Time to renew the NaNoWriMo memes. These are available to all who want to use them.
(Need more writing memes in your life ?– see my previous memes under Memes: Write Something and Memes: Write Something (Two) and Memes: Write Something (Three))
Photo by Todd Ruth on Unsplash
Happy Thanksgiving!
I hope that in the middle of NaNoWritMo you have been taking care of your Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Because it is awful hard to write (a Self-Actualization product) when your Physiological and Emotional needs aren’t being met.
If you are not familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, it goes as follows:
Bottom layer 1 – Physiological Needs (breathing, water, food, excretion, sleep)
Bottom layer 2 – Safety Needs (Physical safety like shelter and clothes and health; Mental safety like steady income, security of body, and security of those under your care)
Bottom layer 3 – Belonging (Friendship, family, sexual and/or emotional intimacy, sense of connection)
Top layer 4 – Esteem (Confidence, achievement, respect for self and others, enjoyment of arts)
Top layer 6 – Self-Actualization (Morality, problem-solving, lack of prejudice, creation of arts)
While for most of NaNoWriMo, writers are reminded time and again not to let their Physiological Needs slide – it’s hard to write hungry or without sleep – that is not the only layer which needs to be in place to write well.
Today, being Thanksgiving in the United States, is a day of Belonging so let’s look a little at that. I think this is where most of writer’s block comes from. Argument with significant other, parent or child being sick, depression – anything that breaks or endangers the ties of connection taking the energy away from the higher layers where creativity lives and bring it down to the more important needs to survive.
Just like a child isn’t going to learn while hungry, or cold because of no winter clothes which fit, or worried about being taken away from their parents, a writer isn’t going to do their brain-best if they cut back on their sleep, worried about their day-job, or hasn’t had a hug in a while. Humans need these things.
Now you can skip around the pyramid some – you can go hungry for a couple hours if you enter The Zone. Sometimes health is never going to be completely met because of disability. But don’t beat yourself up if you don’t write too much today because your family is 1,000 miles away (like mine is) and you are missing them. You look at all that free time and go “why can’t I write?!?”, but emotional fragility undermines your efforts. I am going to go talk to my mom on the phone for a while. That should help me.
To find out more about this topic check out Liana Brooks post: http://lianabrooks.blogspot.com/2016/02/maslow-vs-deadline.html. The takeaway comment which hit me the hardest “The secret to hitting your deadlines in the chaos is to recognize your needs, and meet as many of them as you can.”
WRITER EXERCISE: Take care of one of the three bottom layers today and tomorrow share below how it changed your approach to writing – and maybe not just word count, but your enjoyment of the creative process or quality of the creative process.
Image courtesy of franky242 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Perfection is the bane of accomplishment.
Seeking perfection over completion can hinder your growth.
Making lots is often better than making one. Check out the Bibliography for details. These articles and videos really struck home with me.
In the month of NaNoWritMo, the lie buried in the perfection myth needs to be uncovered. Writing lots of stuff is more important than polishing one sentence. You can sell 20,000 words, you can’t sell five.
Write, complete, repeat.
(A previous post on this topic is here: perfection)
Bibliography
Blake, Roberto. Make 100 Crappy YouTube Videos (Like Mr Beast and PewDiePie Did!). Roberto Blake Channel on YouTube. 2019 October 28. Last viewed 11/2/2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnUBaQ1Sp_E&feature=youtu.be
Carter, Dom. How to Stop Perfection from Ruining Your Art. Creative Bloq: Art and Design Inspiration. 2019 September 23. Last viewed 11/2/2019. https://www.creativebloq.com/advice/how-to-stop-perfectionism-from-ruining-your-art
Scott, Eric. The Best Way to Learn Something? Make Lots of Pots. Startup Leadership. 2016 January 26. Last viewed 11/2/2019. https://medium.com/startup-leadership/the-best-way-to-learn-something-make-a-lot-of-pots-7f4aa97e1d3a
NaNoWriMo is happening. As announced on Oct 31st with my special song, I am participating again. So far I am at 34K of the 50 goal. If I was on track, I would be at 41K – but I’ll take 34,000 words. That isn’t a bad month’s production and there are still 5 days left. The “novel” I am attempting is UFOs – not science fiction, but Unfinished Objects. Writings started and abandoned.
A big part of this has been getting my blog in order. I am super caught up, though not completely caught up. Soon, though, soon. Related is expanding certain categories of the blog into things. The Write Good book series based off of the writing exercises. Finishing the AtoZ stories from April, into their collection of the Small Courages of Giants. Getting the flashes in order for actual expansion into short stories and books, and in response to requests on patreon for more if people are willing to throw money at the idea. And, most important, dealing with the fact I no longer have a backlog of flashes for my Sunday posts.
That is going to be a challenge going forward. I’m thinking my 2020 posts, at least initially will be – first week, expanding old flashes; second week, digging up old and new D&D campaign stories where I wrote things up in detail; and then third week new text flashes and four week new visual flashes with the fifth Sunday being the long flash. Plus, if the patreon (https://www.patreon.com/erinpenn) gets some people, I’ve promised unique-to-them Flash expansions and ongoing bits from my work-in-progress. Hopefully that will really kickstart my writing. I seem to do better when I feel obligations.
This level of output has done well this month. I don’t know if it is sustainable. I got a year to test it out.
Finally for the expanding certain categories of the blog, I’ve been bouncing around the idea in my head and with friends about maybe, sort-of bringing my Editing Rants to video format.
(Aiii!, while writing this I got my first patreon … Hi, Bruce. Thank you!)
Anyway, I made a thing as part of NaNoWriMo. Hope this entertains and informs.
Image courtesy of patrisyu at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
“I just had the best idea, hon. Just let me make a note of it on my phone.” I look up after a few minutes of quick typing and uploading to the cloud, ignoring both the cooling food in front of me and the character in my head going ‘and another thing’. “Now, what were you saying?”
Writing is a Solitary Business, as Faith Hunter explains in her November 9, 2011 post on Magical Words. The problem is even as introverted as most writers are, we aren’t solitary creatures. We have jobs and family. In November NaNoWritMo when writing dominates, Thanksgiving steals time away from the laptops and Christmas hides in the shadows waiting to pound us with lists and demands as soon as the 50K is clocked.
Ms. Hunter and the commentators on the post share some of the trials and tribulations of the story-in-the-head swiping moments meant for family and friends at . With the all-consuming NaNoWritMo, remember to breathe and listen to others in your life. There will be other stories; there is only one family.