I have so much to say about today’s writing session.
Today was one of those that made me feel like I’ve made a breakthrough in my knowledge of myself and how I function. (Sometimes I make the same breakthrough more than once, but every time it feels like a total mind blowing revelation.)
First of all I can’t hold back from announcing that I reached 30.000 words today! That’s a goal I had been working towards forever, and today is the first time I finally made it. I know that thirty-thousand words is still far from being a full novel, but for me this is a huge milestone and I am very proud of myself.
The other thing I wanted to say is that I finally realized that I’ve been struggling lately, writing-wise. These past few days I wrote less, and I either cut my writing sessions short, or I let myself fall into the trap of researching and worldbuilding.
I call it a trap, even though I know that, on their own, these two activities aren’t bad. In fact both are actually helpful and necessary in order to write a complete novel. But I also know that when I am in a phase during which I question myself and my writing, which has been the case lately, I have a tendency to use research and worldbuilding as an escape.
It’s something that makes me feel like I’m making progress, when in reality all that progress stays virtual because I’m not writing, and therefore I’m not advancing the story.
I don’t always notice when I fall into this trap, and sometimes I actually talk myself into believing that the research I’m doing is helping me. Don’t get me wrong, on many occasions, a quick research has proven to be very helpful, but when it takes over my writing session, and I end up spending two or three days only researching instead of writing, that means I’m doing it wrong and I’ve fallen into the trap.
My goal for now is to write and get the story out, but I don’t want to get held up by technicalities, or because I want it to be perfect right away. For now the goal is just to write and get the whole story out, no matter the errors or incoherencies (I heard some people call it the “vomit draft”). Later, once it’s all there, then I can spend time researching and improving everything. But if I want my writing to be perfect from the start, I know that my story will not go very far, because I will fall into an endless spiral of researching, editing, rewriting, etc.
This is what I reminded myself of today. Sometimes it’s hard to allow myself to write badly, or incoherently. But sometimes that’s what I need in order to get started. The first couple paragraphs of today weren’t great, but once I wrote them down (bad as they were), my fingers began flying on my keyboard, and the rest of the story just kept coming.
In a way, I guess that today I should thank myself for allowing me to write badly, because that’s what made me reach 30.000 words.