On Writing

Last time, I outed myself as a Quilter – a writer who focuses on distinct scenes, often in random order, and then brings it all together at the end by stitching them together into something that ideally resembles a story.

Oddly enough, I came across this post on Lit Hub by Lisa Ko, who compares her writing process to picking through a flea market.

I never start a novel knowing where I’m going. I don’t write linearly, and not in clear, numbered drafts, from a beginning to an end. I gather and cut and gather some more.

Like me, Ko wishes she could write more efficiently – beginning, middle, end – but she also embraces her path, which includes “hundreds of Scrivener files.”

In my non-writing life, I loathe clutter, my preferred mode minimalist everything, but my computer and notebooks, glutted with disorganized files, reveal the truth. My apartment may appear relatively sparse and tidy, but behind the closet doors are boxes crammed with paper. Whenever I get overwhelmed, I simply start a new Scrivener project and stick the old one into a folder so I don’t have to look at it anymore. There are no drafts, only a mess that expands until it’s time to wrangle it into shape.

She wrote multiple versions of her novel, Memory Piece.

I wrote a version of Memory Piece where one of the characters dies young, another version with four different narrators. I spent a summer writing 20,000 words’ worth of scenes that went directly into COMPOST. It’s through the process of trying and finding out what doesn’t work that you eventually discover what does.

I wouldn’t normally quote so liberally, but I could have written that.

Ko needed several years and several drafts before the novel clarified. That makes me feel better about the multiple drafts of my last novel. I’m still not sure where it’s going, but I’m experiencing the same journey. Thousands of words have ended up in my CUT folder. I’m also wondering if the novel needs multiple POV characters. And while I know what happens in the novel, I still haven’t decided what it’s about. Am I writing about tragedy or forgiveness? The importance of family or the need for independence? The desire for acceptance or the desire to live by one’s own rules? The answer is in there somewhere, and at some point, it will become clearer to me.

Funnily enough, I didn’t expect to find this connection when I opened Ko’s article. When I read her headline, I thought she’d focus on where she get ideas for her writing, rather than her process.

When it comes to premise, I’m a hardcore flea marketer. I have hundreds of articles, quotes, and images squirreled away in a Prompt folder. I scan it between projects to see if something catches my eye. If I stuck in a story, I’ll look for some weird tidbit that might add color or personality.

My current WIP – a short fantasy novel – originated in the prompt file. It actually combines a handful of prompts, including the stories of a few obscure historical persons, some weird nature facts about animals and insects, and a bizarre 18th century European secret society. I was never so pleased to be a hoarder.

I love writing. In fact, unlike Dorothy Parker, I love writing more than I love having written.

Nonetheless, there are a handful of writing topics guaranteed to make me grind my teeth so hard I risk popping a blood vessel.

Save the cat.

Are audio books real books?

You must/must never write about ____________.

You must/must never _____________ in your writing.

Plotters v. Pants-ers

If you’re not familiar with the latter, a plotter are writers who works from an outline or at least a thorough roadmap of character, setting, and plot. They may deviate somewhat, but overall, they have a strong sense of what comes next.

The term pants-er comes from the phrase seat of your pants. A pants-er generally has an overall feel for their story and their main character, and may have an ending in mind, but is happy to figure out other details – characterization, conflict, setting, and supporting characters – as they go.

Two different but equally effective approaches. We could have lived forever without labeling them or ourselves, but humans love placing themselves into categories. As you might guess, writers also love to argue about which approach is superior, with superior defined as “the one I use” or “the one Famous Writer A” uses. Beginning writers beg to know which works best, as though success is based on method. Hence my teeth grinding.

My view? Sit down, STFU, and write. No one cares how you do it. Use an outline or don’t. Neither method is better. The only thing that matters is whatever gets to you The End.

Am I a plotter or a pants-er? I’m a little bit from Column A and a little bit from Column B. Honestly, it’s not something I’ve ever cared to examine or define.

Until today!

In a post on Writers Helping Writers, Jenny Hansen identified a third type of writer occupying the space between plotters and pants-ers: The Quilter. “Story Quilters are writers who divide books into individual scenes that they stitch together later into a cohesive story,” she says.

