Sneak Up On Your Dreams

Yesterday I finished writing the rough draft of my novel. It’s a little over 65 thousand words and is fourteen chapters long. I’ve had some ideas for this novel on my mind for well over a year, but hadn’t done anything with it even though I’ve been able to write full time since July. The structure of NaNoWriMo was what was needed. These are the lessons I’ve learned from taking on this project and how I hope to structure future projects.

Plan: I first looked up the NaNoWriMo site in the middle of October. I can’t remember exactly where I had heard about it, but I googled it and found it and checked out the rules. It said that I couldn’t write any of the novel before November started, but I could outline to my heart’s content. I always prefer to have a guide for my writing so I started looking for methods of outlining and found one that worked for me. I outlined every part of every scene for the first 9 chapters or so. After that I wasn’t sure where my novel was going to go so I just outlined the basic idea of what I thought would go in the chapter. This worked great. For the first nine chapters I never had to spend too much time thinking about what to write as I could just refer to my outline. After that. I had to spend a day outlining the rest of the chapters, which was much easier once I knew what the characters were up to. Because I had an outline I rarely faced a blank page with few ideas. Lesson: Every time you have a large project to do, take the extra time to map it out and break it into pieces that doesn’t require too much thinking. That way when you get stuck you’ll have your very own cheat sheet to refer to.

Pressure yourself: In the beginning I was high with writing. I wrote long scenes with little effort. I was giddy and wanted to write every day. That didn’t last long. Near the end of the second week I didn’t want to even open Microsoft Word. The weight of my commitment to finishing an entire rough draft of a novel in just 30 days seemed too heavy. I wanted out. After that initial honeymoon there were days that I didn’t write, but there were far more days that I didn’t want to write, but I did anyway because I knew I had the deadline. I don’t think I would have pressured myself if I didn’t have that deadline of getting the whole thing done in November. I would rationalize to myself that I just needed to do a couple thousand words to help move me along so that I’d have less to do in the end. There were some days that I was dead set against writing and had to drag myself to start, but once I’d started I finished a few thousand words. Lesson: Whine and complain all you want, but make a deadline and stick to it whether you want to do it or not. On the worst days do less than you’d like, but at least do some.

Wonder in Amazement: My last few chapters flew by. I could see the end so I wrote a chapter a day for a few days. I had only a couple of scenes left at the end and I just didn’t want to write them. I don’t know if I was actually upset about finishing or I was just too tired of writing. I set up a time in my schedule and went to a local coffee shop and finished them. I was then in a kind of shock that I had actually done exactly what I said I was going to do even though it sucked. The non-sucky part is that I know have a halfway decent rough draft of a novel. I’m going to leave it for a month then give myself the month of January to edit the whole thing. Lesson: Working, even if by self-force, little by little on a project will get you to the end. Sit in amazement at your ability to do something that previously seemed impossible.

I get so jealous of people who know exactly what they want and seem to feel it deep inside their beings.  It’s as if they have a target circle pained on some distant goal and all they need to do is to keep their eye on it and it will draw them to it.  Unfortunately, I don’t find that most people have that kind of passion.  The problem, though, is that if you don’t set your sights on anything, you might not get anywhere.

There are many people who, intelligently, take the next right step in their lives over and over again and get reasonable places. When they graduate from high school they go to college, when they meet someone they like they get married, when they’re offered a job they take it. They keep building on this series of nexts and arrive at a nice place.

Sometimes, though, it’s hard to tell what the next step should be without some kind of eye on the future.  If there’s a decision to be made, should I take this job or that one, it’s hard to decide without some larger ideal driving you.  I find that every time I start wondering if I should be out there getting a higher paying job, I can appease myself by remembering that my goal is not more money, but more free time.

What I’ve found is that a passionless passion is just fine. A passionless passion is a goal that you are happy and comfortable with, but perhaps not completely insane about.  I might want to do something in particular or achieve something, but if I ran into a big obstacle I’d be fine with changing or altering my plans.  Having a goal, though, with or without deep passion for it, gives me some kind of guide to work with. I can attempt to reach my goal and along the way I’ll learn more about myself and what I want.  If need be I’ll switch my goal to something else entirely.

Currently, I’m working on saving money for the down payment on another house.  I’d like another, bigger house, but I’ll survive without it.  Keeping my mind set on the goal, though, cannot hurt at all.  If I achieve my dream of another house I’ll be happy, if I don’t and my goals change then I’ll just have a bunch of money in the bank.  I can live with that.

If you’re having a difficult time coming up with a true, deep passion for some goal, try to develop some passionless passions.  Come up with things that you think you’d like and work towards those.  The practice of working towards a goal is always helpful, if even just for the practice of working slowly towards a goal.