Sylvia Writes

I can’t even begin to describe the relief I feel after putting my novel to sleep (wrote about that in the previous blog post).

I know I have struggled with it for longer than I should have, and maybe I would have finished it by now if I had abandoned my struggles in January. Who knows?

I feel free now to write what I want to write, and that’s both exhilarating and scary.

I have notes for two short stories I would like to edit this month, but my mind is not in an editing kind of headspace, mostly because I’m still recovering from an IBS flare-up and my energy levels are low.

So, I’ve given myself permission to freewrite some things, this month. I wrote the start of a short story that could turn into a novella, and I like where it’s going. I have a vague idea for another story as well.

I will probably also write some posts for my blogs, too, as times like this usually bring up posts on the regular.

All in all, I feel like a writer again, and not a struggler. And this thought alone makes me want to head back into Bear and let my fingers find their way into new tales.

Very exciting prospect!

Last year I had a great idea for a novel. I wrote 20.000 words for NaNoWriMo and then... the story stalled.

I just didn't know how the story would continue. I tried a lot of things to find my way back.

I wrote more character letters, I wrote scenes for further on in the book, so I could write towards them, I added characters and I thought of a great twist that I later abandoned again. To no avail.

This is a bit of a curse of being a discovery writer: having such a good start and then not knowing where to go next.

I just don't know where the story wants to go.

So today I add my novel's folder to my archive folder so it can sleep there for a bit while I work on editing some short stories.

I don't know how long it will stay there. It can be a week, it can be a year.

But I know one day I will find my answer, probably while I work on the edits. I have faith in that.

This is because I know I will finish this novel one day. It just needs a little nap.

I’ve slept awfully these past weeks, the insomnia even worse than normal.

The other day I lamented the fact that I hadn’t done any writing. And I stopped myself immediately.

It's no use whining when you forget that one cardinal rule: self care comes first.

When words don’t flow as easily as usual, I just need to see where I need to take care of myself.

Besides, lack of sleep makes my creative writing flawed, in need of major edits. Lack of sleep numbs my creativity.

And instead of wasting energy on bemoaning the lack of words, I can also make a bath and go to sleep earlier.

I can also be kind to myself and have faith the words will come back.

They always do.

I’ve slept awfully these past weeks, the insomnia even worse than normal.

The other day I lamented the fact that I hadn’t done any writing. And I stopped myself immediately.

It's no use whining when you forget that one cardinal rule: self care comes first.

When words don’t flow as easily as usual, I just need to see where I need to take care of myself.

Besides, lack of sleep makes my creative writing flawed, in need of major edits. Lack of sleep numbs my creativity.

And instead of wasting energy on bemoaning the lack of words, I can also make a bath and go to sleep earlier.

I can also be kind to myself and have faith the words will come back.

They always do.

Every morning, just after waking, I begin my journal entry for the day.

It always starts the same, I write down my daily habits list, add three circles for my three most important tasks of the day, and then I draw a line, leaving about half the page open for poetry.

This poetry is always spontaneous, more so than in the rest of my day. It’s like I’m still half in dreams and half in the world and the poems reflect that.

I always write them down so fast, not caring about legibility, just about getting my poem out.

And, sometimes I love them, sometimes I don’t. It doesn’t matter though. I don’t write these to be recognised, I write them for my muse.

I write in my dawn sunlight of words breaks through my clouds and infuses me with the bright light of a brand new day full of opportunities for words to find their home

1 – Wait until you're finished to edit your book.

Sticking to that rule gave me five books that are uneditable. Stories where I changed gear midway and where I switched characters and plots.

2. Write what you know

I can't even tell you how often that rule broke me when I first started writing.

I've changed it to: write what you learn. I can always research or ask people I know about certain crafts they do. My current novel's mc is a welder, and I know nothing about it. But I know people who do, and they can fill my head with information that helps me write the guy.

3. You have to blog at fixed times to be successful

Well, that's a nice idea in theory, but every time I try that, I fail.

My best blog posts are written at a flash of an idea, in ten minutes and posted after a quick spell check. Those posts always had the best response, not my boring scheduled ones.

I've taken to using index cards in a way that's very helpful now I'm editing.

On the front of the card I write the major plot points and on the back I write where each important character was seen last in that chapter, or in what chapter another important character was last seen and where.

In this example, A was last seen at home. If she wouldn't appear in chapter 3, my text on that index card would be: A, chapter 2, home.

