Unaccomplished

2009 was kind of a bumper year for me. At the very end of 2008 I switched jobs and wound up (finally) in my dream job (woot). I finished my first novel mid 2009 and successfully completely NaNoWriMo for the second year in a row. Overall, I was feeling very accomplished-- very much like everything was on track for 2010 to be the best year of all.

And then... editing struck. My first novel had some really lovely concepts and ideas-- but the book I’d written and the book I started out writing were two very different stories. Stories that would need comprehensive months of editing to merge into one readable draft. Our writing group began to set deadlines and make up schedules to swap around our stories... At the time I was completely in denial about the amount of work it would take to produce a draft I felt vaguely confident in showing to other people (even my most trusted readers). So, when the first deadline came up, I had to admit I had failed. I was unable to send out a draft-- but I still had a draft to read from my friend. So, I was now editing a rough manuscript and reading a friend’s draft. Then, the next deadline came along and I was again still working on my novel, editing my friend’s draft and then editing a second draft. Everything had snowballed quite quickly and I was buried.

For a few weeks I felt completely overwhelmed and defeated. I made no progress on any fronts-- not my own work or my friends. I hadn’t just let myself down but now I was letting down my group. I was more upset to see my group let down, if I’m honest.

Then, I began to regroup. My first novel had to be broken before I would be able to see any real progress. I had to get through they very shaky beginning (and the eight new scenes I had to write to tie the two stories together). So, I spoke to my first friend and she agreed it was more important to get my story moving. Two weeks of just concentrating on my book meant I was able to ‘break the back’ of the whole mess. I was able to set a goal for editing my novel and working on hers again. Just taking a tiny bit more time meant I was able to get everything back on track.

Here is the big lesson I’ve learned-- when you work as a group you have to do what works best for the group, but you have to remember what works best for you. I am not great with deadlines. I usually have to set one, then push it back a few times. And as I’m not a professional writer and I’m doing everything in my ‘spare’ time this is fine. If this was my ‘day job’ then I’d just have to embrace deadlines and make them happen (I do just that very successfully in my day job). I work well with small weekly goals. A tiny checklist of things I need to do to move my work forwards. A huge looming deadline doesn’t generally work for me. Maybe it’s my ADHD-- but something so big tends to boggle my brain. It makes me only see the big end result and not the small obtainable steps I need to break everything down into to get there. Now, I’ve got the quiet confidence I was lacking to admit when what I’m working on needs more time. It’s not a race, and while I’m still working on my first novel I’ve finished editing my friend’s first novel and am about two third’s of the way through my second friend’s. I am able to get their stories back to them so that I am no longer letting them down as well. Which is beyond important to me. My work can wait-- but making sure my group is getting the support they need really matters to me. I really don’t mind being behind-- because at least being ‘behind’ I’m making progress. Before, when I was in denial and trying to struggle to stay on schedule, I was just spinning my wheels.

I will never again have the freedom I did in 2008 to just write one project. Going forward I will always be writing something and editing something (maybe not at the same time-- but they will definitely overlap). So, rather than look at 2010 as a series of failures-- or missed goals, I am looking at it as a chance to learn a new skill base. A new way of working on multiple projects that ends in good results.