You haven’t seen me in a minute – or more accurately, six weeks. That seems like a long time, but it felt like the briefest of moments. Thank you to those of you who checked in with me (in a very low-key, very no pressure kind of way) just to say you missed hearing – or rather, reading – my voice each week. I was touched. And for those of you who gave me a little space, also thank you. I needed both.
In my long-ago days in corporate communications, I’d write and edit as I went. Always on a deadline, I knew the formula for employee communications and regularly delivered first drafts ready for client or executive approval. When I started writing essays for Substack, I automatically used the same process.
I used the same iterative process for the first 20,000 words of my memoir until I ran into an impenetrable – think concrete slab – wall. I didn’t know how to keep going, what my ending would be or how to get there.
I was lost.
I asked for help. Not to any one person in particular, but more in general to the force that is driving my creativity. I was still in the midst of The Artist’s Way, which supports the idea that all creativity is God*-given (*higher power).
And wouldn’t you know it? Help arrived in the form of Novel November.
Some of you may remember it as NaNoWriMo. ProWritingAid filled the gap of the now defunct NaNoWriMo with the free Novel November (NovNov). NovNov encourages novelists to write their first draft of 50,000 words over 30 days with author-driven workshops, daily writing sprints and a community stretching around the globe. Since memoirs use the same structure as novels, I signed up, ready for inspiration, structure and accountability.
The daily Zoom sprints used the Pomodoro method of focused work for 25 minutes and then a 5 minute break to get up, trot to the restroom, grab a water refill and check the silenced phone for texts before starting the second 25-minute focused effort without interruption. Somehow writing my own content silently alongside hundreds of writers helped my focus, productivity and sense of community. I wasn’t working alone, I was creating silently with hundreds of writers.
In the NovNov workshops, I kept hearing the same message loud and clear: Write a fast first draft – forward progress only. Don’t go back for misspelled words or jumbled thoughts or errors. Keep going. As Dory from Finding Nemo would say, “just keep swimming.”
It’s how professional authors do it. Anne Lamott calls it a “sh#*y first draft.” Stephen King calls it the CFD or “crummy first draft.” I wonder what Jane Austen called her scraps of paper and nub of a pencil. She was known for her fast drafting and multiple revisions. Even The Artist’s Way said to focus on the quantity and let your Higher Power worry about the quality. Someone in a workshop called it “word vomit.” Um, gross.
I led a quality team once upon a time so that hit my forehead like a brick. Quantity, not quality? Blasphemous!
All resistance showed up. My brain didn’t make it easy for me.
I didn’t want to write ugly. I hated the squiggly lines in my Word doc, telling me something is misspelled or awkward. I like playing with the words and phrases until they make sense to me. I thought I was a slow and somewhat spare writer. Of course I was! I was writing and editing at the same time.
I didn’t want to change. I have a long history of words carefully captured in notebooks, typewriters, college computer labs and now a laptop. No, thank you.
But…
Who am I to argue with the legend of Stephen King? I wouldn’t dare contradict the genius of Jane Austen. I’ve never written a book. And I was STUCK behind that concrete wall.
Have you ever realized that while you’re pretty good at something, you can get to a point where that habit, belief or process no longer serves your path forward? Resistance doesn’t help. The only way through is to painstakingly confront your belief or approach and just try the darn thing differently.
It worked. In writing fast, I found my way forward, out of the inertia and into new territory. I found a middle. In a sudden flash on a rainy Wednesday, I even found an ending. I discovered I can be a prolific writer.
My fear and self-doubt couldn’t keep up with the speed I was writing. They couldn’t interrupt me with worst case scenarios or second-guessing. They were back on the first 500 words, while I barreled forward into the thousands. I was free.
The freedom from those inner voices became the reward. I enjoyed ending a sprint with completed pages. I found myself seeking additional sprints, wanting to drive fast and loose with my memories.
Some days I wrote 1,000 words, a few days I wrote more than 2,000. I finished my entire planned outline just a week after I started. I just kept writing – my memories of Iowa on a summer day, my move to Texas at 15, learning to drive on the four-lane interstates with Indy 500 wannabes, remembering the dry August heat stealing my breath and drying my sweat before it could bead up on my skin.
On the last day I squeaked out only 565 nouns, verbs and adjectives, bored with my own voice and satisfied that I already surpassed the goal – 50,709 clunky, messy, in-need-of-a-makeover words. When added to what I had already written, I had enough words for an actual book.
No one will see the first draft. It is mine alone. It is a baby, not ready for judgmental eyes. It gets to be pampered, wooed, coaxed into a logical, passable second draft. I am looking forward to playing with those messy words, arranging them, changing them, finding the truth in phrases and sentences, even deleting them with the heartlessness I can definitely manage.
December should be a treat. And all because I admitted I needed to change. I’m not too old to write a book, but it does require a willingness to change, acceptance that I’m a beginner and the discomfort of doing familiar things in new ways. Oof, isn’t that tough, but oh so worth it.
Thanks for your patience while I was writing my way through my wilderness. I am ever so thankful for your presence and encouragement.
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