Drawing from the Well
This week I made a lot of progress on Character Profiles, finishing all the characters introduced in Book I and starting those new in Book II. Additionally, I tweaked my plan for NaNoWriMo, but we’ll get into that below. For now, still working through the extensive list of characters I know I’ll need for Book III. More to come…
9/24 Major Character Profiles Complete
0/89 Side Character Profiles Complete
Filling the Well
Although writing went well, reading not as much. It was a busy week personally so I only made more progress on my existing reads: Stormsong, Think and Grow Rich, and Vortex Visions. I’m on the edge of finishing VV and might finish it tonight. Until then, we are still
83/100 for #ProjectBookworm2021
Well Chat
I know the title of this blog is a little shocking. It’s rare that you hear anyone talk about lowering your standards or expectations. I’m here to say that, sometimes, that’s exactly what you need to do.
High standards can inspire us to work harder and strive for better. Increasingly high standards, however, start to scratch the sky. Trying to meet or surpass them risks transmogrifying us into the mythological Icarus flying too close to the sun. Beating our best, reaching new heights, comes with stress. It’s a natural, necessary response. The higher the bar to clear, the higher the stress. Again, it’s natural.
But what happens when the goal gets too high, bringing the stress with it? Eventually, something has to give and it’s either going to be the stressor or the stressed. In today’s America, it tends to be the stressed. People snap more often than we would like these days. The side effect of that is that everything stops. Recovering from being the one that gives in takes time and effort, all of which act as a drain on your productivity.
Yeah, I know it’s a lot of metaphors and even sounds contradictory.
If you want to maintain consistent productivity, which is the key to long-term success, it’s better to take a brief dip in productivity through a couple of light days or a single zero-productivity day rather than a drastic chasm, large in both depth and breadth. Therefore it’s better to take a day off rather than snap.
The other aspect of it is lowering the goal floor. You can still dream to the moon, but set up the minimum bar for success lower. Create stepped successes. A series of goals in increasing difficulty creates safe landing zones. If you miss the highest goal, you’ll have already completed at least one, if not multiple other, goals. That feeds the reward centers of your brain as long as you tell yourself it’s okay to miss a goal as long as you meet at least one. Give yourself some grace.
That’s what I’ve done with NaNoWriMo this year. The goal, to win, requires 50,000 words. I told myself that meant I had to have everything done, all the dominos set, before November 1. All the scenes and sequences had to be mapped out. All the characters had to be profiled. If ALL the preparatory work wasn’t done, I couldn’t begin. Were I starting whenever I was ready, I could do that. NaNo changed that. The imposition of an arbitrary start date created stress. I had to figure out how to actually do this. November 1 looming made me reevaluate things. I realized I don’t have to have it all ready.
Just enough.
This book, in its first draft, will likely be well over 200,000 words, possibly over 250,000. NaNo only requires 50,000. That means I can complete NaNoWriMo without completing the novel. That means that all the dominos DON’T have to be set before I begin because I don’t have to finish. I just have to have enough to get 50k down. And I do. Even with only 9 profiles done, I can get started. For the next six days, I will continue working on character profiles, carving more dominos that I can set up for later. Once we hit 11/1, though, I’ll shift gears.
And it will be on.
That’s how I lowered my standards and, with them, my anxiety. That’s how I set the stage for NaNoWriMo 2021. And that’s how I’m going to win.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG