Category: The Chain

Despite my best efforts, I have juuuust enough residual guilt and shame to feel the need to justify September’s writing performance. But I like to think my therapist would be proud of the progress this post represents. No self-flagellation here. Just facts.

https://twitter.com/DonP/status/1443593731886698499?s=20

Okay, so… ::deep breath::

• Longest Chain in September: 1 days
• Total August days: 5 days
• Pieces out on submission: 1
• Total 2021 Writing days: 180

As if I haven’t had enough of the stressors listed in the Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory in my life, I got to stare down two top 20 items this past month, and getting past them took up a lot of mental, emotional, and creative energy. But after some interviewing, some stylin’ and profilin’, a dash of hurry-up-and-wait, and a lot of weighing of pros and cons, I’ll be leaving the place I’ve worked for 15 years and moving to another part of the organization. Somewhere I can use everything I learned helping to move my old unit to the next level, and do the same for another.

I actually interviewed for two jobs…and I was offered both. That was another major part of the stress I was under. I was so tempted by the offer I turned down. The prospect of what I’d be facing in the job I accepted scared me a little. Which is how I knew it was the better move–after days of wrestling with it, that is.

So as far as the writing, though? I did what I could do last month. Period. I’m not pleased with it, and that’s okay. I’ll simply move forward this month. But what I won’t do anymore is beat myself up over it. I’m over that shit.

• Longest Chain in August: 13 days
• Total August days: 27 days
• Pieces out on submission: 2
• Total 2021 Writing days: 175

I will evangelize the use of data-driven decision-making because my gut tells me it’s the right thing to do.
—C.L. Mah, “The Middle Manager’s Oath”

I need to look at my progress from the macro level because otherwise my brain only sees the holes on the days I don’t write . It only sees how August’s numbers are lower than July’s. It knows that there were days in August where only the bare minimum was done, especially since I log what I do in each X calendar entry.

I need more data before I can draw too, too many conclusions about my writing process. But some things are clear…

• I’m writing more consistently over 2021 (and the last two months of 2020) than I ever have. Ever.
• By my back of the envelope calculations, I’m writing an average of 5 days a week so far.
• It helps that I can identify reasons for most of the gaps. I might not consider them all good reasons, but still.

I’m very curious to see what a year or two of this data will show. What sorts of patterns might reveal themselves. I feel I’m on the right track, though. At least, that’s what my gut tells me.

• Longest Chain in July: 21 days
• Total July days: 28 days
• Pieces submitted in July: 2
• Total 2021 Writing days: 148

Looks like I was unequivocally back on my bullshit in July. Not bad for how overwhelmed I was feeling for a spell. And not just with returning to the office, but with a bunch of ideas for stories and projects that kept coming at me faster than I could write them down. Of course, in my heart of hearts I know a lot of it is no good, but you never know until you get it all down.

But I pulled it together. Finished and submitted a short story, and put out another piece for a reprint anthology. (Fingers crossed!) That was probably my key breakthrough for the month: getting back into the joy and the pain of the submissions process…

So… magazines with submissions systems don't actually track how often people check their place in the queue, right…? Because that would be embarrassing…

Asking for a friend… pic.twitter.com/fozMjRUOU8

— Don Pizarro (@DonP) July 30, 2021

• Longest Chain in June: 5 days (twice!)
• Total June writing days: 22
• Total 2021 writing days: 120

Okay, better. Better than the past few months, anyway. And as far as a six-month writing run goes, it’s the best I’ve had in, I dunno, ever.

120 days. Call it four months out of the past six. In other words (::back of the envelope, counts fingers, carry the one…::)–that’s like 4 and a half-ish days a week, right? Not a bad start toward rebuilding my process to be something more sustainable.

• Longest Chain in May: 7 days
• Total May days: 17 days
• Total 2021 Writing days: 98

I said May wouldn’t be better than April, but I guess it wasn’t much worse. It’s okay, though. I have the programming I caught from Balticon 55 to thank for getting me back on the writing horse this time. Can’t help but pull the writing stuff out when you’re around other writers, even virtually. And even though it was mostly writing to keep my fingers moving, I need to remember that it’s the sort of thing that got me back on the horse last November for a good few months.

Forgive the markup of the March/May days. I thought it’d look misleading otherwise.

