My superpower is organization. It’s a skill I’ve cultivated, but also something that comes easily to me. I’ve never understood the sort of person who works well under pressure, with a deadline looming and only hours to get something done. Why bother with all that stress when you can figure out a reasonable timeline to achieve a goal?
Every project I’ve ever done, personally or professionally, I start with the goal and work back, breaking it down into achievable chunks. I build in buffers for the unexpected, and allow for flexibility from start to finish. I plan ahead and set goals along the way. This is how I was able to produce a podcast entirely on my own for five years. This is how I’ve finished every art project I’ve ever done. This is how I managed being the single employee supporting hundreds of fundraising volunteers across dozens of events.
This year I set some solid targets for my writing. First, I intend to complete my Lojong slogan commentaries. I looked over what I had left, figured I could write two a month, publish two a month, and be finished them by the summer. Thus far, I’m right on target and even finding myself moving ahead of schedule on rough drafts.
I also set the goal to write at least one entry a month for this blog as a way to enjoy a less formal space for sharing my writing. Again, so far, so good. Here it is, February, and this is my third post of the year.
And yet…when it comes to writing fiction, all my skill and talent for organization go out the window.
When I wrote fiction as a child, teenager, and in my twenties, I did so with zero training. I just wrote because I wanted to, because I had characters who needed to be created and story ideas I wanted to see. As the years passed, manuscripts have accumulated—first on floppy discs, then on hard drives, and now in clouds. But my approach was always to just write the thing and then…that was it. I had a finished manuscript—60,000 raw words put down over months or sometimes a few years—and no system for what to do next.
Occasionally I would polish up the first three chapters of something and send it off to an agent or indie publisher, according to their submission guidelines. Most of the time I never heard anything back, but sometimes there would be a reply and the message has always been the same: Needs some work. Revise and try again.
Revision is not something I knew I had to do as a writer. No one told me as a kid that there was training available to me, that there were courses I might take and people I could learn from so that writing could be a viable career. My understanding of the world when high school graduation was approaching was that I had to pick a career that would pay, and writing was something to do on the side until that magical moment when someone picks your manuscript up and says, “This is great. We’re going to publish it!”
It’s only been in the last two years that I’ve learned about revision, character questionnaires, writing workshops, and that a majority of the books we read have been through multiple re-writes to become the final draft bound and in our hands.
This growing understanding comes with a growing edge to my organizational skills. Breaking down the task of revision is something I haven’t figured out yet. Re-reading and capturing character descriptions in detail were not things I thought of as writing. Making notes when I find plot lines I didn’t know I’d created and tracking details for set-up and pay-off are newly acquired skills. I’ve been writing since before I could spell but I’m like a kid again as I learn all these little things.
Developing a praxis takes time and patience. I am behind on my plans for this fiction manuscript I’ve committed to revising this year. I am behind because I am still learning how to break down the chunks as much as I’m still learning what needs to be done. I thought it was just writing character questionnaires to start, and then I’d go through chapter by chapter making edits. But two weeks in I realised I’ve forgotten so much of the storyline I forgot about one character entirely! So now I have to re-read, and reading on a screen fatigues me. I’m taking it slowly, figuring it out and remembering that not being on target doesn’t mean I’m failing but that I’m learning.