Documenting My Book Writing Journey, Week 6

February 3, 2025

I had the actual stomach flu. I was in denial about it at first - I haven't had anything like this since I was a kid - but several hours in the bathroom later, I had to face the truth. It was going to be a rough day. 

It's frustrating that I've been so sick these last few weeks, and if it's not one thing it's the other. I didn't get as much done as I wanted. I'm trying not to beat myself up about it. 

For real - everyone has experiences like this, so why do I think I'm any different?

(Nathan and Jackie kept me company all day - it was nice when I wasn't retching)

You have to take breaks

I was trying to smuggle my laptop into the bathroom with me when I had a moment of serious conviction: 

What kind of coach would I be if I told my students to rest, but never took my own advice? 

What use would I be to them if I kept working, but all my work was crap because I was sick when I did it?

So many times we put so much undue pressure on ourselves, when the people who care about us (our readers) only want what's best for us. I was sitting here thinking that I would massively disappoint everyone if I took even one day off, and the truth is that I'm letting them down by not taking this illness seriously. 

I didn't touch my laptop and instead watched Marvel movies and slept. 

Thank God for Zofran.

February 4, 2025

Back on the horse today, and while my brain was a little muddy, I felt better about everything. I was really glad I took the day off the last two days (seeeeeee????) and when I came back to my desk, it was all still here.

I think, in American culture, at least, overworking is excessively glorified. If we're tired because we danced a lot or spent a lot of time with friends, that's not a valid reason to be tired - but if it's because we spent 16 hours behind a computer screen, pushing spreadsheets with tangible results, then we're allowed to be tired. I think this is why I'm so hard on myself for the days I need off. 

(Rant over, back to writing)

The book is leaning towards space pirates - meaning lots of fantasy, travel, piracy (lunacy) and such in boats in outer space. (I'm geeking out!!) So today I found this helpful website to get me started with nautical terms: 

A to Z of Nautical Terms: A Complete Glossary of Boat Terminology

February 5, 2025

I've been working through the Negative Character Arc Planner for my new character, Gideon. It's hilarious to me how this is turning out - I have a history for writing realllllllly dark stories (ask anyone who's read The Order, they'll tell you) and this new book was supposed to be different. 

I don't really want to live in that dark headspace, because writing stories in my favored genres can leave you looking at the world in some funky ways. This time, I told myself, it was going to be different. 

Well...apparently not. Meet Gideon. 

I can't tell you WHY he changed the book like that (I still want you to read it, lol) but I will say sometimes your intuition speaks and you have to listen to it. 

Writing Outside of Who You Are

I'm going to say this as kindly as I can: when you're writing to impress someone, we can tell. 

When you're writing because there's something inside you that needs to get out and there's very little anyone can do to stop it, we can tell. 

The truth about this is something my students and I wrestle with on a week-to-week basis: how do we balance authenticity with the market demands for books?

Well, in the beginning stages, you don't. 

INSTEAD, you write the stuff that seems impossible to hold in and leave the rest for later. It's back to the old adage my students are sick of hearing: that's a second draft problem. 

I'm not a dark or morbid person (generally). Most people who know me personally would probably tell you that I have a warm-and-fuzzy, bubbly personality that seems quite contrary to some of the dark themes I write. We spend a lot of time in our live events on the community laughing our butts off about something stupid I said, or just being overall goofballs who enjoy each other's company. 

Does that mean I don't have the agency to write dark stories? 

No. Let me tell you why. 

Every writer, in my experience, has something tugging them towards a specific type of story. This doesn't always condense to a specific genre or story arc - but it does show up, a lot of the time, in themes. Think about the books you read: which ones did you love the most? See if you can draw any similarities between them. This might just prove my point. 

While I'm typically a warm and bubbly person, I write stories about people who aren't. I write stories about people who feel invisible, who are chomping at the bit to get ahead in life, and who often are alone most of the time (even emotionally, if not physically). 

These stories speak to me for very personal reasons I'm not ready to write about. Suppressing them, though, means that writing outside of who I am (outside of these themes) feels very flaky and fake.

This new book felt fake. 

Enter Gideon - my lovely anti-hero - and I was like, ooooooh, that's what was missing. That wonderful lego-clicking-into-place feeling is exactly what you need to write a story that is authentic. I promise you, as a coach who has read thousands of manuscripts, when you don't have that feeling, I can tell. 

So...this book isn't going to be different. 

Except the MC might have a happy ending this time - we'll see.

February 6, 2025

You might know this (you might not, depending on how long you've been here) but I've been working on a project called The Order (of the Occasionally Occult or Arcane) since July. The entire manuscript is around 300,000 words, but about 100,000 of those words are on this blog (you can look at it here, if you're ever curious).

I started this project in July of 2024 for two reasons: 

1. I wanted to prove to myself that there was more than one "good" story in my brain (because up until this point, I'd only ever written one series, and I'm not ready to publish that)
2. I was (and still am) getting over a nervous breakdown I had the year before and needed to process what had happened. 

I put it aside for a little bit to focus on some of the big things happening in 2025 (like this new book), but recently had a conversation with my husband that made me reconsider how I was writing the entire thing. 

