In my September blog post, I mentioned I was going to take some time off from writing My Darling Tragedy to do a writing sprint of a new novel. I decided to give myself 40 days to write as much as I could of the new novel. The first five days started as a sprint, where I was just trying to get down as many words as possible each day. But I pushed myself so hard on the fourth day, netting 2,339 words, that I felt exhausted and began to dread working at this pace. So, I decided not to push as hard and jog, but after day eleven I realized I was jumping around in the story, writing so many scraps that I began to lose sight of the story’s length and pacing. So, I started over, borrowed from the scraps what I could, and wrote at what felt like my normal walking pace. It’s now day 26 and I have only 5,408 usable words. So, it didn’t turn out to be much of a sprint, but I believe I got something important done—I worked out two of the three POV issues I had when I tried to write this book two times before. I’m also writing in a new style.
Speaking of walking paces, last week I bought an Apple Watch for the sole purpose of it encouraging me to get steps in. Right now, I’m starting slow, trying to get 5,000 steps in per day for 30 days in a row. It’s only been six days, but I’ve achieved it every day. If I succeed in reaching 30 days, I’ll probably increase it. Since I began writing My Darling Tragedy in April 2024, I’ve gotten nearly no exercise. Now that I’ve taken this MDT writing break, I’m hoping to work exercise into my daily routine.
My 40-day break ends November 9. To be honest, I’m starting to panic about going back to My Darling Tragedy. What is the story arc of the second journal? There are things I know I want to do, but I don’t really have an overarching story, and I don’t want to just meander in Orly’s grief without some kind of structure behind it. I have an app on my phone that reads PDF files aloud. Before I begin writing, I’m going to listen to the first journal all the way through. It’s more effective for me to listen to it than read through it as I’m too accustomed to what the words look like on screen and end up skimming. I’m hoping the listening will spark some new ideas.
I recently got new patrons on the MDT Patreon page. They’re flying through the journal entries, and the comment sections are blowing up. It feels good to see readers engaging with my work. I’m grateful to have them.