Hello everyone!

This is a bit of a long-overdue newsletter; there have been a lot of ups and downs, and highs and lows lately. Everything seems to get busier the closer you get to Christmas and the holidays, and family issues have been taking up a lot of my mental bandwidth lately.

It seems a perfect time to write about how to keep moving forward when (for whatever reasons) your routine blows up on you. Maybe I'll even manage to convince myself, sheesh.

But first...

The #1 most important thing

Know thyself! I have finally got to the point where I don't beat myself up if I'm not as productive as I might have been compared to last week, or last month. Setting good aggressive goals can be an excellent way to give yourself a kick in the pants, but there are also times when you just need to back the heck off and give yourself room to breathe. I don't know about you, but I'm not a robot who can just do the same thing, day in and day out, without getting tired or bored.

It's hard to figure out when you really are indulging bad habits (laziness, procrastination) and when you you actually do need to take the afternoon to lie on the couch.

I can tell I'm currently in a period of EXTREME RESISTANCE for some reason, and so I'm trying to actively manage this while not pushing too hard. A couple of small to-dos for each day, plus morning pages, is keeping me vaguely on-track, though I've got a few more tricks up my sleeve that I'm going to try on myself...

Morning Pages

Yes, I just mentioned morning pages. Three sides, handwritten, every day, yadda yadda. Everyone knows about these things. Thank you, Julia Cameron. I find when I'm in a period of extreme stuckiness, at least doing morning pages every morning makes me feel like I'm in some ways wiggling things loose. And while writing about all the stuff that's on your mind really isn't getting the half-finished novel anywhere nearer to being completed, from time to time I do get the odd glimmer of insight about the story, which can be really useful.

I'm taking it a step further though, and I've started another notebook that's just going to be for the novel. So once I've finished my morning pages proper, I'll write another three sides in the second notebook about upcoming scenes I'm writing, things that are bugging me, or brainstorming as much as I can.

Changing things up

Sometimes writing on my laptop is just the best thing ever. So fast! Look at my fingers go! But then sometimes I get too far ahead of myself and then I have to backtrack and find out where I went wrong. I find changing up my approach works a treat—maybe it's getting slightly different pathways firing?—and if I'm stuck on a particular bit then this usually helps get me going again.

So, changing from the computer to writing on paper works. As does changing the time I spend on my "pomodoro sprints." Usually twenty-five minutes on, five minutes off, seems to work, but I've found five minute sprints can be really energizing too. They get you writing but without the baggage of a longer sprint. Then you circle a phrase or word from the previous writing sprint and use that as your prompt for the next sprint. Peter Elbow suggests this in his Writing Without Teachers and it really works.

If writing on paper is just not an option, then at least try changing your tools. If you usually write in Scrivener, just use a plain text file. Or make like Nicholson Baker in A Box of Matches and wake up early and turn the lighting down on your laptop and write in the dark. Anything to trick yourself, basically!

Write something else

A letter. A poem. A haiku. Anything to get yourself thinking differently, and actually getting that "bing!" of finishing. Long projects are hard and frustrating because they just take so bloody long to finish. It's probably not the "done thing," but I find that taking a break to do something smaller, that gets completed, can give me a new energy boost.

Do nothing

Seriously, do nothing. Give yourself a week to lie on the couch and watch Buffy re-runs. Take photos. Go for long walks. Enjoy the naughty feeling of bunking off!

Sometimes fighting it is just the wrong way to go. If it's school holidays, forget about it. We've only got two more weeks of school before the long summer break, and I'm reducing my expectations down to the absolute bare minimum. I'm going to try and keep up with morning pages though, but adding guilt to the mix is simply not going to help.

The most important thing though is to somehow keep a little "tickler" in your mind about your project. Book in some time to re-read what you've got. Scribble some light notes before you hop in the shower. Don't completely lose your thread. But sometimes we just need to let projects percolate. Nothing wrong with that!

Happy Holidays!

Anyway, I feel like I've just written myself the world's most indulgent pep-talk! Hope you and your familes are well, and also that you get the chance to catch up over the holidays. I usually get a wave of inspiration in the new year, so you can expect some peppy newsletters coming your way then, jeez.

All the best, and thanks for reading!

Jess