As we roll into the last month of 2020 (can anyone say, “thank the universe?”), I have successfully finished NanoWriMo at 50,123 words! I actually finished very early (Nov 22), and rather than working toward my stretch goal, I opted to switch and work on all the things I’d been neglecting instead. I did manage to complete the rough draft of book 5 in the Land of Szornyek series and dive into Book 6, and as a result, I’ve been thinking a lot about my most effective work style.
Now, I know that you could probably split personalities and work styles and opinions into a bajillion different categories, but I’ve been thinking a lot about how I work best and most efficiently in the context of two different categories: building and bursting.
There is a lot of pressure in the author world to do things like write every day, set up daily calendars and schedules, and make progress by adding one brick and one book to your business at a time. Even Stephen King says things like “Write every day,” and most of the most well-known writers have very singular schedules they keep to. This is what I call building—one brick or book at a time.
But what I’ve learned is that this doesn’t work very well for me. I have more of a “burst” personality, or a “binge” personality, if you prefer, haha. I’ve often struggled with this fact about myself, because it feels like I’m “doing it wrong,” but this year, I’ve really knuckled down and focused not on trying to change myself, but to instead work with this aspect of myself, and harness it to become more productive and efficient.
After all, why fight with myself to muscle my brain into a pattern it doesn’t like, forcing it to plug along working on a project at a slower daily pace, when I could let my motivation run wild for two days and finish as much work in those two days on that project as I would have gotten done had I truly been consistent every day?
The biggest issue with this strategy is that there aren’t a lot of tools and resources out there to help you operate this way. If you look at scheduling and gandt charts and project management, they help you figure out what needs to be done and when to do it. They break it up into manageable chunks that you can finish one day at a time.
But I don’t like manageable chunks. I like unmanageable chunks. I like putting all of my energy and focus toward one thing at a time, and working on it until either I’m completely worn out or it’s done. I like sprinting up mountains, not going for walks around the block.
And that’s why I like NanoWriMo. Write a book in a month? It appeals to every part of my burst personality. What I don’t like is the part where I have to write every day, but I only have to do that for a month and then voila! A book!
But write very day for the rest of my life? No thanks.
Much of my time this year has been shifting all of my processes and procedures into this kind of burst-like mentality. I will sit down for a day and schedule all of my Patreon posts for the next three months. The next day, I will sit down and draft all of my social media posts for six months. And then I will write 10k words the next day.
Even all of those little tiny tasks that take five minutes, like answering emails, paying my sales tax, and organizing my file folders—I wait until I have a huge heap of those built up, and then I do them all at once.
I even consume entertainment this way. Read a chapter of a book per day? Never. I need to read the whole thing at once or else I won’t enjoy it. Watch one episode of a TV show? Rarely. I’d rather sit down and watch three—or a whole season. Take three small vacations throughout the year? Nope. Let’s take one bigger vacation and then not worry about it again until the next year.
PS this is a drawing of a sunrise I did earlier this week (or a sunset if you prefer lol). I write a lot of sweeping, scenic descriptions, and sometimes I like to draw them too.
