Writing A Book pt.2

Two weeks ago I wrote about my process with writing my book and this week I’d like to continue to tell you about it. 

I have finally found my grove, gotten into the swing of the pacing really well and will most likely have this draft of the book done in the next two weeks; if I don’t get stumped. I find it so exciting to almost be done this draft. As I said last time this draft isn’t really a first draft, I didn’t really “write” per say, more so just wrote the plot all down from start to finish. Which so far has worked out perfectly for how my brain works in all its quirks. 

Sometimes I can fall into the trap of comparing and then I get discouraged, because of how long its taking me to write this book. I don’t always like going slow, sometimes I get super impatient and instead of actually writing I just sit there and sulk, which does not help with the slowness. But as I said I finally found my grove, and do you know why it changed? I had compassion and permission. 

I had compassion for myself, in that this is the first book I’ve ever written and it took me time just to understand how to do the planning. I had to figure out how to write for a book and story rather than essay style or my creative writing and poetry. It’s all very different and then on top of that I had to learn how to have balance in my life and learn to swap between my different writing styles. In just the writing portion of my life alone, it was a lot to handle. But when I let the pressure off and started to have fun and be gentle with myself, it was like being set free. It was persevering in the pursuit of self compassion, and it was oh so worth it. 

I gave myself permission to be messy and unorganized and fail. Because writing a book is a new thing for me, and its no small thing. Really all and all its quite the challenge, but that’s part of the fun for me. So long as I continue to see it as fun. I said in a story on Instagram that I have 4 documents and a whole notebook separate from my main draft, and its true. One for world building details, one for character notes, and two for stuff I can’t give away yet. It’s a lot of information to keep track of for myself, and because its all fiction there’s no Google-ing if I forget a detail. So I gave myself permission to write every little detail and thought down, in as many documents and notebooks as I needed, and now I forget less. 

So some days I’m sad that its not happening faster, but today and all this week, I was just glad and proud that it was happening at all. It is immensely gratifying to see all my hard work start to pay off. Now I still have to write the whole thing for real, with dialogue and character voice and descriptions, but now I know the plot like the back of my hand. Which is to say I know it pretty well but occasionally I gain a new freckle. It really feels like the hardest part is behind me and now I just get to let the river take me.

I am in great anticipation for the day when I have finally published this book. I can’t say when I think that will be, I have absolutely no clue, but when the day comes I’m sure I’ll be singing from rooftops. Thanks for coming along the journey, I’m happy to have you, and I’ll be back next week for more chats about the creative process! Happy creating!