“Love all God’s creation, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of light. Love the animals, love the plants, love each separate thing. If thou love each thing thou wilt perceive the mystery of God in all; and when once thou perceive this, thou wilt thenceforward grow every day to a fuller understanding of it: until thou come at last to love the whole world with a love that will then be all-embracing and universal.”
-Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Happy Easter! Christ is Risen!
Hi all — after a slightly-longer-than-Lenten hiatus, I am at last back on Substack!
I’m super happy to be here again, though you might notice a few changes, between the introduction of paid subscriptions (just paywalling the archive, nothing crazy, you’ll still get all new posts) and a bit more of an intentional posting schedule going forward. For more about that, feel free to make your way over to my shiny new About page.
In any case, taking some time off from Substack after finishing up an absolute marathon of a NaNoWriMo at the end of 2023 was immensely helpful with respect to establishing better life habits, making writing progress, enjoying some lovely quiet of mind, and clarifying what I’d really like this Substack to be. It was great.
Beyond that, exciting things are to come, and I hope you can enjoy all that too!
All that being said, onto business. Going forward, on the first Friday of every month, I will have some kind of writing update for you all, and without further ado, let’s get straight into that!
From The Writer’s Desk, April 2024 Edition
AKA. What Now?
Truly, the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024 have been immensely different from each other writing-wise. I was about to say they “could not have been more different,” but that would be untrue. There are some similarities for sure. I’ve still been writing close to daily, if nothing else taking notes of ideas. The writing playlist I began to use late last year (see one album from it below), I still use constantly — to the point where I’ve honestly conditioned myself like Pavlov’s dog to start writing whenever I hear the music.1 And, yeah, I’m still writing the same book, playing puppet master with the same characters, daydreaming about the same dragons. It’s all in good fun.
But there have been two really big differences. Speed, and sharing. The second is a bigger deal, but we’ll start with the first.
Now, I’ve had fluctuations in writing pace before. I often tend to write in spurts, and even though I aim for a degree of consistency nowadays, I think that general trend will remain. But it’s always odd coming out of a really intense writing phase. November and December 2023, and to a lesser degree the months leading up to them, were truly the most intense writing phase of my life.2 I’m still reeling a little bit from the experience, particularly because it was quite the way to send off the end of the draft. I may never do something like that again, but goodness gracious was it satisfying.
However, I knew even then that I would not continue to write at that pace. First of all, I’m not sure if I have the capacity to do that. But even if I did, as great as it was as an accomplishment (and it’s actually not a dumpster fire of a draft thank goodness), the very act of writing in that way proved to me that I do not desire to write in that way every day. I have other familial and spiritual and physical and social and mental concerns to tend to. Pushing myself to write a new chapter daily pushes all of that aside, and that’s no good! I want to write, but I want to live well while I do it. Beyond that, I don’t want to get so caught up with the idea of writing and publishing quickly that I end up degrading the quality of my work.
So… I went into 2024 knowing that I wanted to write more slowly in hopes of establishing more sustainable, long term rhythms of work and life.
But, to be frank, coming out of that, it’s weird to write slowly.
Even though I tell myself not to, I can’t help but compare.
Especially because I have been working even more slowly than anticipated. “Working” right now primarily means revisions on my 2023 draft. Aaaand… I kind of assumed I’d be able to review 4-5 chapters a week, even a chapter a day? I just need to read and tweak. One or two baby naps (because yes I do often measure my time in such increments, variable though they may be) should do the trick for each chapter, right? Probably?
Yeah. No.
Right now, it’s a really good week if I can get through two chapters’ worth of revision. One is more common. And honestly, there have been weeks where I haven’t gotten through even one. I’ve gone from writing nearly at a rate of a chapter a day to sometimes needing over a week to finish a chapter, and while not unreasonable, that’s a little bit… uncomfortable, I suppose.
And honestly, it makes sense. Revision is more detail-oriented, and you’ve kind of got to read things several times over when you’re trying to refine them. Whereas late last year, I had the true word vomit approach — it was structured and coherent because I had a solid plan in place, but it was impulsive and stream of consciousness with respect to the details. Then, this year, with regards to the revising work itself, there have also been a few stretches that needed to be almost totally redone, which is a very involved process that includes both writing new scenes and recontextualizing old ones.
This is just a very different kind of writing, much more particular and deliberate. So, again, it makes sense that it's taking more time. But it just feels odd.
The sense of comparison is uncomfortable, but, even so, I actually really enjoy revising. It’s when things become good! I like problem solving, turning my ideas into something worth reading. I simply suppose that going through that process for an entire novel is just something very new to me. Surely it shows a touch of naivete that I thought it would be smooth and quick… but hey, I’m happy with how it’s coming together, even if it’s taking more time than I thought it would, and that’s what counts.
The bigger thing is that I’m sharing my book for the first time.
More or less.
I threw ideas at a wall with my sister a lot when we were younger, so she still knows quite a bit. My husband’s also gotten the big picture sketch of the story along with some early chapters of an older draft. And some friends and family have heard character names and vague ideas in passing.
But actually giving someone who knows next to nothing about the story each chapter in its entirety once I revise it? To just… like, read it in full? That’s an entirely different thing.
I’ve got a small group of five alpha readers at the moment (who include the aforementioned husband and sister)… and they’re reading it??? Like… it’s completely gone from me and in another’s hands?
Every once in a while if I happen to be in the same room as one of them when they have the document up on their screen, I’m torn between wanting to run away and never look them in the eye again and wanting to interrogate them mercilessly about their every thought and impression regarding the story.
It is a bizarre experience, truly.
Humbling, both in that someone would take the time to care to read and in that imperfections in your precious story need to be pointed out. But it’s been more encouraging than anything else, thankfully. It’s hard to explain the feeling of joy when someone for the first time tells you which of your characters is their favorite or what piqued their interest with one line or another with respect to what’s going to come next. And to find out, that at least so far, according to them, it’s largely working.
It just makes it all so much more real.
Because you can live — I have lived — in a totally silent, private world of your imagination for a very long time. There can be a tremendous freedom there. I think a story can become very authentic in an environment so free of outside pressure like that. It’s good for the time. But at the end of the day… stories are meant to be shared. They take on new life, life outside of you, when you share them. You develop new forms of connection and communion with the people you share them with when you share them. Your self-perception changes when you share them — you really did write a book.
And that’s just really cool.
So. Anyway. That’s my update. How have your creative endeavors been going recently?
Of any kind, of course — novels or Substacks or drawing or basket weaving, whatever, I’d love to hear it! Any successes or setbacks? Differences between late 2023 expectations and early 2024 realities? Funny stories?
Let me know down in the comments!
But that’s all for today! Thank you all for reading as always! God bless you, I’ll be praying for you, and I hope you have a lovely week!
-Jess
Truly the greatest writing trick I have ever learned. Where once it took me two hours to get into a writing session, it now takes me two minutes. Which is good, because I don’t have two hours to get into things. My son’s nap is 2-3 hours long, and that’s the only consistent time I have to write. I simply need to go.
And yes that includes the time I wrote the final half of my undergraduate thesis in the month before it was due. I in fact like to make a habit of pushing deadlines. Trying it work on it, but I have yet to discover the secret solution. And for now, what works works.
I really enjoyed writing this, thank you. It sounds like you're finding a healthy balance between your writing and the rest of your life, which is something I've certainly struggled with at times. I find that achieving the right pace for my writing is a key factor in how well the story unfolds. Currently, I aim for 1500 words a day, but I'm thinking I might revise that down a little to take a bit more care! Thanks again for a great article