#draftdash

[moonshinemagpie]

Colson Whitehead on Making Novels Half-Asleep

I deleted my Substack because, you know, its founders are evil. But this post I wrote last October feels relevant for writers going into the New Year. If it's TLDR, skip down to the "What Meant Everything to Me" heading.

Writing with Chronic Fatigue

I went to the Brooklyn Book Festival last weekend! It was pure magic after so many years of being away from the English-speaking book world. I felt like someone on rations finally allowed to eat my fill, gulping down book panels and author talks.

Colson Whitehead Goes to Church

One of my favorite festival events was a talk with Colson Whitehead in the St. Ann and the Holy Trinity Church. I’m a big fan of hosting cultural events in places of worship.

Colson Whitehead imparted insights that felt like gospel for writers. For those unfamiliar, Whitehead has published nine novels, two nonfiction books, and won two Pulitzer prizes. His book The Underground Railroad is one of my favorites of all time. 

But I did not always like Whitehead’s work. I first had to read his 2003 essay collection The Colossus of New York in university, and it struck me as self-obsessed, MFA-brand New York nonsense. Like, he romanticized Port Authority, the dirty hellhole bus station where, in 2003, I was an elementary schooler waiting nervously for buses that were always late while getting continuously harassed by grown-man casino gamblers dressed like lumberjacks.

I really hated Whitehead’s cheery romanticizations. I wouldn’t pick up another Whitehead book until 2017.

(^just an HD image of Colson Whitehead)

Add Whitehead to the list of authors who wrote some of my most detested 1-star reads before they published the 5-star books of my heart: NK Jemisin, Maggie Stiefvater, Jeff Vandermeer, Colson Whitehead—almost all of my favorite contemporary writers put out messy, uncompelling books before they entered the realm of the virtuoso. 

“I wrote a book called The Intuitionist,” Whitehead said at the church, referring to his debut, “and everyone hated it. So I thought, ‘Okay, I need to do better next time.’”*

It was surreal to hear a writer speak with such open eyes about the trajectory of their own career. Like, I knew I hated Whitehead’s early work. I didn’t realize that he knew it, too.

(It’s worth mentioning that someone who came up to ask Whitehead a question during the Q&A said, “The Intuitionist is my favorite book of all time.”)

But that wasn’t the insight that meant the most to me.

Nothing Is a Joke

Whitehead made joke after joke about chronic fatigue. He never used the words “chronic fatigue”; he never referred to his own health. But he repeatedly described scenarios that resonated with me as someone who lives with fatigue and hypersomnia:

“I spend most of my day just sleeping,” he said. “I mean, coming out here [to the book event]? Really big deal for me. Glad I could make it.”

And everyone laughed, but I don’t think that’s the kind of joke you make unless you mean it. I don’t think it would even dawn on a non-fatigued individual to make it.

What Meant Everything to Me

When Whitehead described his writing process, he said he writes about eight pages a week.

Eight pages a week.

Estimating 250 words/page, that’s 2,000 words per week. Or as he said, “32 pages per month, 320 pages after ten months. I find it adds up.”

He writes, he said, about three days each week. So that’s a little over 600 words each time he sits down to write.

To put this into perspective: If I write fewer than 2,000 words in a single writing session, I don’t consider it to have been a proper session. In less than a month, hundreds of thousands of people will join in NaNoWriMo and try to write at least 1,666 words every day for a month straight.

We live in a world where writers are encouraged to crank it way, way up, sacrificing what writing actually is in an attempt to maximize monetization of a craft that is not easily monetized. Romance writers give advice online for how to write just one draft of a book, no revision needed. Self-publishing writers crank out novella after novella to feed to the Kindle Unlimited machine. Everyone wants to be done with their book in a month. Memes proliferate in which writers scold themselves for daydreaming, plotting, outlining—for doing anything at all that isn’t literal putting words to the page, as if those other things weren’t integral to novel-making.

I thought I was immune to that hustle-and-grind mindset, because I know what writing a book actually entails for me and I have no intention of cranking out a first-draft story for KDP. 

But I had never once considered giving myself the patient grace that Colson Whitehead shows himself.

“I don’t push myself,” he said. “Writing is hard work. On days when I’m not up to it, I revise instead. Just tinker with my last paragraphs.”

He joked about how, during the pandemic, he had to write his novels while his young son was at home. Whitehead said he usually writes a paragraph or two, and then sleeps for a few hours.