• Longest Chain in April: 8 days
• Total April days: 17 days
• Total 2021 Writing days: 81

Time flies when you’re down in the dumps! Almost forgot to put this up.

It’s been a little harder to get back in the saddle than I anticipated it would. Illness didn’t help–got knocked out for a few days there. I got the flu shots and two COVID vaccinations, but being inside for the better part of a year, who knows what my immune system is no longer prepared for. And, it’s crunch time at the dayjob. Anyway, I can’t blame it all on those things. Best to focus on what I managed to get done.

I did better than March, but not by much. May will not be better. That’s okay though. Well, not really, but I’m letting it be okay because if nothing else, I’ve collected more data points that I’m hoping will prove or disprove some theories I have about the natural rhythm of my writing process. That is, when it’s unencumbered by the usual self-flagellation. Coming up with some interesting things, though.

But man, I can’t wait to see if this actually leads me to finish shit.

• Longest Chain in March: 10 days
• Total 2021 Writing days: 64

Not a great month. But, 64 writing days since January is better than my usual track record. When you throw in last November and December, it’s the best 5 months of writing I’ve had in years! Anyway, like I said in my last Weeknotes, the haze is lifting, I think.

I’ve been through this before. I hit some kind of bump and I find myself with almost zero capacity for any kind of creative work. It usually stems from a combination of depression, anxiety, and general exhaustion. I try to fight it for a bit, of course. Push through on willpower. But eventually everything creative stops and I feel like a general loser for a month or four until the haze lifts or something pulls me out of it.

Except this time. I did a few things differently.

First, I didn’t fight it. I let the slump happen.

Second, I actually watched the slump take its course. This was a risky move. I mean, what if it was another week/month/six-months/eight months until I could write again? Well, I gambled against having racked up 5 months of the most productive writing I’ve had in years. As well as, you know, all the other times I got back on the horse and had a productive period whether it lasted a week, a month, whatever. I decided that the worst likely outcome was that one day in the future, I start up again.

Third, and most importantly, I actively fought my natural tendency to berate myself for falling off the horse. And let me tell you, it was not fucking easy. But if there’s one thing I can point to that made the difference between the past three weeks and every other time I felt blocked, this is it.

And so after three weeks with only 2 writing days, I seem to be back in the saddle as of this past Sunday. We’ll see how long this lasts. We’ll make some notes, and we’ll see what happens.

Until then, I’m…

Sure it was a short month, but success is success! With respect to rebuilding my writing practice in 2021 from what it’s been (rather, not been) for years, I have absolutely nothing to complain about for February.

The story I’ve been working on is one, maybe two drafts away from done. It took as long as it took, and I’m okay with that. And I already know which story I’m going to dissect and finish next. That one will also take however long it will take.

Onward!

No excuses for the gaps, but no apologies either. I’m still focused on the long term re-building, not just a more-or-less daily writing practice, but a sustainable one. Sure, 4 day gaps suck; 4 month gaps suck even more. And I’m not going back to that without a fucking fight!

You know, I’m not even worried that I haven’t finished the current short story I’m working on yet. Yes, I’ve finished stories in less time; heck, one time, inside of 12 hours back at Viable Paradise. I’ll get back to that point once I get back whatever the writing equivalent of muscle memory is. And at some point between here and there, I’ll get to posting things like word- or page counts. One step at a time, though. I’ve been very bad in life at trying to walk the line between accountability and self-flagellation.

This is definitely an improvement on November! Here’s hoping I can keep up the momentum this year.

To tell you the truth, it might’ve been good if I’d skipped a couple of days, especially around the holidays. I realize I’ve paid a price over the years trying and failing to live up to “Write Every Day Or You’re Not a Writer(TM).” It was bad enough when one legit reason or another got in the way. Even not-legit reasons. Family matters, emotional exhaustion, abject laziness–it was all the same result to me: failure.

Writing to feel like you’re fighting failure wasn’t sustainable, and not just for the obvious reasons. My particular struggle was that any taste of momentum and success I had became like cocaine to Rick James. And like any drug, the more you get, the more you need.

I guess if the pandemic did one thing, it got me out of some old “writing habits” that were really just ways for me to keep chasing the momentum dragon. And it gave me the room to start building new habits and chase different dragons.