Unlike outliners or discovery writers, Quilters develop their story as a number of individual scenes or stories, which they shuffle and connect until the story feels right. Why does this work for some people? For some writers, the idea of tackling a whole novel can be daunting, until stress becomes inaction. Writing shorter pieces that can be fit together later results in more manageable projects.

A piece might be an entire chapter or a series of shorter scenes that can be placed together or in different parts of the story. Length doesn’t matter, but pieces usually have a beginning, middle, and end.

This concept comes closest to describing my process. Like a plotter, I usually have a general roadmap of how my story will begin, progress, and end. Like a pants-er, I leave big open areas where I know something has to happen, but I haven’t yet figured out what. This is often where I develop theme or decide what the story is “about.” But when my butt hits the chair, I write scene by scene, jumping around through the story and often rearranging to achieve the tone, dramatic tension, and plot escalation I’m seeking. I’m a quilter.

So, which approach is superior?

I’ll never say.

Clear and intelligent motivation is one of the biggest challenges in creating believable characters and compelling plots. Characters lacking desire are prone to running out of steam mid-novel or acting in a way that furthers the plot without regard to logic or common sense.

Getting to the heart of your character isn’t easy but it’s worth the effort. There are many techniques to developing a protagonist, but you need more than a physical description, quirks and habits, and likes and dislikes. If you want to really understand your hero, you need to find out where they hurt.

Admit it or not, our hurts drive us. We may have other motivations or higher aspirations, but for many people, the underlying factor is a wound and the stinking thinking that came after.

Literary types call this a limiting belief.

The limiting belief is the voice that tells your hero that she can’t or shouldn’t take some action, or that her actions are doomed to fail. It’s the voice that tells your protagonist that he’s unlovable or cannot possibly measure up in some way.

In a post on Writers in the Storm, Lisa Hall-Wilson explored how the limiting belief can help you dive deeper into character and create obstacles for your hero to overcome. With a limiting belief, every setback confirms the misconception. Every bad date confirms that your hero is unlucky in love. Every rejection confirms that she’s unlovable. Every mistake proves to your protagonist that he’s a bad person or a failure. With each setback, the belief becomes more deeply engrained, which usually triggers even more obstacles, until the hero’s status quo becomes untenable. He must change or die.

Once you have an idea of the limiting belief, Hall-Wilson suggests asking questions: “How would that affect someone’s confidence? Their ability to take risk? What lengths would be considered acceptable to avoid having that confirmation? How would they try and protect themselves from that hurt? What messages would they tell themselves in stressful situations?”

But how do you get there? How do you find the source of your character’s motivation to achieve and the limiting belief that holds them back?

Ask why.

Start with your character’s objective and first ask why they want it. Then ask why they have that desire. Then ask why again a few more times, until you get to the source of their motivation, whatever is the core belief or base factor that drives them.

Hall-Wilson suggests starting with an “I should…” statement, but “I want…” can work as well. The “I should…” statement doesn’t need to be true, but it must be something your character believes is true. How does that look in practice?

I should…work out more.

• Why? So I lose weight and look better.
• Why? So that I can get dates.
• Why? So that I can find love.
• Why? Because you’re nobody unless somebody loves you.*

I want to…write a bestseller.

• Why? So I can be successful.
• Why? So that I can show my friends and family I did it.
• Why? Because they don’t think I can.
• Why? Because I’m a loser.*

Those are some D-list examples, but you get the point. Whether your hero’s desire is slaying the dragon, getting away with murder, learning magic, becoming a doctor, surviving a war, leaving a marriage, or discovering a lost kingdom, finding their limiting belief and their deepest motivation will help you create layers of character and meaning in your story.

* Any similarity between these limiting beliefs and the author are purely coincidental.

Who am I?

When life seems hard, the courageous do not lie down and accept defeat; instead, they are all the more determined to struggle for a better future. –  Queen Elizabeth II

I struggle with story structure, and therefore I am fascinated by it. Most writers rely on some form of the 3 (or 4 or 5) Act Structure or the Hero’s Journey to get their novel from point A to Z, but there are many other choices.

In Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative, Jane Allison examines a number of novels that take a different path, including stories that spiral, those that mimic the patterns of nature, and nonlinear stories. A popular story structure in Japanese literature, Kishōtenketsu features a third act surprise or twist, rather than a confrontation or traditional climax. The structure focuses less on conflict and achievement than journey and learning.