It went like this: 

Me: "I don't think I can finish writing The Order."

Nathan: "What? You've already written most of it. Why?"

Me: "I was in a really bad headspace when I wrote that. Finishing it means going back into that headspace...and I'm not that person anymore."

If you're read The Order, you'll know how dark it can be - and it needed to be that dark, because it was the only way I could process what had happened to me in a safe environment. 

It's a good thing I'm not in that place anymore - but does that mean I can't write it?

Short answer: no. 

Sometimes we dive into storytelling because it's the only way to process the things that have happened to us. I've talked to hundreds of writers over the years who use fiction as a means of healing - but what happens when you're not the person who wrote it anymore?

During a break from writing this new project, I sat down with The Order and began prodding it with my analytical brain: 

Okay, Jasper. What's the deal with you? What are you doing in there that I don't know about?

(This is an absolutely insane way to talk about writing, I understand - but we're all writers here, yes?)

The answer came a little while later, as I was re-reading through some of the older work and thinking about where it needed to go. 

Well, Rachel, Jasper said to me (just go with it), this ending isn't true anymore. It's not the way the story goes. 

The ending (it will be on the blog eventually, so I won't spoil it) originally left one feeling nauseous. It had to - that was where I was at when I wrote it.

Now that I have a little more hope for the future, though, it's not the ending this story deserves, and it's not the one I deserve. 

While Jasper came out of a part of my life that was very dark and very hopeless, his character, like mine, has changed. This requires a new ending. 

One my readers will probably like. 

I guess this is a roundabout way of saying that it's okay to acknowledge you've changed. When you sit down to write and you feel resistance, especially if it's a work that you've had on your plate for a long time, sit with yourself and ask yourself why. 

Be super curious about the answer. 

Like it did for me, it might surprise you.

February 7, 2025: Scarcity & Success

Recently in Office Hours my students had a discussion about the scarcity mindset. (This was such an important discussion it will probably end up as its own blog post, so don't be surprised). 

Scarcity is often applied to money and resources, but it can also be applied to success and writing as well. 

A lot of my students experience scarcity problems when they think about writing their books. They see other authors doing big things and think, even subconsciously, that the success of those authors takes away from their own potential success. As readers we know this is silly - we read books from hundreds of writers, not just one or two - and most of us are looking for new writers with stories to explore. 

Still, as writers, this fear can keep us from reaching our biggest potential, and it's why we spent so much time talking about it in Office Hours. 

In yesterday's entry I talked about The Order. I wrote The Order primarily as a way to process some big feelings, but on a different level, I wanted to prove to myself that my creativity wasn't scarce. I wanted to show my brain that I could love another story just as much as the secret one I've been hiding under my bed for 20 years. I wanted to prove to myself that if I wrote a book and it flopped, that wasn't my only chance, and I didn't blow it. 

Ask yourself right now: is there an area of your life where you feel like things are scarce? Is it creativity? Time? Success? Money? Attention?

This scarcity mindset can be really damaging, especially for we creatives, because we need to feel safe to write our best work. Feel scared because we fear there isn't enough love and attention in the world is sabotaging our potential.

February 8, 2025

I haven't written about it a lot this week because there's been a lot on my mind, but I did get the draft up to just under 17k words. I'm aiming to do 12.5k words/week, so I'm really proud of this week's progress in spite of it all. 

Still trying to think of a name. I always tell my students that the name should reflect the themes of the work, and those don't usually emerge until draft 2, but the temptation to spend a lot of time ruminating on it now is SO STRONG. 

If you're curious, I have a detailed tutorial on how to name your book so people actually read it here. 

February 9, 2025

Most of my focus has been on the Instagram Masterclass launching next week, so there hasn't been a lot of writing. There HAS been a lot of daydreaming, though, which I would argue is just as essential. 

Daydreaming is an important part of writing your novel because sometimes, the most compelling twists and turns of a story can't be planned. They must be discovered - and in order to do that, it's important to let our minds wander. 

Yesterday, I was TIRED. So tired. I wanted to cry for no reason, I felt like I needed to be doing something but couldn't figure out what, and I was anxiously staring at my computer waiting for inspiration to strike. (It didn't happen). 

So...I closed my laptop and took a deep breath. That's when I noticed it was raining outside. The pattering of the rain against the roof was beautiful and soothing, and I asked myself, what scene in this book would fit into a moment like this? 

The answer? I didn't have one. I turned open a blank page in my notebook and started scribbling. 

The scene was terrible. The writing was even worse. I'll never show it to the world, because it's embarrassing beyond belief. BUT I'm not ashamed of it, because I discovered something about that story through this exercise that I didn't have before. 

Today's tip: when the techniques aren't working, change it up. Change locations. Change styles. Change themes. Change something. Don't keep pushing through, doing the same monotonous thing, if it isn't working. You'll be glad you did.

What's Next?

If you're eager to push past your fears and write the novel you've always dreamed of, check out The Complete Novelist’s Kit—a collection of 30 practical guides designed to help you from concept to completion. With tools to keep you motivated, organized, and focused, The Complete Novelist’s Kit will give you everything you need to overcome your fears and finish your novel.

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Let’s get your story out into the world!