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

[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.