Tuesday Update #3 of Experiment: Building in Public — My Journey to Releasing a Book I Love
Week 3 (May 19th – May 26th)
Key Milestones:
1st act of the book complete
Word Count: 30,898 (Previous Week: 13,060)
Lessons Learned:
I face the most RESISTANCE (as Steven Pressfield, the author of The War of Art, would say) toward the actual writing of the story.Resistance I commonly face includes feeling pressure trying to get me to stay away from planning meaningful story arcs and character development, and instead trying to just “write” to hit my word count goal of 4,000 a day. Without preempting resistance and doing the solid work to support my word count goal, I just shoot (punch) myself in the face.Inspiration is not, will not, and cannot be the source of a good story. Hard work is, will be, and can. When I sit down to write and “nothing” comes into my brain—when my book is at a transitional part of the story and nothing leaps into my mind—it is time to sit down and work and try and experiment, because the “fire juice of awesome story” simply ain’t gonna come by playing video games, planting a garden, etc. I’ve tried that so many times before, and what seems like inspiration is often just a rewrite to a main part of my story, causing double to triple work, self-doubt about a changed story plan, and more. Hard work is my answer. No free rides here.Tracking a word count is helpful, but only to the point that it is a neutral measurement. No good story is measured by word count, but by its quality. I ought to find a way to measure meaningful character development, tension, and change scene by scene, and track that over word count on the daily. Then I can set up measurements for what actually drives a great story, along with development frameworks and habits that create real movement. This is a time for me to slow down and practice proper story structure and mechanics so that… I may “speed up.” I commit to making this next week a no-shortcuts week. Goodbye, word count goal-seeking. Hello, intentional scene creation activities…
Punches to the Face:
I may need to rewrite the last three chapters, as I definitely wrote more by the seat of my pants than through a solid plan, chasing word count over structure.I literally got clocked in the face playing basketball on Friday and haven’t been able to eat right for days haha. What a parallel.Onward, friends! Keep moving forward. Signed, Dave Ogles