When everything changes, you have to keep going anyway. That’s what we’re learning from these last few months, I think. It’s what I’m trying to apply to my novel, too.
Writing
Staying Motivated in a Pandemic
Like many others, I’ve struggled to find the motivation to do any work deemed unnecessary while in quarantine. In the beginning, I sort of depended on the work left over from Super Roommates to get myself out of bed and feel productive. When that ran out, I started working on my novel, although that was a good deal less structured. Eventually, it all gave way to nothing and I just sort of floated through the days, proud to find the motivation to go for a run every so often, or write a couple hundred words. I forgave myself, because pandemics are stressful and exhausting and whatever I managed was enough.
But society is trying to get back on its feet, and that means work is starting up again. With work starting up, but the pandemic not letting up, I know we’re all going to be struggling with stress and exhaustion. I always want to turn to my hobbies when I’m stressed, writing, reading, painting, but sometimes it’s just easier to turn on Netflix.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed with everything coming at you at once. So how do you find motivation to go to your hobbies when you can?
Writing Fiction in a Pandemic
Writing about characters who aren’t social distancing is actually a bit difficult. This is a side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic that I must admit I did not expect.
The Decadal Book
This blog started off has a way to document my daily adventures abroad in university, but it was also very much a place where I wrote about writing. It was such a part of this blog in fact that I didn’t even have a category for all the posts about my book and instead I eventually created a whole other blog for all that stuff: precariousreader.wordpress.com. But I still post about it here, and now is as important as ever because I’ve reached a special…horrible…milestone.
Lake Minnewanka
As I worked on the pitch for my web series, I realized that even though I’d put my novel writing on hold, I didn’t want to give up the story entirely. It wasn’t going to be as easy to pick my novel back up as it was to put down. A story has peaks and valleys; I’d stopped in a valley and it was difficult to find the momentum to reach the next peak from there. So I turned to research, where I always turn when I want to get my head into the story without actually writing. However, on this occasion, Google wasn’t enough.
I needed the mountains.
Writer Burnout
I didn’t really consider it my resolution, but around January 1st, I got fed up with how long SC, my big bad book, was taking to finish. My—well, my resolution, to this issue was to write 500 words before bed every day so I’d finish it faster. And for the first week, with the help of late nights and coffee shops, I did it.
A Controversial Christmas
TW: Discussion around rape.
There was some controversy this year in Canada when a radio station/broadcasting company “banned” the song “Baby It’s Cold Outside”.
Nearly Nine Years
When I approached the counter of the Starbucks I’m currently writing this from, the barista, Michelle, greeted me by name. This Starbucks is across the city from where I live, so this was slightly concerning. However, it’s five minutes from Heritage Park where I’ve been going to rehearsal five times a week for the last two months.
A Writing Update
After I plotted two books beginning to end, I thought I’d write them a lot faster. Instead, I seem to be writing at the same pace as I’ve always written, and due to my limited time, my word count has grown at an even slower pace than it did when I wrote the first draft with no plan at all.
I Plotted Two Novels Today
I was supposed to be editing after I got home from some meetings last night, but instead I looked up a few articles about plotting—and, more specifically, about plotting an ending—and then the end of SC (my big bad book) popped into my head.
