On taking a break, and side-projects

In mid-June, I decided to finally buckle down and write every day. My goal was to put down at least one thousand words into my novel, daily, for pretty much the foreseeable future. For almost two months I managed to keep it going, making up for whatever debt I would incur whenever I missed a day by just writing more over the next couple of days until I was on track. In the span of under two months I added over 60,000 more words to my novel, making it the longest single work I'd ever written.

Slowly, over the course of the summer, I began to see that my creativity was waning. It wasn't so much that I had a lack of ideas, it was more that I was beginning to feel creatively exhausted, like I was close to burning out. But all the writing tips said to write every day, to push through it, and so I did. I started to think that I should have been writing better, to choose my words more carefully, but the wordcount beckoned, and I decided I could leave quality for the revisions (don't do this).

Then, I went camping with my girlfriend's family. I had no access to my laptop for four days, and hand-writing has never really been a forte of mine, so I was left without the ability to record progress to my work. At first I was concerned, because what if I lost the momentum I had built up so far? What if I burned out like I had before? It was around then that I realized I hadn't been enjoying the act so much and instead was trying to simply hit the word count for the day, which isn't something bad in and of itself, but I wasn't writing to write anymore. I was writing because I had a word count and I was beginning to resent it.

So I spent the four days in the semi-wilderness brainstorming a new project, kind of related to my first. I spent the entire time writing down ideas, thinking of the world, and potential stories and subplots that built it up. Things started to shift then, until I realized I was brainstorming my novel again.

Boom. Four days and a second project away and I was back into my creative groove. The word-count has been adjusted to 7000 words a week, to allow myself some leeway in missing a day or two. And it's no longer set in stone. At this point, I just want to finish it with some quality.

The second project is something I've tucked away for a later date. There is a definite way I can tie it into my current work, and it's something to motivate me to keep going when I reach the next spot that looks a little exhausted.