I like seeing how various structures work within successful stories. I occasionally have that a-ha! moment where my story problems resolve when I lay my plot over an alternative structure.

I also like studying story structure because I hate formula. When I hear the words “Save the Cat”, I know I can safely close the browser window or podcast. A trendy formula might work for some stories some of the time, but no single structure is a panacea for every writing ill. Plus, it’s boring. Plus, how can a writer ever improve their craft if they are stuck writing to percentages?

Every story has different needs, from structure to tone to language to voice. While stories need a sense of flow – because we need to pull our readers along with us – the idea that I have to write specific scenes and place them at dedicated spots in my story makes me a bit wiggy.

I recently stumbled across yet another approach to story structure. To introduce the concept, it might be helpful to touch on the Hero’s Journey.

The Hero’s Journey originated with Joseph Campbell’s assertion of the monomyth, which contained 17 points, including a few that focused on the intervention of the Gods and some Freudian slips. Christopher Vogler refined the list to the twelve steps below. In Anatomy of Story, John Truby suggests a 7-step process that can be expanded to incorporate a number of sub-steps, depending on the lengths and demands of your story. Truby’s approach is more oriented towards character than plot, but each of these approaches describe essentially the same story structure.

The Hero’s Journey

• Ordinary World
• Call to Adventure
• Refusal of the Call
• Meeting with the Mentor
• Crossing the First Threshold
• Tests, Allies, and Enemies
• Approach to the Inmost Cave
• The Ordeal
• Reward
• The Road Back
• The Resurrection
• Return with the Elixir

You can lay nearly any popular novel or film over this lattice work and see how it works. While popular – and especially helpful to a beginning writer working on structure – the Hero’s Journey doesn’t work for every story.

You might first notice that the journey is premised on the hero’s success. You could alter the journey to write a tragedy or relate the descent of a villain, but essentially, you’d be utilizing a distinct story structure that branches off the Hero’s Journey. The structure also assumes that a journey will be complicated by enemies and conflict. While some writers may have an expansive approach to conflict, most will interpret the Hero’s Journey as including violence or the threat of violence, or at minimum, metaphysical death.

In a recent article for Writer’s Digest, Stacey Simmons also suggests the Hero’s Journey is structured with a male protagonist in mind. Why is that? Can’t women be cast as heroes?

They can, but Simmons notes that the Hero’s Journey, as structured, doesn’t accommodate the reality of most women’s lives. When men answer the Call to Adventure, they don’t have to worry that their children will starve in their absence or that an adventurer’s reputation will render them unmarriageable. Women (historically, particularly in art) are given the choice between being Good (acceptable, supportive) and Bad (active, unacceptable). A woman with agency is often portrayed as “bad” – an outsider or outcast – even when her only transgression is wanting what society believes she shouldn’t have.

“No one asks Clark Kent if he thinks his job as a journalist at The Daily Planet is going to interfere with his desire to have a family,” Simmons writes. “Frodo isn’t concerned that Samwise is secretly hoping to score a sexual favor on the road to Mordor. Atticus Finch doesn’t hear that he should smile more so that the jury doesn’t think he’s a bitch.”

And yet, despite historically limited options, women do have adventures, even in myth and pre-modern writing. During her research, Simmons discovered a parallel but distinct story journey, that she calls the Queen’s Path.

“The Queen’s Path is marked by a woman finding herself in the Divide [the choice between being “good” or “bad”] and then having to navigate through the perils of being a woman until she arrives at the experience of reclaiming her embodiment,” Simmons explains. “From this place, she can claim full ownership of herself and achieve sovereignty. Where freedom is something granted by someone else, (a government, or a spouse), sovereignty is the full knowledge that you own yourself—body, mind, and soul.”