Daddy, why are you always in the dark? his son asked during the lockdown.

It’s part of my process! he joked. But I think he also meant it. 

Novel Advice

He’s not the first writer to give this advice; this isn’t the first time I’ve heard it. Maggie Stiefvater wrote her first book only on Wednesday evenings, raising her children and working the rest of the time. Terry Pratchett wrote 400 words each day before he became a full-time writer.

But these are stories of pre-success, the ways we need to struggle when our creative lives are stuffed into the spare corners of our weeks. And when your week doesn’t have spare corners because you’re barely trudging on as it is, that advice doesn’t feel encouraging.

But Colson Whitehead is already successful. And this is still how he allots his writing time: In low-pressure, long-term, sustainable accumulations. 

2,000 words a week.

I’ve known for a long time that I can no longer wait for healthy, clearheaded days to write. I don’t have them anymore. But it sort of sounds like Colson Whitehead doesn’t have many of them to spare, either, and yet he wrote the most energetic Harlem heist book I could ever want (Harlem Shuffle). He wrote the most literary zombie apocalypse book imaginable (Zone One). He has an oeuvre that brought enough readers to fill church pews, the line to see him wrapping all around the block. And he built this work, according to him, in between long naps.

In fact, his writing style probably hinges on his method. He’d be writing very different kinds of books if he wrote quickly. His just-a-few-paragraphs-a-day approach*** is probably how he writes descriptions with so many precise details, like these images of a party-supply store after the apocalypse hits:

The unit had completed a sweep of a party-supply store, a narrow nook on Reade that had been washed off Broadway into a low-rent eddy. Dusty costumes hung from the ceiling as if on meat hooks: cowboys and robots from chart-busting sci-fi trilogies, ethnically obscure kiddie-show mascots, jungle beasts with long tails intended for the flirty tickling of faces. Kingdoms’ worth of princesses and their plastic accoutrements, stamped out on the royal assembly line, and the requisite Naughty Nurse suspended in the dead air, tilting in her rounds. Do Not Expose to Open Flame. For Amusement Only. The masks had been made in Korea, delivering back to the West the faces they had given the rest of the globe: presidents, screen stars, and mass murderers. The rubber filament inevitably snapped from the staple after five minutes. The graft wouldn’t take.

I used to imagine Colson Whitehead as just being so impossibly brilliant that he spit this stuff out on the fly, leagues beyond the rest of us mere mortals. Now I see it differently: It happened laboriously, made by a tired, human brain full of faith in its own accumulative productivity.

Going Forward

No more for me, I think, of harsh deadlines and crank-it-out word counts. Instead: I need to provide accommodations for my own writing life. I must consciously factor in my own fatigue and stop demanding that I strain myself in ways unsustainable for a long and fulfilling creative life. Instead: Crank it down. Way down. And take naps between the paragraphs.

2,000 words a week.

Thanks, Colson Whitehead, for being honest about the work. We need more of that in the book world.

----

*None of these quotes are verbatim, just based on memory.

**This is similar to how both Donna Tartt and Nabokov have described their own writing processes. Maybe we spend so much time screaming at new writers to “just write” that we don’t talk about how slowness and care may enhance the quality of our prose.

[morganeboydauthor]

New blog post is up! This will serve as my wrap-up post for @draftdash and talks about what I actually learning from writing 15 minutes each day in January.

Enjoy! :D

[gaslightwestern]

January Writing Challenges: Update #1

As I mentioned, I am participating in DraftDash and a Word Crawl. Both are going okay. I feel like I'm cheating since I already write (or at least try to) daily. It's hard to track progress when word count isn't the goal. So far it's 3000+ for the prequel to When Sins Haunt and ~300 for Blackwater. I hate that planning is easier than writing.

Blackwater Scene 2 from Chapter 32 has a skeleton now. Hoping to flesh it out so I can share something next time. The problem is everything in Ch 32 is a Major Spoiler™ so I have to decide how to navigate that.

Untitled Prequel (I really need a title...) Turns out I can't write a simple story. This one is shaping up to be a dual timeline set in the 1870s covering two mysteries. Half involves Charlotte getting caught up in a wild west murder mystery. The other half reveals how she, a supposedly dead New York socialite, ended up in Fort Worth.

I flip-flop between "no one will ever read this" and "no, no, it totally works! Charlotte's fall from grace and the murders mirror one another as do the characters! Not to mention the themes tie together and..."

