GYWO 2022 and How I Fucked Up

[seventhe]

no, this is not the post about job search depression. not yet.

I participate in Get Your Words Out every year as something that motivates me to make words, much like NaNoWriMo -- it isn't necessarily about "winning" either, but it's about having a reason to track words, which then becomes having a reason to write. In 2020 or 2021, I forget which, I managed to write somewhere near 350,000 words. What a fuckin' banger. A lot of it was Old Vines, and some of it was work words, and all of it was fun as hell.

The thing I noticed at the end of the year, however, was that my writing was just inconsistent -- I was carrying myself towards that goal with days where I wrote 5000, 7000 words in one day, and then not writing for the next 4 days in a row. So if I could get my ASS to the COMPUTER to do the THING, i usually could get a significant number of words done. So let's focus on that, sez my brain, and we'll be a super-writer.

2022 Sev said well, hey, there's a habit pledge for GYWO, so: I took it, with the rather extreme idea of writing 240 days out of the year. that's like 4-5 days a week. But hey! It isn't wordcount! Although I still fucking decided I was going to try to write 300,000 words. just 300K. Not 350K. lol. I'm stupid.

Then at the beginning of 2022 I lost my content writing job - more like, they hired someone full-time and let all the contractors go without warning, yes, I'm still mad - and therefore lost one of the major impetus for me actually sitting down at the computer to write. Plus, I'd been counting work words as part of the yearly target -- which I think is fuckin fair when you write for a living, yeah?, so.

And then as I realized other work had also dried up and I was going to have to start major job hunting - and then the experience of that job hunting - there was a depression zone where I absolutely dried up on words. Like, nearly completely. Most of my WIPs just kind of hung in space, and I had to start an entirely new Good Omens fic (forth the fifth) to have anything going on, and THEN it was only a super-hyperfixation on Detroit: Become Human that really pulled me out of the wordslump and back into writing things. Getting back to the WIPs has been challenging.

And with my new job, there aren't wordcounts I can tally towards anything -- I'm writing and editing at the same time, and sometimes working on things like how the fuck do we cite this and a surprising amount of meetings, and the moral of this story is that I'm unlikely to make either my formal or informal GYWO target this year -- which again, I don't do it for the win, but boy howdy did I misjudge this year.

And what have I learnt about my writing process this year? Since that was the entire point of trying a new target and a new approach? Well, fuck, I'm not sure I've learnt anything, except that it's more fun to write when people are directly cheering you on, which isn't anything new. As of today I've written about 150K, and 135 days out of the year. I am 69 days behind where I should be and there are like. Idk. 70 days left in the year? So obviously I'm not gonna make it lol.

Anyway this has been a long ramble about things that are only important in my head, with no real conclusion. Clearly I am a professional! And I need to get back to actual work!

Stay tuned for NaNoWriMo, where I try to get my 3 FTH fics out in a month while still updating at least 3 WIPs! oh my god, why am i like this? I'm so stupid?

Talk to me about your 2022 writing (or creating in general, if you're a creator but not a writer!). How did you do. How dumb am I. It is a mystery!

Comments

[althea_valara]

...but is it really dumb to try something new? It sounded like you had valid reasons for believing these goals would work, but then Life Happened and got in the way. You've learned something and that's not a bad thing!

Talk to me about your 2022 writing (or creating in general, if you're a creator but not a writer!). How did you do.

This caused me to go look at my Yearly Challenge on Ravelry. At the start of the year, I said I wanted to make 36 things. I've made far more in the past, but have been trending down the past few years as I have been working on bigger projects, plus I'm aging and my hands need more breaks now. As of today, I have made.... 36 things this year! O_O I had no idea I was so close to my goal, let alone met it! But then again, at the start of this year I had NO IDEA I was going to do a craft fair this year, and that got me making more, smaller things which add up fast.

My big goal for the remainder of this year, craft-wise, is to finish my Peppermint Swirl crocheted blanket, which looks like this. I've made some good progress already but need to make sure I work on it a lot, at the very least, every other day.

Writing-wise... well, it's just been okay this year. I don't write much fic, but I had plans to do a bingo line on one of my genprompt_bingo cards, and that hasn't happened. But! I did write A Softer Barb for the FF Kiss Battle, and that is STILL getting kudos on AO3 so I'm pretty pleased.

[seventhe]

your crafting updates are always fun to read! i have so many knitting projects going on and have been far too scatterbrained to focus on any of them, but i really should start sharing them. 36 projects is impressive!

and you're right re: the writing, it was just more like wow, Sev, why :P

[enemytosleep]

If it helps: in 2022 I signed up for two art projects and dropped from both of them at the first check ins. \o/ I did manage a few doodle-level pieces for part of an anime rewatch party (and then later a more polished piece, though even that ended up being much rougher than my usual style).

I also wrote a 700 word snippet this week in response to one of my friend's multichapter fics, which I think is the first fic I've posted since the Kiss Battle. It's been a tough year in creativity here. I hope the job stuff has been figured out in the mean time at least!

[seventhe]

sorry it's been a tough year, but also i'm very sympathetic -- what HAS this year been, anyway????