This way, I can edit a chapter, look at where the characters were at the end of the previous chapter and edit the new chapter accordingly.

It's quite disconcerting how often I lost track of where each character is at one point in time and in these edits I had the main character's kids be at a friend's house in one scene and in the next, they were bored and playing with toys in their room for the whole afternoon.

Both sides of the card are enough information for me to continue the story without losing track of the plot and my characters.

I’m working on editing the first half of my book, to make sense of writing the second part, given that I changed a big thing with my characters, and not editing now means a lot of struggle if I finish the book.

So I was editing away, adding things to scenes and removing lines that no longer fit.

And then I ran into a snag. I couldn’t for the life of me remember a character’s name and others were talking about them. I didn’t want to stop editing, so I just did something new. I added QQQ before the line, added a description of the character to insert, and then QQQ at the end of that. This way, by the time I’m ready to edit for the second draft (after finishing the book) I can easily find the places where I need to add stuff.

I intend to search for QQQ before starting my edits, so I can slot in character names, names of villages and descriptions of everything before I dive into the story.

This is such a lovely way to keep my focus on the scene (in full screen) and not on going into notes and getting distracted again.

And it works, I’m zooming through this. Six chapters done, about ten to go, some of which may be dropped with the new direction I’m taking with the story. I hope to be ready to write new words by the end of the week, maybe even sooner, if I keep up with the QQQ’s and don’t allow any distractions.

I have tried all the popular writing apps. And failed at all of them.

My last failed experiment was with Ulysses. I added all the writing projects I'd like to do this year and the sorting projects I'd love to do as well and was immediately overwhelmed.

I opened it to write something for my novel and I lost the words because I was distracted by the list of writing projects I still hadn't finished.

So... something had to give.

I started to use Bear, my favourite notetaking app, for my novel and something clicked.

Turns out, I don't need all the bells and all the whistles to write/edit.

Just one window, in a font I like, with one scene or one story is all I need.

Bear is great in its simplicity. All I need to make folders is to add a hashtag. Adding a hashtag with a slash, like #novel/todo sorts all my novel's todo lists in a subfolder for my novel.

I keep the folder structure simple.

I have a blog folder for a list of ideas for my blog.

I keep a maximum of three writing projects in Bear. Currently those are: my novel, a journaling project and a couple of short fantasy stories I want to edit and submit.

And everything else is in my inbox folder, with subfolders for easy access.

My simple folder structure keeps everything manageable and, most importantly, it keeps me from being instantly overwhelmed.

I know I could have created a similar folder situation in Ulysses (and Scrivener), but both of those apps are simply too heavy for what I need in this stage of writing.

Everything else I've ever written is in Scrivener. If I want to do some sorting of poetry for instance, I go there and open my poetry file.

That is doable. If I don't want to work on sorting my poetry or old blog posts, I don't need to see them as a visual to do list reminder either.

To me, Bear is a sigh of relief in app form, simple, easy to use and with all the things I need to manage my writing.

I have tried all the popular writing apps. And failed at all of them.

My last failed experiment was with Ulysses. I added all the writing projects I'd like to do this year and the sorting projects I'd love to do as well and was immediately overwhelmed.

I opened it to write something for my novel and I lost the words because I was distracted by the list of writing projects I still hadn't finished.

So... something had to give.

I started to use Bear, my favourite notetaking app, for my novel and something clicked.

Turns out, I don't need all the bells and all the whistles to write/edit.

Just one window, in a font I like, with one scene or one story is all I need.

Bear is great in its simplicity. All I need to make folders is to add a hashtag. Adding a hashtag with a slash, like #novel/todo sorts all my novel's todo lists in a subfolder for my novel.

I keep the folder structure simple.

I have a blog folder for a list of ideas for my blog.

I keep a maximum of three writing projects in Bear. Currently those are: my novel, a journaling project and a couple of short fantasy stories I want to edit and submit.

And everything else is in my inbox folder, with subfolders for easy access.

My simple folder structure keeps everything manageable and, most importantly, it keeps me from being instantly overwhelmed.

I know I could have created a similar folder situation in Ulysses (and Scrivener), but both of those apps are simply too heavy for what I need in this stage of writing.

Everything else I've ever written is in Scrivener. If I want to do some sorting of poetry for instance, I go there and open my poetry file.

That is doable. If I don't want to work on sorting my poetry or old blog posts, I don't need to see them as a visual to do list reminder either.

To me, Bear is a sigh of relief in app form, simple, easy to use and with all the things I need to manage my writing.