[inariedwards]

DraftDash: Day 1

So I actually jumped the gun and did one 15-minute dash already yesterday (31.12.) to try out this concept of writing for 15 minutes on my phone. During it I meandered a fair bit, looking up references and stuff, and got like 124 words in.

Then today I joined the Discord server and figured out how it works and stuff, and as I was about ready with everything, a fellow drafter started a sprint, so I went like "why not" and joined it. So in practice its a bot that lets you know when to start and end, and also it asks you to report your progress at the end. So I did that but I made the mistake of telling it to start counting from what I'd done yesterday, and when I copied my text into a word counter, I didn't copy all of it. So the bot subtracted yesterday's word count, plus the number I gave it was wrong anyway. So the real word count of what I did today was 406.

I don't think I will be able to do the sprints on Discord other than on the weekends, but it was good to try it out.

But I have made myself a tracker in my notes app where I can tick a box every day when I do this:

[whimsy-of-the-stars]

decided to join @draftdash on a whim cuz I’m already gonna be writing a lot in January! And guess what! I’m still working on the same WIP as I was in *checks calendar* April. Huh.

Anyway, here’s my intro!

(sci-fi/apocalyptic/found family maybe??/queer)

Allison, a stressed out 8th grade honors student, gets lost in the woods after losing track of time. Also, the apocalypse is kinda starting — a dangerous plant virus is rapidly spreading around the college town she lives in. So while her and her friends are traipsing around lost in the woods by the oldest part of the city, they also have to avoid the creeping rot and pollen. Will they make it unharmed through the forest, and back home safe despite the strain that a Literal Apocalypse™️ can put on friendships? It’s told in a diary format, and full of found family, young queer folks, maps, (questionable) poetry, and an epidemic of freaky flora.

:D get ready for daily (hopefully) updates!

[uraniumwriting]

DRAFTDASH- DAY 3

Another late day due to time with friends, but we did it! Spent 20 mins and got 489 words down.

Starting to get down Abigail's characterization and while I'll definitely have to go back and tweak things depending on how events pan out, I'm liking it :D Also, that sweet sweet worldbuilding is getting on the page

Gonna head to bed, but I've got 0 plans other than writing tomorrow and I am READY

[gwennevlis]

Day 3 - Draftdash

Time: 25 min

About: Elia's backstory

Favourite quote:

William sorrise, dolce quanto una meringa alla fragola, «Ne sono onorato»

//

William smiled, sweet like strawberry meringue, «I'm honored»

Notes: I basically called him fruity (it's funny because he is lmao)

Shout-out to my partner for making me sit down and write, weren't for them I probably would have skipped this day.

[sxcredstories]

DraftDash 2024 • Day 0

Books of Ifera, Book 1 • Book of Rachel’s

The first installment of the Ifera Series, my main project for the last 5 years. I already have the skeleton draft made but am currently making the drafted manuscript! I’m on chapter 2.

This book is about Rachele, a Lycan girl who is going to the Trials of Alpha. These trials determine who of the chosen contestants (chosen by Spirits) is capable and fit enough to lead the Nightstalker Tribe.

Rachele, above being physically frailer than most Lycans, is also blind. She has no confidence in herself and feels bitterly towards the trials.

On another planet, a Lycan man Edward Snow receives a mystery tip in regards to a large crime ring which killed his close friend and coworker. His investigations leads him to the crime lord’s lackeys, who have chased him around the galaxy since.

These two Lycans from entirely different worlds cross each other’s paths and the entangling consequences follow suit.

[sunflowertenma]

DraftDash Intro

Hello, honestly I have no idea what I'm going to write about yet, but it's gonna be one of my past works in progress, which I will dig up and see which one inspires me more currently

It will be fanfiction; probably a misawa or tsukihina, or I might start afresh and write bakudeku instead, which has been my brain rot for the past year!

Apologies for the late intro post as it has been quite hard, to push myself to take that first step in making writing a happy place again. And so here we are! New year new me amirite 🥶 Pretty scary, but excited to see where January will bring me!

[maddstermind]

Draftdash!

I was gone yesterday because my computer was getting repaired! But I still wrote! (Yay notebooks!)

Day 10: 733 words

Day 11: 387 words

Getting to some very exciting bits!!!!