[thenicochan]

No stones thrown here. I've always found making the time to write extremely difficult. The 9-5 grind wears me out, then there's the relationship, the social obligations, the (ugh) Adult Obligations and by the time I could sit and write it's usually between that or video games or, like, occasionally sleeping. Plus, something's been up with my hands for a year or two and the joints in my fingers hurrttt.

I find writing 'fic to be so much easier than writing original fiction, at least. I've been doing a bit of writing here and there, and lately the desire has been strong. My life has been defined as "the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak" when it comes to writing.

So, yeah. Basically no process to speak of. I have a list of fic ideas, a handful of WIPs, and then like seven original story ideas. Mostly I have notes. Notes and notes and notes. Storyboarding, character writing, world building, outline after outline... my brain loves the preparation process and the editing process, but that middle part where you first commit narrative to page is a big unnngaaahhhhh for me.

[seventhe]

i also find fanfic easier than original work, although i've been trying (and failing) to make more space for original stuff for like two years now. it's hard! and like you I have tons of ideas aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa and i can even jump into them, but the entire "follow through and finish a project" is like what my ADHD cant hear you

[p_cocincinus]

I think trying things and failing at them is at least as important as trying things and succeeding at them, if not more. At least, that's what I've been working really hard to model for the Small Person In My House, who is somehow... really persistent at things and usually is fine if she doesn't master something right away?

The other thing is that you made decisions on what you were going to accomplish based on what was happening in your life at the time, and then things changed! As they do! Does that mean you failed, or does it mean you revealed the fundamental flaw in huge long-term goals that you can't tweak after they're set? Or maybe it's just time to shift your expectations - there are approximately 70 days in the year; pick a time during your day (at lunch? in the evening after dinner? right before you get ready for bed?) and sit down. Write one sentence. If turning on your computer is too much effort, write it on your phone, or keep a journal open on your desk. One sentence is the goal. If you can't do more than that? There, you're done, you've written today. If you write a second sentence, or a hundred words, or 5000 words? BONUS WORDS. Either way there is a success. And if it's about creating a habit, or seeing what happens if you force yourself to sit down and do it every day, you have done the thing, and maybe you write one sentence four days in a row and you write 5000 words on the fifth, and now you know what a reasonable level of writing productivity is with your new job and your chronic illness.

Or, you know, decide this isn't important and let go of the guilt. That's also a success.

[seventhe]

you're right in that it's a lesson many members of my family could take to heart, lol.

honestly, i have just recently tried the "words on the phone" thing, especially during weekends when Actual Husband is here -- I don't want to sit at my computer when it's our weekend time, but that doesn't mean I can't doodle in a few sentences on my mobile while we watch whatever show we're working through at that time. it seems silly for me to have waited so long but, well, i'm silly? my WIPs are in GDocs or Scrivener which makes mobile updating easy enough that it might help me out after all.

[icywind]

I've had similar thoughts each time I've gone for the habit pledge - though this year I also took it because I really just need to set up a better writing routine in general since everything for me in regards to that has been hell for the last few years. It hasn't worked, though this year I might make the pledge (I took the lower of the two in the middle for habit pledges). I suppose the good part of the habit pledge is you can still count the work stuff as 'having written' even if you can't really get it to work for a word count pledge? It may not be for the win, and I get that like it's not horrible if you don't 'finish' but having missed for a few years in a row now myself, it is totally disheartening.

May your former bosses that let you go without warning step on legos barefoot at least once a week for the rest of time. That's shitty as fuck. Like I've seen it happen a ton and each time I get angrier.

In general my year...well it's sucked, but so have most years since 2016 tbh. I had thought I was in a good place and then my brother passed suddenly so that made things go to hell. The only thing I have worked on fairly steadily is an old fashioned PBEM game - basically I don't want to let my friends down by not posting even if I don't do so as quickly as they or I would like. lol But can I translate that to fic? Not really, not yet. It's been hard to get back into WIPs but it's also been hard to launch new ideas. I'm proud of you for at least getting that new(er?ish?) Good Omens fic at least! And hey, Nano is weird and unpredictable so maybe you will be able to manage everything? Meanwhile I'm still struggling to figure out which idea to work on, I even asked friends if they could comment on the ideas in the hopes that it might make my brain go 'oh yes, you're right that one is the one' or 'no no no, this one is totally better how dare you not pick it' but...that hasn't really worked so far as one person didn't actually say anything useful (I explained as I did above and they said "well just pick the one you're interested in" and I kinda want to ask if she read the directions lol) and the other's comment got a "..." from my brain. lol

Good luck to us both and everyone else attempting!

[lassarina]

+chews affectionately on you+

I also was usually doing GYWO in the "wow let's hit the monthly goal with 3 days of 4k each yeahhhhh I'm a REAL WRITER baby" and took the habit pledge for reasons of "what if I didn't boom/bust."

I'm still mostly boom/bust, but the last couple months I've been noticing that those 100 words I hate do actually add up and not look so shit when I edit the chapter weeks later

so, fuck, I hate it I guess but at least there's words.