An Update On My Current WIP

At the beginning of November, I decided to take on the Novel November challenge hosted by Pro Writing Aid. While I do not use the services Pro Writing Aid provides, they were hosting a free challenge to replace NaNoWriMo, which for those who don’t know was a challenge set forth to write 50,000 words in thirty days. To do so, all you had to do was write 1,667 words every day at minimum.

Novel November had a very similar premise. Write 50k words in thirty days. Earn badges along the way. It was going to be fun and simple.

I started out strong. I announced aspect of my current wip at milestones that were set by NovNov.

In a grand total, I hit 38,570 words. And I think if I truly believed in this book, I would have hit 50k words or more.

But there is a lot of wrong happening with this book. This is probably my messiest draft I have ever drafted. There is no course or direction. No real meaning behind the book.

With so many words ahead of me and no real desire to finish this project, I’m calling it now.

At 40k words I was going to reveal my characters. But I can’t reveal characters that I hardly know. Nothing about them has settled within my mind or my heart. There’s no real story to tell.

Why am I writing this?

Why am I talking about how badly I’ve failed?

Well, it’s simple. Writing is not a linear process. Most readers see books and fall in love with them. They see authors publishing books every year or every other year. They see beautiful covers and sprayed edges.

They don’t see the pain in the pages. They don’t see the raw truth that it hurts to write a book.

Where many will talk about how reading teaches empathy, writing teaches resilience.

I have had so many failed stories. So many failed concepts. I have been in a metaphorical creative drought since I published my last book.

But I can’t keep pushing forward on a book I don’t believe in. I’m not going to put myself through writing and editing and fixing it up to try to get it published when I don’t see a future for it.

I don’t think it’s an entirely lost cause. I think at some point, I’ll recycle the characters and use them elsewhere. Maybe even scenes or pieces of the plot.

But what this has taught me is I can overcome the “stage fright” I get when trying to write. This draft is the ugliest, messiest thing I could have ever written, meaning it can only go up from here.

I’m also sad, despite that. Sad that I couldn’t get it to work. Although it’s helped me figure out what I want to write and what I’m wanting to work on, it’s still a bit disappointing to have to set this aside and admit defeat.

I’m writing this post to show readers that the writers you see on TikTok and the books you see on shelves aren’t the whole picture.

And I’m writing this for the writers, the dreamers, the creatives who wish the process was easier. If it was, it wouldn’t be worth fighting for it.

So what’s next for me?

I’m going to slowly work on plotting and creating a new book. I’m not going to share much of anything right now.

But I also want to show that it’s okay to share the failures and the lows. Because not everything is perfect and wonderful. That goes for any line of work, any aspect of life. What we see on the picture-perfect social media is only a glimpse of the real picture.

Don’t let it get you down. Pick yourself back up and try again. That’s how you know it means something to you.

So, goodbye for now, to the WIP that taught me strength and power in letting go.

Onward and upward to new horizons.