[cornmazehater]

DRAFTDASH DAYS 3 + 4

shhhh we pretend I didn't forget yesterday :3

I FINSIHED THE FIRST CHAPTER *AND* DID THE FIRST POV SWAP :D

also cyline made a promise she can't back out on.

alsoalso I am currently in the process of introducing one of the main tefts* of the story

also got a little lost in writing so I wrote some extra stuff :D

Words written: 647 words in 37 minutes

Words in total: 3093 words

*asterisks under read more*

*also tefts are basically fragments of gods. gods in this world would manifest in their domain/element/whatever and be in a humanoid shape if they were to ever take form, while tefts look a lot like the humanoids/plants/animals that live in the country, but with a few key differences. with plants and animals, they can speak and understand the language that is most commonly spoken around them. with humanoids (and creatures), they (sometimes) have powers, and can (sometimes) have stuff like odd eye color for that race, antlers, cold dark spots, etc.

[moonshinemagpie]

draft dash day 3

Like 40 minutes today but only 340 words. It takes a lot of mental energy to write out a chess match, which is what's about to happen, so I'm saving it for tomorrow.

I think one benefit of the 15-minutes-of-writing-a-day idea is that it keeps your story on your mind. Even if you don't get a lot done on the page, you were thinking about your book, which is crucial.

When I write only when I have the time and energy to put thousands of words to paper, I often shove my story into the back of my mind on the majority of days designated as Not Writing Days. That makes it harder to know what's going to happen next, which means I spend more time staring a blank page and feeling frustrated.

Today's teaser:

The board was frozen in a state of mirrored assassinations, two knives pressed to the throats of two enemy kings.

Today's song:

[anomalousvortex]

DraftDash Day 2 - Statistical Outlier

Please ignore that it's 2am right now, I totally definitely did this in time and on the correct day, I promise !!!!

Total Time Sprinted: 15 minutes

Total Words Written: 412

Favourite New Sentence(s): "His fingers fiddled uselessly at his sides, and he bit at his lower lip, trying to staunch his fear. It didn’t work."

[ssscreamingwrites]

Day 1

time spent: 30 mins approximate. overall mood: pikachu face. music: persona 4 chill/study mix. written lines i liked: Azure blue that burns almost as bright as fire. / She was never meant to rule.

happy new years!!! may 2024 be fruitful and kinder than last year.

i worked on The Eyes That Haunt / The Ghost That Bleeds (otherwise known as prophecy fic from now onwards). prophecy fic has two parts (just decided to split it into two lol):

A; the eyes that haunt

B; the ghost that bleeds

i started the timer and spent a few minutes just staring at the screen. i haven't written in a long time, so i was struggling with how to write the starting line. or, really, what to write as a whole. it was like... trying to move a sliding door. but the wheels had rusted. so the sliding was less sliding and more janky yanking.

i had a plan drafted but i immediately blanked out. but the timer was ticking by, so i just wrote down whatever was in my head instead of looking at the plan (only glanced at it once or twice to see if my rambling was on track).

but once i started, it flowed. kind of. a lot of scenes came to mind that weren't necessarily in the plan. but i wrote it out anyway for future editing. and i would just write small snippets because i was still struggling with the opening / first section of A. so, i managed to write bits of A and B. while writing, i checked the timer and was super surprised that i didn't notice it ended??? i think i didn't notice because the timer's noise was hidden underneath the music.

looking back on it. 15 min really is a short duration.

[inariedwards]

DraftDash: Day 14

Another evening sprint with the Discord sprint bot, wrote 421 words and I got to Level 3 on the bot :D Like I'm pretty motivated to do this every day already, but adding a level of gamification where you get XP and level up is a cherry on top.

Now I'm all done with my various tasks for the day and I can go to bed early, because I gotta get up for work early tomorrow.

[whimsy-of-the-stars]

DraftDash, Day 6

hello all!! what’s up! despite the wifi issues where I am staying rn, I have still been able to do the sprint and write 313 words! (1 away from pi, dang it)

I wish I could work on homework but alas, I do not have WiFi (it went out a couple hours ago cuz it does that over here, sadly??)! so I decided to write instead!!! :D

also today I had a Thought: what if I finish this draft* before the month is over???? (I’m kinda Almost Done!!!!) What Then??? uhhh. I guess we’ll find out!

*It’s the first part of a 2-part story! I’m treating them as separate wips even tho if I ever publish them, they’ll probably go together in one volume due to their short size!

see y’all tomorrow! hope I can keep this up once school starts up again on the 8th! 😩