Chapter 4: What the Hell do you think you’re doing?
Enough with the cathartic, but ultimately extremely tedious to anyone but myself, preamble. Over the next year, I will set myself a creative writing challenge per month, with the aim of getting over my perfectionism, imposter syndrome and, generally, myself. Each month’s challenge must meet a specific set of criteria I have developed over the past fortnight, as well as have a measurable output. The tasks must be:
· Creative writing related
· Something I have never done before
· Progressively scarier (to me) than the month before
· Demonstrably completable
These are the ones that I have come up with so far:
· September: Start a blog
· October: Free write 500 words a day
· November: Write a novel in a month
· December: Post a chapter of this novel for critique on Scribophile
· January: Enter a short story competition with the deadline of 31st January.
For the remaining months of 2022, I am happy to seek advice, take challenges and set the tasks as I go, providing I always know what I am doing and am ready to begin by the 1st of the month. Some further ideas I’ve had include writing a piece of flash fiction, writing in a genre I would normally not enjoy and know little about (such as fantasy or sci-fi), posting something under my own name, submitting an article for publication, joining a real-life writers’ group…
September’s challenge, as you can see has been to start a blog. It’s not pretty: I couldn’t work out how to use WordPress and the name isn’t right, but I’m so proud that I didn’t let that stop me. Ordinarily it would have been an easy excuse to give into what I’m starting to call The Cringe. You know that awful inspirational quote that is all over certain parts of social media and the self-help sections of bookstores: “Feel the Fear and do it Anyway!” well, I am feeling the full body cringe and doing it anyway. I’m learning to recognise that little voice that says “This is awful! What are you wasting your time doing this for? You’re only going to embarrass yourself…”, and counter it with “Ah, ah, ahhh… I see you, Brain. And it might very well be awful and potentially embarrassing, but this is something I want to do, so it is worth doing… and feeling this cringe…and still pressing ‘post’ anyway. Thanks for trying to protect me, though.”
My internal parameters for blogging (urgh, there it goes again) are as follows:
1. The blog is secondary to the challenge. It is a place to record my thoughts, feelings and any analysis of the project.
2. This means I can tinker away with the design and where it is hosted, but I cannot allow this to come ahead of working on the creative writing challenges or stop me from posting.
3. I don’t have to be an expert, and this doesn’t have to look slick, but if I learn some new skills as I go along and want to improve the amateurish aesthetic by moving content around or formatting it differently etc., that’s fine.
4. Once something is posted online, it must remain online. Again, its permissible to move it (e.g., I’m thinking these lengthy early posts might become a section on a non-Medium site once I get the chance to sort that out) to another location or link, but I don’t delete it just because I’m embarrassed about its content or my lack of skill.
Today is 1st October, which means it is time to start the next month’s challenge. I have decided to write 500 words a day of anything at all. The rules for this are simple: I can write anything I like, if I have inspiration, but if I don’t, I will use this list of prompts. I have chosen this list, because it is free, and it very specifically only gives one prompt for each day. No wriggle room to start and stop if it turns out it’s sci-fi or sex scene related. I’ve chosen a limit of 500 words per day because this seems very achievable, even in the shortest of nap times, to help build routine and get used to producing something each day. Along with the advice to just start writing, another common piece of guidance I was given was to do so every day. I also like the idea that at the end of October I’ll have written 15,500 words more than I have at the start. And when combined with these exposition-y blog posts, it’ll be around 20,000 since I started. Way more than I have written since I left the workplace in early 2018, and probably the most I’ve written on any single project since my dissertation in 2009, which I think can only be a good thing in terms of reinforcing the habits, mindset and creativity.
Today’s writing prompt is:
October 1
Fearful symmetry
Pick a letter, any letter. Now, write a story, poem, or post in which every line starts with that letter.
I have chosen ‘E’. Wish me luck, and let me know if you have any ideas for horrible challenges in the comments…
Here’s a bonus feature, that first writing prompt itself (while I work out what I should actually do with these):
Eventually, she knew, she would have to give in. Elbows high, she kicked her legs in wide opposing circles. Echoes of the water churning filled the space around her ears. Even she knew she would have to give in.
Exhaustion would be the real reason, but they might just list hypothermia, or drowning, she thought strangely unemotionally. Exactly at that moment, she caught the smallest glimmer of light on the water, in the otherwise pitch darkness. Excitement and adrenaline rushed her blood as she moved towards it, quickly and inelegantly.
Evaporated…gone, like a thirsty traveller’s mirage.
Extreme sports were her first love: hiking alone to beautiful, deserted waterfalls, high in the Sierra; walking the wings of a 1940’s bi-plane thousands of feet above the domesticity below; caving. Everyone would say she died doing what she loved; the irony was not lost on her. Exactly what had she been thinking, swimming into here when she knew the tides were turning? Everything she’d ever been taught. Emotional decisions and acting impulsively cost lives. Excellent marks she had received for that particular unit.
Ego, that’s what it was — she’d been too arrogant, perhaps even showing off a little to the teenage boys snorkeling behind the boat… or their dad, honestly. Exclusivity: that’s what he’d said he’d wanted. Eternity. Eric wasn’t really so bad; it was her not him. Emotionally unavailable. Enough, she decided: if she got out of here, she promised herself and him that he would be enough, it would be enough. Enough…
Emotion came now — thick, fierce panic pouring into her — red hot against the freezing blue. Equaling the heaviness in her legs and arms now, she pulled herself unevenly, 360 degrees in the water, searching desperately. Effervescent — there it was again. Entreating her to use the last of her strength to come towards it. Encouraging her to expend the last of her energy to reach her wrinkly fingers and shaking hands to grasp it.
Encouraging, that’s how he had described her after that first session with her father, igniting a fire that had burned throughout the twenty years since. Extinguished, or about to be. Equivocally unmatchable — no one person could compete with the thrill of pushing her body to its limits, the training, the planning.
Emma had said there must be something wrong with her, a lot wrong with her, that she would rather spend her annual leave in the wet Welsh mountainside than on a beach in Sardinia. Even so, she had agreed to come on this holiday. Exited the taxi and got on the plane willingly. Even though she knew she would find it impossible to relax.
Eventually, she knew, she would have to give in. Every part of her body was sinking down now, as if into a familiar memory foam mattress. Exhaling. Expiring…
Exhumed, she felt herself lifted. Enormous light burned her eyes and an elephantine weight broke her ribs and crushed her lungs. Effusive lips forced themselves onto hers, her chin shoved back and nose clamped shut. Emitting, her stomach contracted and violently pushed the water back out her throat, mouth, nose and eyes…