Simmons sets out the structure this way:

The Queen’s Path

• Once Upon a Time—The woman arrives in the world and is invited to the Path.
• Cursed & Marked—She receives a curse, and a mark of that curse.
• Blind—She can’t see what’s coming, even when it’s obvious.
• Cleaved—She is separated from herself, and finds herself on one of two tracks: destined to marry or isolated and powerful.
• Mirror—She faces the part of herself she has been divided from, either in herself or symbolically in someone else.
• Commit—The woman commits to her role, trying to fit the expectations of everyone around her.
• The Hunt—She is chased, sometimes towards marriage or sex. Sometimes she is hunting for something. This keeps her in a state of stress.
• Abjection—She denies the parts of herself that can make her a full human being. In a Happily Ever After tale, the story ends here.
• Choice—The woman confronts the danger of Abjection. She must choose to embrace her lost self.
• Embodiment—She realizes that her power and identity are BECAUSE she is a woman. She finds power within.
• Claim the Territory—The woman stakes a claim on those things that are uniquely hers—her abilities, land, powers, and values.
• Gather the Tribe—She gathers like-minded women (and men) around her. She realizes that her world is made up of people she loves, and who love her.
• Crowned—She takes the crown, the throne, or other symbol of her sovereignty. She owns herself.

I love this concept. Again, this structure is not relevant to every story, but it provides an interesting contrast to the Hero’s Journey and another way to view goals, conflict, and achievement. Notably, the path is more internalized and focused on self-actualization, even if the story itself contains significant external conflict and tangible goals. While the Queen’s triumph may benefit others, her true success is claiming her true self.

Who am I?

War is what happens when language fails. – Margaret Atwood

These same words can apply to conflict in fiction. When characters cannot talk to one another or when they speak without communicating or hear without listening, the emotional battle begins.

Building on yesterday’s post about envisioning fiction as a clash of cultures, here’s another angle to consider: Every story is a war story.

In her column for Writer’s Digest, the writer Nancy Kress made this comparison directly:

Every war includes these factors: combatants who know which side they’re on; something significant at stake; murderous action in which both sides are struggling as hard as they can to prevail; an end to the war through victory, surrender, exhaustion or default; some means of deciding who won.

In his column on the Killzone blog, James Scott Bell expands on this concept, suggesting that every story is a war story, even romance and comedy. This may sound unlikely, but while the goals and stakes may differ, the lovers in a romantic story still have to battle to win their victory.

“Unless the lovers fight through obstacles because they must be together or lose the deepest part of their lives (psychological death), the story isn’t full capacity,” Bell writes.

While you might not think it tasteful to reframe comedies as war stories, the protagonists still must have a worthy goal, overcome obstacles, stagger through setbacks and apparent defeat, and eventually win the day (or not). According to Bell, the trick is that the characters in a comedy have to behave as though they are acting in a tragedy. Meet the Parents is funny only because Ben Stiller so desperately wants to win over his fiancée’s father. Amid the jokes about weight and farts, The Nutty Professor is about a man who desperately needs to believe that he is deserving of love.

While you don’t need to go overboard, casting your characters as opponents in a war – not merely an interpersonal conflict – can help you heighten the emotional tension. Even a trivial conflict can capture your reader’s attention if your characters believe their battle is life or death.

“Thinking in these terms will ensure that your scenes have significance,” Bell notes. “Think about each move a character makes as a battle tactic, and each physical action and dialogue exchange as a weapon. These can be subtle and involve subterfuge or distraction, as well as direct assault. But they’re all employed to gain the victory.”

If you try this approach, Bell suggests a few questions to ask as you write:

• What are the two sides in this war?
• What is at stake?
• At what point in the story do the two sides understand, intellectually or emotionally, that they’re at war? Or, if the characters don’t know yet that there’s a war on, when does the reader know?

Suggested reading: The Art of War by Sun Tzu; The War of the Roses by Warren Adler

Who am I?

I’ve written a bit about my prior novel-in-progress, which has suffered from at least three false starts. Each time I’ve launched myself into the story, I’ve become mired in the muddy middle, which by now has become a tar bog strong enough to fell a brontosaurus. I’ve written three decent beginnings, one of which I like very much, and have a big-bam-boom ending planned. If only novels didn’t need all that boring in-between stuff…

In my continuing quest to resolve my struggles with plot and character drive, I read this article by Kristen Lamb, a blogger whose work I very much enjoy. In the post, Lamb reframes character conflict as culture conflict. This set my gears turning, and helped me clarify the interpersonal conflicts I worked to create and link those conflicts to some foundational story world issues in a way that deepens the characters’ motivations and heightens the tension.

“Put more than two humans together and somewhere, somehow they will find something to fight about,” Lamb writes in the post. “Age, sex, race, religion, socioeconomic status, education, hobbies, political views, on and on and on invariably impact our perspective.”

