All of the Above; July 3 2021

When your artistic confidence is shot, what’s the best course of action? Is it:

a)      Study other people’s works and learn from their techniques

b)     Forge ahead with your work-in-progress to learn by doing

c)      Start an entirely new project that’s 100% outside of your wheelhouse

The answer, if you’re me, is to treat those steps like stages of grief!

At the beginning of my rut, I threw myself into reading and bought a couple more books for me to study (and enjoy). I swore to myself that I wouldn’t go back to writing until I’d picked up some more writing techniques to employ.

And then July hit. July, if you aren’t aware, is one of the months Camp NaNoWriMo takes place. If you aren’t familiar with it, NaNoWriMo gives you a graphing tool and motivation to write 50k over the course of a month. The ‘camp’ versions of this allow you to adjust that goal, but either way, it’s great for writers looking to make progress on their works while also engaging in the NaNo writing community.

On July 1st, I resigned myself to disappointment over the fact that I wouldn’t be participating. On July 2nd, I got angry at myself. Was I seriously going to abstain from an event I enjoy just because I don’t know whether or not I’ll ever succeed with my writing?

Hell nah.

I’m behind, of course, so I set the goal for 25k – I figured that was a good chunk of novel to get done, and I always find it easier to see a project through when I’ve already got a lot of words on paper. I wrote the minimum quota.

And then, on complete impulse, I opened a blank document and wrote a children’s story.

It’s a rhyming explanation for kids of dissociating parents, something that matters to me deeply as a parent with Dissociative Identity Disorder. One of my good friends is a graphic designer/illustrator who promptly volunteered to work with me on this kid’s book.

So… now I’m looking hopefully towards a future in which I don’t just publish adult fantasy and horror. I’m going to try publishing a book for kids. Young kids, at that.

What I think this goes to show is that you never know where these low points will take you.