This week, I've been super-inspired by a friend who resolved to finish the first draft of her novel by April 1st and actually did it. As someone who has made and broken many a creative promise to myself, I have enormous respect and admiration for this incredible feat, which involved writing 50,000+ words in under a month. I think I speak for all of us when I say: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Obviously, I was moved to renew my efforts on my current WIP, which I have worked on with profound inconsistency for the past couple years. To keep myself accountable, I'm sharing with all of you my goal to finish my first draft on or before June 1, 2022. I'm 30k words in, and I'd feel good/smug/over-the-moon about a first draft between 75-80k words. If you have a creative project that's been languishing/developing in fits and starts, I invite you to join me in setting a June 1 deadline and fighting like hell to make it. Maybe you, too, have a novel in the works. Maybe your house needs to be deep-cleaned and reorganized. Maybe you're throwing pots or crocheting a complex blanket or getting the garden in before it's too late. Whatever shape your creativity takes, I want you to lean in for the next two months and make something happen.One of my friend's especially efficacious strategies for upping creative productivity is finding a sprint buddy. Writing "sprints" are short periods of intense work with one or more accountability partners doing their work at the same time. My friend and I shared a sprint just the other day, which basically looks like us talking on FaceTime for five minutes (to articulate what we'll be working on), then muting one another for a predetermined period of time while we work, then briefly reconvening to share our progress. If you don't have a writing partner in your life, you can usually find someone sprinting at any hour of the day on Twitter (search #writingsprint or "writing sprint"). Every day, I remind myself that drafts happen one word at a time. If I have five minutes to spare between finishing one task and starting another, I try to plunk out a single sentence. Throughout the day, my words add up. Of course, sustained periods of writing feel better and often yield more desirable results -- but I'm working hard to turn off my editing brain and accept that all words are good words if they lead to a complete draft. I happen to be a phenomenal editor (beep beep! just tooting my own horn, don't mind me), but I can't flex those skills unless I give myself a completed draft to revise/rip to shreds/set on fire. I've shared my struggles with perfectionism in previous issues of this newsletter, and to be sure, I'm facing down those tendencies every time I sit down to write. While some of my pursuit of the "perfect" word or turn of phrase for every sentence is an occupational hazard, a large part stems from my baseline discomfort with anything that doesn't conform to my unreasonably high standards. In other words, I'd like to write the final draft first -- a yen I imagine many of you share. Of course, we all know this is impossible, but I stubbornly cling to the myth of perfection even as I recognize its toxicity. Working on it! Working through it! Facing it head-on as I endeavor to finish this draft! If you're accepting my challenge and joining me on this journey to finish a creative project by June 1, please take a moment to reply to this newsletter and let me know what you're working on. I can't be a bona fide accountability partner to all 500+ readers of this humble publication, but I'll be checking in with you in my intros each week and cheering you on from my corner of the Internet. We lose nothing by trying, but gain nothing if we don't. Ready to make something happen?So am I.xRF
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Reading & Writing With Rebecca: Issue 51
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This week, I've been super-inspired by a friend who resolved to finish the first draft of her novel by April 1st and actually did it. As someone who has made and broken many a creative promise to myself, I have enormous respect and admiration for this incredible feat, which involved writing 50,000+ words in under a month. I think I speak for all of us when I say: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Obviously, I was moved to renew my efforts on my current WIP, which I have worked on with profound inconsistency for the past couple years. To keep myself accountable, I'm sharing with all of you my goal to finish my first draft on or before June 1, 2022. I'm 30k words in, and I'd feel good/smug/over-the-moon about a first draft between 75-80k words. If you have a creative project that's been languishing/developing in fits and starts, I invite you to join me in setting a June 1 deadline and fighting like hell to make it. Maybe you, too, have a novel in the works. Maybe your house needs to be deep-cleaned and reorganized. Maybe you're throwing pots or crocheting a complex blanket or getting the garden in before it's too late. Whatever shape your creativity takes, I want you to lean in for the next two months and make something happen.One of my friend's especially efficacious strategies for upping creative productivity is finding a sprint buddy. Writing "sprints" are short periods of intense work with one or more accountability partners doing their work at the same time. My friend and I shared a sprint just the other day, which basically looks like us talking on FaceTime for five minutes (to articulate what we'll be working on), then muting one another for a predetermined period of time while we work, then briefly reconvening to share our progress. If you don't have a writing partner in your life, you can usually find someone sprinting at any hour of the day on Twitter (search #writingsprint or "writing sprint"). Every day, I remind myself that drafts happen one word at a time. If I have five minutes to spare between finishing one task and starting another, I try to plunk out a single sentence. Throughout the day, my words add up. Of course, sustained periods of writing feel better and often yield more desirable results -- but I'm working hard to turn off my editing brain and accept that all words are good words if they lead to a complete draft. I happen to be a phenomenal editor (beep beep! just tooting my own horn, don't mind me), but I can't flex those skills unless I give myself a completed draft to revise/rip to shreds/set on fire. I've shared my struggles with perfectionism in previous issues of this newsletter, and to be sure, I'm facing down those tendencies every time I sit down to write. While some of my pursuit of the "perfect" word or turn of phrase for every sentence is an occupational hazard, a large part stems from my baseline discomfort with anything that doesn't conform to my unreasonably high standards. In other words, I'd like to write the final draft first -- a yen I imagine many of you share. Of course, we all know this is impossible, but I stubbornly cling to the myth of perfection even as I recognize its toxicity. Working on it! Working through it! Facing it head-on as I endeavor to finish this draft! If you're accepting my challenge and joining me on this journey to finish a creative project by June 1, please take a moment to reply to this newsletter and let me know what you're working on. I can't be a bona fide accountability partner to all 500+ readers of this humble publication, but I'll be checking in with you in my intros each week and cheering you on from my corner of the Internet. We lose nothing by trying, but gain nothing if we don't. Ready to make something happen?So am I.xRF