Some Reminders

Other writers are not your competition. Everyone needs a multitude of stories.

If you write to pay the bills, you are not a "sellout." We all have to eat.

You are allowed to write your experience, even if your experience isn't the norm.

You are allowed to write what makes you happy, even if others think it's "silly."

Writing fanfiction is valid and just as entertaining and important as original fiction.

You don't have to write with the intent to share. Your work is allowed to just be for you.

You don't have to make money to be a "real" author.

You never have to do anything you aren't comfortable doing--whether it's a writing style, using a social media platform, writing a certain trend or genre, or anything else.

You are allowed to struggle.

You are allowed to have off days.

You are allowed to go long stretches without writing a single word.

You do not have to write every single day to be a "real" writer.

You do not have to write about "serious" topics. We need lighthearted fun stories, too.

You don't have to write about your own marginalization if that's not what you want to do.

There are no hard and fast rules of writing. Use the advice that works for you and throw out the rest.

You don't have to aspire to traditional ideas of success.

You don't have to publish traditionally, or at all.

Your writing is yours, and your journey is yours. Others may have valuable advice, but you never have to take advice that makes you uncomfortable or just doesn't work for you.

You are allowed to write crap. That's how you improve.

Take care of yourself. Be gentle with yourself. It's hard, but I believe in you.

Until next time,
Jenn.

It's That Time Again

It's the 30th of October. Tomorrow is Halloween, AKA the best day in the entire year. I'll be carving pumpkins and spending time with my family, and the day after that I'll be attending my local kickoff party for that beast that looms every November:

NaNoWriMo.

I write a variation of this post every year. It's relevant year-round, but doubly so in November, when many people are striving to write as much as they can in 30 days.

I've been participating in NaNoWriMo every year since 2008. In 2010, I was a senior in high school, with all the pressure that comes with that. In addition to worrying about homework and grades and my senior project, I decided I wanted to write my NaNo novel as quickly as possible, and write, not just 50,000 words, but as much as I possibly could. It was a personal challenge, and I got a wee bit too ambitious.

2010 was a rough year for me for a number of reasons, and I had a lot on my plate. I threw myself wholeheartedly into NaNo that year. I finished my project in four days, through a combination of not getting enough sleep, not taking nearly enough breaks, and pushing myself to the utter limit.

I was also sick at the time. That should have been my clue to take it easy, but I was sixteen and overconfident. So what could have been a quick, easy bout with the crud became a trip to the emergency room with a temperature of 106.3 degrees. When your temperature gets that high, you're in serious danger of permanent damage, and I remember sobbing that the water was too cold when my mom tossed me in a lukewarm shower in an attempt to bring my temperature down.

Not fun.

After a visit to the ER, during which I got a shot right in the ass cheek, I had to take a week off school. I spent the entire time either asleep or whining to my mom that I felt like crap. Not something I'm eager to repeat.

The moral of the story is this:

Take breaks. No matter how intently you're working on a story, for NaNoWriMo or otherwise, take breaks. Get up, drink some water, eat, stretch. Take a break from staring at a computer screen. Spend time with friends. Give yourself a rest. It's not worth hurting yourself just for the sake of word count. Believe me, putting yourself in the ER for the sake of a book is not only supremely unpleasant, it's pretty damn embarrassing.

Your story is important, but your health is important, too. Don't neglect the latter for the sake of the former.

Take care of yourself this NaNoWriMo, okay?

Until next time,
Jenn.

You Can't Quantify Hard Work

It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted. I've enjoyed having a blog again, and I've really been scratching my head for topics. The one I keep coming back to feels like a variation on my post "Don't Write Every Day," and I'm always wary of beating a dead horse.

Thing is, it seems like that message needs repeating. Often.

So many people fall into the trap of believing that people who don't write every day just aren't working hard enough. The thing is, you don't know how hard I work. You don't know just how hard it is to put my butt in the chair, as the common advice goes, and put words on the page.

"Hard work" is subjective, as well. There are days I can put down several thousand words without breaking a sweat. More commonly, I struggle to string together even a few paragraphs. Hitting 500 feels like a miracle. That doesn't somehow mean I worked "harder" or "better" on the day I wrote a few thousand.

I have to celebrate the baby steps. Every word is a victory. I've spent a long time feeling like I'm not successful because I don't have any published books to my name. I've spent a long time feeling miserable because it feels like I can never do enough, and my words will only mean anything once people can buy them in a bookstore.

I have never been a fan of the way the writing community puts published writers up on a pedestal, as if they are harder-working, better-writing, better-than-the-rest-of-us paragons of authordom. I have never liked the way that we as writers only seem to "count" once we sign that contract and have an official book deal--or, sometimes, when we only count once our book is on the shelf at Books a Million.

Writers are writers are writers, and we as a community have got to give more respect to those who struggle, who work for a week and produce only a handful of words, or who go weeks or months or years without being able to write much at all. We have got to have more respect for those who break themselves trying to meet far-off goals, only to realize that cramming themselves into the mold of what the community says success looks like is making them miserable.

There are countless paths to success as a writer. There are countless views on what "success" even means. There are countless ways to work hard, there are countless ways to produce content, and there are countless ways to be an author.

Your success is not the only way of being successful. Your accomplishments are not the only ones that took hard work. Your hard work is not the measuring stick by which others should be judged.

It's hard being too exhausted to write. It's hard being constantly told what my goals should be, what my workload should be, and what my daily output should be. It makes me hate writing, sometimes, to know that I'm "not working hard enough" by a lot of folks' standards.

