Oh, I was reading an article earlier this evening during the Heisman Ceremony "7 Writing Lessons Learned in 2020" by K.M. Weiland. It really resonated with me. Anyone learn any lessons this year that stick out? I found myself nodding along with most of it. Inspiration was probably the big one for me. Like once I gave into the smallest inspiration, I suddenly went from writing 0 words a year (ho hum emails do not count, obviously) to writing thousands in a few months. I also think that keeping my writing as my little project for a few months really helped rebolster my confidence that I actually had a story to tell and not just some things to get out of my head.
Thanks for the recommendation! I looked up the article and enjoyed reading it. Here's a link if anyone else wants to read it: https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/7-writing-lessons-learned-in-2020/
The lessons of hers that I related most to when looking back at 2020 were the first two, "Don't be so serious" and "Remember why you're here." I spent the first part of last year finishing up a series of 20 blogs that looked back on the last 20 years of my fanfic writing for my site's anniversary. I reread some of my old stories, not through a writer's or editor's lens, but simply through a reader's lens, and that was really fun. It definitely reminded me why I still enjoy writing fanfic and how much I've grown as a writer over the years.
As for not being so serious, I wrote three stories last year, and they were all fun in their own way. I started the year finishing The Year Without a Pandaskunk, which was pure silliness. Then I moved on to finally finishing the BSB/ER crossover I've been working on sporadically since like 2012. That one was much more serious in terms of subject matter, but still fun for me because of how much I love ER and medical drama. And then I started The Road to Bethlehem, which has also been fun because it's a genre of story I haven't written in a long time. Sometimes I get bogged down in what's realistic or not, and I shoot down my own ideas because "that's not believable" or "that would never happen in real life." I didn't do that with this story. I figured, in a story set in 2020, anything can happen, and I went with what I wanted to write, focusing more on making it entertaining than making it believable.
I also like what she had to say about giving yourself permission to NOT write and how writing can include a lot of other things besides actually adding sentences to your story. That makes me feel better about my day today. I wanted to be productive on my last day of break before my bubble bursts, but I only wrote three sentences of my story. I wasn't feeling it, so instead of trying to force it, I opened my outline for that Brian story I mentioned last night and added to that. And I'm okay with that. If and when I try to write that story, the hour or so I spent on planning it will pay off.
I also really appreciated that she said "The fact that [being willing not to write] scares the spit out of me tells me it's probably exactly the right step forward." I think not writing and coming back has given me an appreciation for it that I didn't used to have when it was just "something I always did."
I feel this way too. I went through a rough patch in 2015-2016 when I was finishing my master's program and struggling to find the time and energy to write fanfic. I had a novel in the works that I had started posting in 2014, and I constantly felt guilty about not updating it more often. I did eventually finish it in 2017, but after that, I struggled to settle in to another writing project. I posted next to nothing in 2018. But toward the end of that year, I finally got going on another novel, which I worked on consistently in 2019 until it was done, and that brought back my love of writing fiction. Not being able to write (first because of school, then because of a lack of focus/inspiration) definitely made me appreciate it more when I was finally able to do it again. I've been writing pretty consistently ever since and have finished four stories in that time, which is really good for me.
The last thing that came to mind with what I've learned is to be more concise. Those four stories I've finished in the last two years range in length from 10-50 chapters, nothing like the four 80-200 chapter epics I wrote prior to my little break. Part of that is just the nature of the plots, taking place over a matter of days or weeks instead of months or years, but I'd like to think I've also learned to be less wordy and better at pacing my plots so that every scene moves the story forward and there's no pointless fluff or filler. And I'm sure hanging on to chapters longer and editing more before I post them helps too.
That was a long post, ironically LOL, but I enjoyed the article and question.
