Never back down never what??

I was punishing myself with writing, and so writing was punishment.

WOW, did you know finishing a series comes with a lot of emotions? Who could have thought?? I’m far from done with AN [REDACTED] [REDACTED] aka GWC #3, because all I’ve done is turn in my first draft. I have months of edits ahead of me, and I’m sure waves of “I hate this. No I don’t. I’m glad to be done. No I’m not! This is the last book!”

But considering how much I struggled with this draft, I feel I will talk about it now in case any of you out there see something in my trials and tribulations to learn from.

I had to push my deadline by ~1 month. Or, 6 weeks depending on your definition of when it was originally due (my editor said mid June was great, I instantly said no early July). I turned it in at the end of July through great anguish, much trickery, and some hard won growth.

For the first time in years (maybe ever?), I could not write. Around when I first drafted AN UNLIKELY COVEN, I started a new method of book writing—writing books within about 60 days (with usually 30 days of actual writing). Suddenly I was producing cohesive and manageable drafts with edits that were relatively light, a far cry from the first drafts that took me a year+ to write and then years to edit. I did it again with READY OAR NOT, then wobbled a bit with AN UNCERTAIN MAGIC but still turned it in. When I said “I have to write,” I made myself write. I wrote AN UNCERTAIN MAGIC while closing on and renovating a house. I thought surely book 3 will be the downhill slide—book 2 was hard because it was my sophomore novel!

WRONG. Through a potent mix of “I’m tired of this world, grandpa” and “goddamn past me, who introduced all these threads that need to be resolved” all on top of the normal difficulty of writing a book, I couldn’t make myself write. And I realized how much self-bullying I was doing to make it happen.

I was talking down to myself when I couldn’t write and getting frustrated. My therapist asked me “when did you used to like writing?” and I couldn’t remember. I’m thinking a lot about associations lately and what I train my body to think and feel, and every time I had to write for the last few years, I did it under duress, on deadline, with a great amount of bullying. I was punishing myself with writing, and so writing was punishment.

I realized this 3 weeks before my deadline, with roughly 3/8ths of a book written. That sucked. To get through the book I had to go easy on myself, something that I have always struggled with. But I realized: who says I have to write 3000 words a day? I don’t. I could write ten words a day, and at least I wrote, and at least I wrote without punishing myself. I worked toward breaking that association. I’m still working on it.

And it turns out setting the standard at “ten words a day” made it a lot easier for me to write even more than that. I got back into playing Civ 5 and for the first time in my life gamified writing—write ten words (just ten!) every time I pick a new social policy. I really looked forward to sitting down to play my game daily. It isn’t the point, but I did start writing 1000+ words a day. I turned in GWC at 102000 words. I wrote about 50,000 of those words in one month, at “ten words a day".

Not to take you all too deep into a tour of my psyche, but this was the first time I’ve gamified anything. I prefer to muscle through and force myself to do all sorts of things I don’t want to do. It makes me highly efficient, and highly miserable. I don’t know if everyone will be happy with this trilogy conclusion. All I ever see in my own work is plotholes and room for improvement. But I do know that I love my books for what they teach me about myself and my writing. AN UNLIKELY COVEN about how to let go and lean into my strengths, READY OAR NOT about how to carry a story on just character relationships (and how to have some fun writing again!), AN UNCERTAIN MAGIC about killing all darlings and being willing to scrap an entire concept to create something new (plus, how to write a sequel!), and this, GWC #3, on how to be kinder to myself.

I’m committed to writing all the time, ten words at a time, just to prove to myself that sometimes jotting down an idea is the most wonderful promise you can make yourself. I don’t know what books will come next—for the first time in 2 years, I have no contractual obligations to fulfill. I will publish 4 books in 3 years. I did it. I did it!

I’m going to create something new. I hope you’ll all follow me there.

all the best,

Kvita