Screw your standards, I work by my own. I am a writer regardless of what my output looks like, and I refuse to listen to those who put arbitrary quotas on people they don't even know.

It feels terrible to know that there are folks out there who think you're not doing enough. It feels terrible to find yourself buying into it, and to catch yourself beating yourself up for going a day without putting down words.

Don't let the gatekeepers and the naysayers get you down, because they're full of crap.

Every word is a victory. Celebrate it as such.

You are a real writer, and you belong in the writing community.

I promise.

Until next time,

Jenn.

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Write What You Want

There's something that happens rather a lot in the publishing community, and it's this tendency toward telling writers to avoid things that have been done "too many times." Common plots and story seeds are labelled as inherently worthless to work with, and the oft-repeated refrain is, "everybody's tired of it."

I have multiple issues with this.

For one, some of my absolute favorite things get swept to the side and called "boring" because they've been "done too many times." I adore portal fantasy. I think plots where someone who seems like a boring nobody is actually secret royalty are still pretty fun. Faerie tale retellings? Love 'em. I could go on. And if I'm not tired of those plots, it's a safe bet that there are plenty of other people out there who aren't, either. So the argument that "nobody likes them anymore" just doesn't hold water.

For two, sure, there are a lot of plots out there that have been written already. But not by you. Not by me. We have not seen every conceivable take on every conceivable idea. Everybody tells a story differently. If I've read one book about vampires, I've read one book about vampires. The vampiric element is only a part of what makes the story, and I want to read all about the unique twists and turns and worldbuilding each new author brings forth. It's fun, it's entertaining, and I like it. No two authors tell the same tale.

For three, there are so many instances where "everybody's tired of it" comes off more as "it's popular, so I hate it." I don't have a lot of patience for that. Especially when these anti-bandwagons tend to heavily target things that are popular with girls and women. If it's not hurting anyone, let people enjoy things.

Trends ebb and flow, but to say that something is ever "dead" is just plain wrong, to me. Every book has a reader, and the only time I will ever look at a trend or a trope and say it's bad and should never be done is if that trend or that trope is rooted in bigotry. No more Nazi romances, for the love of all the gods. No more "noble savages." No more disabled people getting better through the power of love. Portal fantasy, though? Vampires? A portal fantasy with vampires? Hit me with it. I'll keep reading it for as long as people keep writing it.

(No, for real, if anyone has any portal fantasy with vampires, that actually sounds amazing and I want to know about it.)

In short? Write what you want. Write what entertains you. Write the book that you need, that you want, that you find entertaining. Just because some people are tired of it doesn't mean everyone is.

Until next time,
Jenn.

Don't Write Every Day

In the past, I've written about the passive ableism inherent in lots of popular writing advice. Recently on Twitter I posted the following series of tweets:

[Image description: A series of tweets from Twitter user @JennBasel discussing ableist writing advice. The tweets read: 

Stewing on some ideas for a post about how so much creativity advice is passively ableist. Because hoo boy, is it. 

“Write every day or you’re not a real writer!” is advice that’s been super harmful to me personally. I /can’t./ I only have so many spoons. 

“You have to force yourself to put your but [sic] in the chair and write!” is well and good on days I haven’t used all my spoons on basic hygiene. 

Some days I have fewer spoons & have to put them toward eating & getting dressed. I’m not less of a writer for not writing on those days.]

[Image description: A series of tweets from Twitter user @JennBasel discussing ableist writing advice. The tweets read:

I really can’t treat writing like a job most days, because even just existing is hard. “Write when you can,” is the policy I work by.

Today I made a to-do list, took one look at it, and nearly panicked because I KNEW it wasn’t doable. I cut everything that wasn’t vital.

tl;dr, don’t act as if “write every day” or “treat writing like a job” are accessible ways to approach being a writer. They’re not.

This thread brought to you by an autistic writer with severe anxiety and chronic fatigue, among many other things.]

I posted screenshots of these tweets on my Tumblr, and almost immediately started getting comments from fellow disabled writers that made me realize just how necessary this sentiment is. Multiple people across Twitter and Tumblr replied with thanks, and with frustration that this same sentiment isn't more common.

It really upset me. As nice as it is to have strung together words that resonated with people, these words shouldn't be so rare that they strike such a chord.

Too many writer communities get hung up on what it takes to be a "real writer." How much do you have to write? How often? How seriously? With what goals? To what end? All of these questions get debated hotly, and the conclusions that get drawn are almost always variations on, "You have to write every day, with the goal of publication, with the intent on making it a lucrative career."

That's a bunch of crap.

Not only is it dismissive and rude to those who write solely for fun, with no desire to make it a career, it's downright cruel to those of us who have tried our damnedest to meet those standards and failed because they are utterly inaccessible. I have broken myself in pursuit of that "real writer" ideal. It sapped my love of the craft, killed my creativity, and made me absolutely miserable.

"Write every day" is hurting people. It's time to acknowledge that, widely and loudly. I shouldn't be one of the only people saying it.

Write in the way that's best for you. Write what you can, when you can. If all you can manage is once every blue moon, you're not somehow "not a writer." You still write. You still have that desire to tell stories and have fun with it. Arbitrary quotas mean nothing, especially when they're imposed by other people.

I'm making this post not necessarily to elaborate on what I said in my tweets, but to keep boosting the message: You aren't less of a writer because you can't write every day. You aren't less of a writer because you can't or don't want to treat writing like a job. You aren't less of a writer because you don't write as much or as often as some other writers do. You don't have to meet someone else's arbitrary standards.

Write in the way that is best for you.

Until next time,
Jenn.

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