My story was already layered with these kinds of conflicts, based on the age and sex of the characters, their relative wealth, their social status and apparent authority in their town, and their visions of how life, love, success, family, and marriage should be defined. Viewing that tension through the lens of cultural conflict, rather than merely personality differences, suggested additional confrontations, as well as particular settings where these conflicts can play out. When a place represents everything a character hates or simply wishes not to become, tensions will rise.

Importantly, this angle also showed me how the characters can be more attached to their desires and visions, and why those needs are important to them and what they represent. This connection shows why they go to such lengths to get what they want and the intangible sense of self they’ll lose if they fail.

What does this look like in practice? Two major story forms – sitcoms and rom-coms – heavily rely on culture conflict to create tension between their main characters. “Why do we love these stories? Because they are fun,” Lamb says. “One world trying to understand and work around the other, butting heads, but then finally coming together at the end and being better for knowing one another.” Why does the Hallmark channel make 6,000 movies about a holiday-hating big city executive falling in love with a small town artisan who still believes in Santa? Because people watch them.

This dynamic works, whether you have a clash of personalities (The Odd Couple) or a clash of lifestyle (Green Acres), regardless of genre. It works in mystery fiction (Holmes and Watson), science fiction (Star Trek, Star Wars), fantasy (Lord of the Rings), and horror (Beetlejuice). Think of the various survivor communities in The Walking Dead, and how each is based on a vision of how the world should be. Every mentor/mentee story and those with main characters from different generations features a culture clash. History is filled with culture conflict, from colonization to the American Civil War to the French Revolution.

I finally got around to reading A Game of Thrones and I can’t help but notice how much of the conflict is driven by family culture, which is hidden behind the jockeying for the throne. Consider the stoic northern Starks, quietly preparing for winter, in comparison with the ruthless southern Lannisters, who are involved in plots within plots that will put one of their own on the throne, and compare each with the wealthy Tyrells, who have plenty of ambition but are happy counting coin.

In fact, GRRM makes the culture clash explicit in the back matter, where he identifies each of the major family’s credos:

Ours is the Fury. Winter is Coming. Hear Me Roar! As High as Honor. Family, Duty, Honor. Growing Strong. We Do Not Sow. Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken. Fire and Blood.

Can you guess which families are most savage on the battlefield, which would keep their vows, and which would be most ruthless? You might be able to sort they families by which have the most wealth or are longer established, which have the most ambition, and which have the most to prove.

Even if you know nothing about the books, you can see how characters with those mottos would come into conflict. I bet most of you reading this could design nine original characters based on your interpretation of the meaning of those credos, and create high-stakes conflict simply by placing those characters in a confined setting and putting them in motion.

At heart, conflict arises when characters have strong – but opposing – visions of how the world should be. Casting those disagreements as cultural, rather than merely a difference in personality or opposing goals, can raise your story to another level.

Lamb also suggests humans are often drawn to people who are our opposite in some way or who make us crazy. We see something that we lack in the other person, and are thus drawn to them. In this way, a strong culture clash can both create conflict and connection between your characters, adding additional layers to your characterization.

“Culture…can be as broad or narrow as we want or need it to be,” Lamb writes. “If you are trying to create a story that is ‘same’ enough to resonate, but ‘different’ enough to spark interest…try starting with a culture clash.”

Who am I?

Last time, we talked about how something as simple as a grocery store run could help you develop and reveal your characters in a way that lets your reader intuit their situations through story. What your character buys, what they can and cannot afford, and what mood they bring can convey a lot of background information.

When I come across these writerly tidbits, I like to consider how a technique works in practice. In this case, I started thinking about where I’ve encountered memorable settings or scenes that involved buying, making, or eating dinners.

Food might play a central role in your plot. Your family may have a serious confrontation over dinner, as in August: Osage County, or your protagonist may channel emotions through her cooking, as in Like Water for Chocolate. Fans of Agatha Christie can probably name a dozen murders committed during or after a grand dinner or party.

Your protagonist might be a real-world chef or someone inspired by her (Julie and Julia) or a cartoon rat with a taste for fine dining (Ratatouille). Your heroine’s struggles and her eventual rebound might be revealed in how she avoids or embraces her skill as a baker (Bridesmaids).

The World War II setting of Marge Piercy’s Gone to Soldiers – my favorite novel – subtly centers food in nearly every chapter. Soldiers get by on MREs while their families at home have to ration staples. Refugees and the resistance must make do with what they can forage or pilfer, and concentration camp victims are starved.

