Unpredictable. Messy. Frustrating. Invigorating. Exciting. Authentic.
This is how I would describe my week of writing for my Q2 goal of finishing the first draft of “On Fridays, We Write.”
The phrase that kept popping into my mind this week was, “you don’t need to be clear to write, writing is what makes you clear.”
Every time I felt like “this isn’t working,” I would repeat that phase and keep going. Then I would ask myself, how can I rewrite this in a totally different way? After that, I would rewrite it a third time and then a fourth.
My goal from last week was to write my outline and introduction, in that order. Well I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of content I pulled into my content library for this project and the outline was feeling a little too much like a text book. That is the exact opposite of my intention with this book. I want it to feel like a friend sitting next to the reader encouraging her to write.
So I decided to tell to my reader a story. A story of when I went on Instagram and saw that another woman had published her book and how instead of feeling inspired, I felt the claw of jealousy.
It’s an ugly way to feel but it is also the truth.
I wonder if any of my ideal readers feel the same way?
I used to think jealousy was a negative emotion but then I realized that in the context of my life, it shows me what I want and what I’m not currently following through on. I am not jealous of people so much, but instead the things people achieve that I know I am capable of achieving as well.
And that woman smiling with her book in her hand was a moment I will never forget - I wanted that. So I started to learn how I could achieve it. The first thing I had to do was believe it and then I needed the skills and plan to put together a manuscript.
And then one day, in my backyard overlooking the Pacific Ocean, I got the shot I had dreamed of…
My current book’s content is taken from the class I taught, “First Draft Friday” and I expected the chapters to follow the same format.
They do not.
I realized this week that to have a story, I had to change the order. I had to flip flop, expand, contract and turn upside down my usual flow because now we are not starting in a warmed up Zoom room with friendly conversation and smiles. My reader is looking at a page in a book wondering if it can bring her to her goal of authoring a book.
My stories only matter if they can be adopted to fit the reader’s narrative and goals.
There are thousands of writing books in the world, so mine needs to be the writing book version that fits my style and tone and will be the perfect fit for my ideal reader.
Sometimes to make that happen, you have to overhaul. My content is still the same, the order just needs to change.
What’s working:
I am completing my goals although not in the order I thought I would. I ended up writing the introduction before the outline because I felt like I needed to be really specific in my outline but I couldn’t do that without direction from my letter to the reader.
What got done:
My introduction is completely done and my outline is 60% done but by midnight tonight, will be complete. (I realized I had to start over with it and that’s ok. I rather the outline fit with what my writing goal is than fit my timeline.)
What felt hard:
The outline. I have so much content from my First Draft Friday class that I felt really scattered. I had to reorganize and reorder the content so it will fit into a more cohesive narrative and it took me much longer to do that than suspected. I also had to start over when I realized I didn’t love the order. Why work on a book you don’t love?
What surprised me:
All this time I thought I was writing a Listicle (list) formatted book but I realize now my book structure will be a framework of my Signature Manuscript Method. It will be a book within a book and that’s very exciting to me but totally unexpected.
The other thing that surprised me this week was how much writing I was able to do on our spring break trip to Seaside, Florida. We took a family trip for Easter and I used my morning pages as a way to move my writing project forward. I would spend the first three pages writing as usual and then I would transition to my book project. I then would take that work and type it into my introduction on my laptop. All my various versions of the introduction started as morning pages. It was a fun experiment and one I will repeat in the future. By the time I hit the beach for a long walk, my writing was done for the day.
For organizational purposes, I want to share what files I have in my growing desktop folder for this book:
10 Foundational Questions
Content Library
Introduction (I am keeping each chapter in a separate document at this point to reduce the instinct to reread every word I have written each time I start writing.)
Manuscript (Blank at this point)
Outline
Next week’s goals
Write chapters one and two and see how I do with that much work in one week. If we break down my short book goal of 35,000 words with 14 sections in the book, we land at 2,500 words per section. I was thinking originally, I would write a microbook of about 20,000 words but so far my outline is suggesting it will be almost double that word count.
Obviously, not all sections will be the same length so I am going to worry more about content than counting words, but this is just a general goal so I can measure progress and report it back to you.
I am currently editing this article on my Friday writing Zoom, On Fridays, We Write, with two incredible fellow writers. One is working on a Guide I will share more about when she is finished and the other is starting to journal in a more intentional way. I love the feeling of knowing that other women are writing alongside of me. If you would like to join our weekly writing Zoom, we would love to have you. It will cost you an hour of your time but I promise it’s always worth it.
Happy writing!
Heather