I wrote every day* for a month

writing more by writing less each day

Hello friends! This is Ursula Fan Club, where I share what I’m writing, reading, and seeing in the world as I write the first draft of my book. If you’re interested in speculative fiction, the climate, ancestral stuff, textiles, living in a human body, and balancing a creative practice with whatever this is *waves wildly around*, you’ll probably like it here.

My 30-day challenge that hangs by my desk. Source: Austin Kleon 30-day challenge

I did it. For the first time in my life, I wrote (almost) every day* for a month. I committed to writing for 30 minutes each day for all of January, just to see if I could do it. This contract between me and my book was one that felt sustainable and consistent enough to keep my story moving. Some days, I wrote for exactly 30 minutes, because that’s all the time or energy I had to give; other days, I lost myself in the process and an hour or two slipped by easily as I wrote.

I had two goals for all of this effort.

First, hit 5,000 words, which was a goal set by PARAKEET for the month. I journal, outline, and write my manuscript by longhand and transcribe the manuscript bits into my Scrivener file. I hit 5,370 words in my manuscript, an estimated 6,500 additional words in my journal, and 3560 words for this Substack. 15,430-ish words total, more than triple my goal and more words than I wrote during the #1000wordsofsummer sprint, which also burned me out and left me not writing…for awhile.

Second, complete a sloppy first draft of a chapter of my book. Dear reader, my chapter is a mess; she rolled in mud and jumped on the bed; she painted with neon glitter paint and splattered it on the ceiling with gusto; she left all the dirty dishes from cooking a ten-course meal across every counter and table in the kitchen. But she is real and she exists outside of my brain, ready to be rewritten and edited.

There’s a lesson in here about atomic habits, about showing up every day, about making your process work for you. I’m still reflecting on this. But one thing that’s working for me is the 30-minute burst, rather than what I’ve tried before—an hour in the morning or 1000 words a day, which has been too much for me to sustain in the past. 30 minutes of focused attention is long enough for me to plow through a conversation or the start of a scene, but it’s usually not enough time for me to finish it. This does two things: it allows me to return to the page with momentum the next day, and it also gives me the freedom to pivot faster on the work. This gives me an entire day after my writing to ruminate on what I wrote and decide if I want to change course, and boy, did I change course. Characters appear and disappear, scenes are left unfinished while I shift lanes to another direction, and other small decisions swing a myriad number of ways in this draft. I have made no solid decisions on anything; instead, I’ve made at least a dozen different, conflicting decisions that landed me somewhere I’m excited about.

Here’s a passage from Alexis Pauline Gumbs from her book, Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, which we just read for book club, that speaks to the groundedness of daily writing and reminds me of this sensation of pivoting, the ability to make “swift turns.”

The function of dorsal fins for aquatic animals is stability. In water that is always moving, having a dorsal fin provides balance, autonomy, and support for the swift turns you might have to make in this oceanic life. […]

In a context that swells and tosses me around, where I might have to pivot without much warning, what are the evolutionary practices that stabilize me and allow me to cut a path through? This is one. Daily writing is my most dependable dorsal practice. It centers me, holds me, gives me perspective on what is changing in the ocean around me. It challenges me to notice my own drift.

In this sea of crisis and constant and terrifying change that we are swimming in, my daily writing practice has felt like coming home to myself each day. For February, this contract will continue as I continue to show up every day I can to write.

*I missed two days of writing this month—one was due to a 17-hour shoot day, and the second was at the end of the month when I had some personal stuff going on and I frankly didn’t make time to write. I’m totally ok with that. A slip does not a failure make. I want to share this transparently with you because we put so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect or nothing at all. I refuse that binary. We can succeed without a 100% attendance rating. I will continue to show up for myself and my book, as much as I can, and that will be enough.

What I’m writing

Shifting voice to another character to hear her backstory. I’ve been thinking of her a lot, wanting to give her more of a presence. I’m in my third re-read of Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness and want to dedicate an entire Substack post to her form, structure and voice for this book which is considered and very interesting. After seeing her shift from Genly Ai’s voice for most of the book to one chapter in the first half that plays with timeline and tells a story through Estraven’s voice, I’m inspired to try something similar.

What I’m reading

This week, I’m actively reading The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (a reread). Working to finish Undrowned, a week after my book club meet-ups (oops). For February, my goal is to finish current reads and plow through another 2-3 books on my to-read list.

Some helpful things

Instead of Austin Kleon’s 30-day challenge, I’m considering this Habit Tracker Notepad from Case Study.

This 30-minute hour glass for 30 minutes of sustained attention.

This interview with Alan Poma on inventing new futures.

Listening to Healing Together: A Compilation For Mental Health Recovery, a digital album of dozens of ambient tracks from different artists.