Day 24

Today I did the hard thing: I sat down at the keyboard.

You might notice I didn't post yesterday. That's partly because I've been sick, but also because I got extremely discouraged and didn't write anything. I started to wonder if what I was writing was even valuable or worth it. If the crappy first draft I've been writing will even be salvageable.

After yesterday, it would've been easy not to sit down and write. I wouldn't have even had to give up. I could've just told myself I was taking a break, waiting until I felt better. But the biggest thing I learned from writing my practice novel last year is that the only thing that matters is butt in chair. Fingers on keyboard. Everything else is excuses.

And while my word count didn't go up very much (actually, I think I'm cutting a large chunk T_T), I have a few new pages in my notebook and a new ending to my book. Because I learned a few other things while writing my practice novel, one of which was that occasionally it's okay, even necessary, to pull back and look at the big picture. I spent most of today just writing down an outline of everything I've written up till now, and it helped clarify things. I also just stream-of-consciousness'd all over my notebook, posing questions, naming frustrations, following trains of thought, and it helped me realize that the ending I had in mind was completely incompatible with the character arc my main character is undergoing. Both might change again before this is all over. But right now they mesh with each other a lot better than they did yesterday.

This is why I keep this blog, by the way. Because while these lessons from my practice novel are still fresh in my mind now, they might not be next year, or five years from now. I intended to keep a progress journal for my practice novel right from the beginning, because I knew I was going to learn a lot and I wanted to make sure I remembered everything I learned. I didn't, but I'm keeping this one now, and I hope I can look back on this during my next slump and remember that I came out of it, and not only did I come out of it, but I came out of it, like, in a day. 

Because I also learned this from my practice novel: when you get your butt in the chair and your fingers on the keyboard every single day, these mountains show themselves for molehills pretty quickly.