Every post-apocalyptic story – The Road, The Walking Dead, A Quiet Place, Cloverfield 8 – is naturally filled with characters wondering where their next meal is coming from. Most feature a raid on an abandoned grocery story or pharmacy. In Dune, water is both more prominent and scarce than food. In A Game of Thrones, King Robert’s insistence on holding a tournament in Ned Stark’s honor deepens the kingdom’s reliance on its creditors, and his gluttony contributes to his downfall. And let’s not forget the Red Wedding or its later echo, when winter comes for House Frey.

And if you want to go deep in the paint, consider the backyard barbeque or Edie and the Eggman in Pink Flamingos or the climactic scenes in Eating Raoul and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover.

Those are all stories where the search or consumption of food set the scene, reveal character, or create a mood. And that’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure you have plenty of your own examples in mind.

Does food figure prominently in one of your stories? What are some of your favorite examples of fiction that uses food at a pivotal moment?

Frequent readers will know that I’m always on the lookout for interesting ways to develop and reveal character. We want to know what our characters are thinking and feeling at any given moment, but in a way that doesn’t spell out the information to the reader and doesn’t feel forced or corny.

In a (relatively) recent post on Lit Hub, writer Flynn Berry suggests a clever method for inhabiting your characters: Take them grocery shopping. “When I’m working on a novel…I like to push a cart around a supermarket, deciding what my character will buy,” she says. “It’s the single best way for me to understand a character well enough to inhabit her on the page.”

That won’t work for every writer, story, character, and this kind of research may never make it into your story. However, I like this method because A) it gives me a writing topic to mull while I’m doing chores; and B) Everybody eats.

Does your character shop for comfort or convenience? Does he buy frozen dinners or fresh ingredients? A busy single parent might purchase more pre-made dinners and snacks than a single guy who hits the gym every day. The busy parent might feel guilty about not having time to cook and the gym bro might hate that fresh kale he buys every week.

A character living away from family might buy food that reminds her of home or may have trouble sourcing ingredients. Another will think twice about spending on an expensive cut of meat. Does your character buy the same 12-15 things, rushing up and down a handful of aisles in the shortest amount of time possible (me) or do they take their time shopping and plan for a variety of meals?

Berry also notes that characters are likely to let their guard down at the supermarket. “They might be tired or hungry, stopping on their way home after a long day at work; they might be consumed with worry at the prices; they might be caregivers, carefully choosing food that someone else will eat,” she notes. “They might be optimists, cheerfully buying greens that will absolutely wilt before anyone cooks them. They might be choosing their groceries in a fit of nostalgia, or gloom, or restlessness.” In other words, are your characters eating their feelings?

You don’t need a grocery store to use this technique. Does your fantasy character hunt his food, forage, or have a garden? Does he have a spouse or family or someone in his employ to do that? Raw meat or cooked? Tree bark or berries? In Star Trek, consider the characterization shortcut provided by Picard’s choice of Earl Grey and Janeway’s craving for coffee.

Throw in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and you may get a deeper understanding of how your hero relates to food. Are your protagonist’s basic needs for food and shelter met or is she struggling? How does the need for physical intimacy affect his choices? Does a person with high self-esteem check the nutrition label?

How and what we consume says a lot about us. Are you listening?

Who am I?

Three Day Novel Contest

This can’t possibly be real, right?

National Novel Writing Month (50k words in 30 days) is one thing. Writing a short novel in November is a big ask, but with a bit of planning and calendar clearing and discipline, it’s doable. Your novel may not be publishable – or even finished – but it is physically possible to write that much in the space of 30 days. I’ve done it, twice. Neither project was particularly good, but one may be salvageable.

And, as they say, the biggest benefit of NaNoWriMo is proving to yourself that you can create a daily writing habit and you can finish a short novel in 30 days, even if the prose is not great. The sense of camaraderie and accomplishment among the players is also very real. Many people “want to” write but never do it, and participating in NaNo proves they can, even if it’s a one-shot deal. For many writers, it’s the start of a concrete creative habit.

But a novel in THREE days, even a short one? That’s a bit irrational. The math weighs against sanity: 16,700 per day, 1,200 words an hour, assuming a 14-hour day. How much cocaine is involved? Wouldn’t your fingers cramp?

