them. I knew I was burned out, and I pushed forward anyway. The result was a story that packed a lot of potential, but was executed poorly.
In love with the idea for this particular tale, I took the next few days off from writing. I decorated eggs, went shopping, watched TV and lazed around my house. My girls were happy, my house looks a hell of a lot cleaner, and my muse? Yeah, she's totally back today. I sat down this morning, opened up my Word doc and tore through the story with reckless abandon. The words came fast and furious, and the plot holes I didn't see before became a thing of the past.
My advice is simple: know your limits. If you're burned out and tired. Take a break! Don't worry about what those other authors are doing. Worry about yourself. Make sure every word you put on the page is your best work, and if you feel yourself slipping, pull back, regroup and start again when you're feeling better. As you can see in my pic below, life becomes less stressful, and a whole lot happier :)
Have a great day!!!
Song of the day- Blackbird Glee Cast version
For today's post, I'm going to pass on a little writerly advice. And while I'm by no means an expert in the field (Ha! Far from it!) I recently learned a hard lesson regarding setting limits.
I'm fairly certain I've shared with you all before the fact that I write in bursts. I can sit down and pound out 20k in a week, and then not write anything for a month. My muse is happy working this way. But, for some unknown reason, every so often I get a bug up my ass and decide I need to be one of those authors who write every day.
I pushed myself with my last book, setting a goal of 1k a day for myself. Um...yeah...that didn't work out so well for me. When I pushed too hard, my muse took a vacation. When I eased up and took a few breaks, she roared back to life. Tired of the frustration, I took a hiatus half way through the manuscript and when I came back, the words literally flew onto the page. It was great! Why had I ever thought to stray from my successful formula?
The answer: self imposed pressure.
Yep. I'm not sure about other authors, but now that I have a couple of books out, I feel an enormous pressure to push forward and write, write, write. If I'm not working on something, I feel guilty. This, of course, is my own doing. No one is breathing down my neck, pushing me to shell out another manuscript in record time. I'm doing it to myself. As you can see from the picture below, I wasn't a happy camper.
This brings me to my hard lesson. I finished book three in my Hanaford Park series a short time ago and have been working on edits with my crit partners and awesome beta. I am, admittedly, burned out. Taylor's book took a lot out of me, and my well is dry, so to speak. And while I should have checked out, eased back and taken a break from writing to replenish my muse, I stubbornly pressed forward.
My poor crit partner. Bless her sweet, sweet soul. I sent her a short story I'd written a good while ago for a critique. Of course, before I sent it to her, I read through the thing, spent a couple days tweaking and editing and then sent it on its merry way.
Being the wonderful person that she is, my crit partner read through the piece with a fine toothed comb, and marked the hell out of the thing when really, she should have sent it packing back to me with a warning sign that said "Caution! Reading will cause severe eye pain and possible seizures!" Yep, it was a hot mess.
How had this happened? how could I have sent her something that wasn't ready? The answer is simple: I knew what my limits were and ignored them. I knew I was burned out, and I pushed forward anyway. The result was a story that packed a lot of potential, but was executed poorly.
In love with the idea for this particular tale, I took the next few days off from writing. I decorated eggs, went shopping, watched TV and lazed around my house. My girls were happy, my house looks a hell of a lot cleaner, and my muse? Yeah, she's totally back today. I sat down this morning, opened up my Word doc and tore through the story with reckless abandon. The words came fast and furious, and the plot holes I didn't see before became a thing of the past.
My advice is simple: know your limits. If you're burned out and tired. Take a break! Don't worry about what those other authors are doing. Worry about yourself. Make sure every word you put on the page is your best work, and if you feel yourself slipping, pull back, regroup and start again when you're feeling better. As you can see in my pic below, life becomes less stressful, and a whole lot happier :)
Have a great day!!!
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