The website boasts that one winner was shortlisted for a literary prize (in Canada, but ok) and another was made into a film. I’m certain both writers coasted into that 3-day weekend with more than a dollar and a dream. I suspect some thorough outlining was involved.

That said, I’m a big proponent of cheating altering the scope and parameters of an honor-system contest so that it works for you. 15,000 words over a 3-day weekend sounds like a spectacular accomplishment, as does a three-day editing binge of a completed project. 50,000 words in 100 days is a big deal.

These mile-a-minute writing contests rarely produce publishable work, but there’s no reason you can’t take what’s good about them – specific, measurable, time-bound goals and a sense of accomplishment – and bend them to your will.

The dates for the next Three-Day Novel Contest aren’t announced on the website yet, but I presume it will be held over Labor Day weekend 2025. However, some workers in the US will have a three-day weekend to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, January 20 (or the inauguration – happy holiday, however you celebrate).

Anyone game?

PS – I am not.

PPS – Enjoy your holiday, if you get one.

Who am I?

Like many of you, I use my time around the New Year to look back on what I did during the previous twelve months and make a plan for what I’d like to accomplish over the next twelve.

There’s no reason to limit this process to January. When my goals go off the rails, I will blank out my spreadsheets and start fresh in June or July, if I must. But January is convenient.

My biggest struggle each year is differentiating between what I want to do, what I should do, and what I can realistically do. I should exercise regularly, at least 4 – 5 hours per week. I do my best writing when I write every day, so that’s 10 – 14 hours minimum per week. This blog has been fulfilling creatively and socially. I should get through a few of the several hundred books on my TBR shelf. I’d like to take some art classes.

By the time I finish my list, my weekly schedule has some 20 hours of creative time + 10 hours of “should” time + another 10-15 of “want to do” time. And that’s not including time at work or maintaining my household.

If I were retired or could afford to pay someone to cook and clean for me, I might be able to spend that kind of time exercising, making art, writing, blogging, recording a podcast, reading, going to writing events, taking classes, traveling, going to movies and concerts, and getting together with friends. Alas, a few things must go. Maybe 2/3. Probably 80 percent.

I suspect a lot of creative people face this conundrum. We want to make art and enjoy art and see our friends and families and rest and recharge, and it all gets to be a bit much. The hard part is that I need some amount of all of those things to feel like a well-rounded human being.

How do you pick?

It’s not easy. I disappoint myself a little every January when I backburner a podcast for another year and scratch creative classes off my budget, but needs must. For me, everything flows from my writing time. Is my time better spent writing or going to a writing workshop? Writing or podcasting about writing? Writing is always my most important goal, and that helps me order the work. Of course, my family and friends are important, so I have to block out social time. After that, there’s room for a small project or two, and that’s that. I choose to be satisfied.

In a recent podcast, Tiffany Yates Martin and Joanna Penn talked about this decision-making process from the perspective of having a writing career, but their thoughts apply to the general writing life as well.

You will find copious advice about what you can, should, or must do to write a best seller or have a successful writing career, whether that means marketing and promotions, platform building, or even what you choose to write. There’s no way you can do it all without an army of assistants, and frankly, you don’t need to it all anyway.

“We have to say no to the things that don’t suit us, whether or not we’re told they are best practices,” Yates Martin says. “First of all, nothing that works for one person is going to work for every person. So if somebody is trying to set something up as the holy grail of ‘here’s the secret sauce,’ there is no secret sauce. Also, the secret sauce isn’t right for everyone.”

Your own intuition is your best tool for decoding your personal path and your boundaries. If it sounds good, but doesn’t feel right, say no. If you don’t have time or the effort doesn’t support your near-term goals, say no. Know yourself and pick the work that suits you and brings you joy. Joanna Penn says she even keeps a list of not-to-do projects that sound fun or that she “should” do, but would take up too much time or simply don’t interest her. (I should probably put “podcast” at the top of such a list…)

I don’t share too many of Joanna Penn’s interviews, because her blog focuses more on the business side of writing, which is outside my purview. However, she’s definitely worth a follow. Her interviews often include creative topics, as well as business areas, and her guests are relatable. It’s a good listen.

Did you make goals for this year? What are they? What is your intuition telling you?

Who am I?