Welcome to Week 36+
It has been quite some time since my last update on this project. I have been meaning to send an update, but have excelled at finding a good reason week after another for why I should wait. Each week without an update, the stakes feel higher for what I should achieve before I send an update, and the spiral has now lasted many months.
In many ways, not a lot has changed since my last update. Last week, when two different friends asked about the status of the project, I gave it a deeper thought and wanted to share that with everyone. So, here we go:
In the time since the last update, I have still been working on the project every week. However, the work feels more akin to running on a treadmill rather than pounding the pavement with crisp air waking up my senses. The current label on my writing software is still “first draft”
That first draft has taken multiple trips between 95K words and 80K words as I cut, add, edit, and move things around.
With this process, I am learning firsthand that, while you may need quantity before you can work on quality, the latter is much more difficult, by several orders of magnitude.
I am working through my skill-taste gap all the while understanding there are even larger subsets of issues that I am not even aware of. All the recommendations I have found to move past this phase entail two key themes.
Acceptance: I will eventually have to get to a place where I accept the issues that I am unable to tackle at this time
Feedback: I need to get to a point where I can get feedback from readers.
Next steps:
My good friend Conor Blanchet has graciously agreed to be my accountability partner/coach. We have set up two deadlines to get this project to the next step.
By April 15, I will get him a draft with commentary, but no major holes.
By June 1, get the draft in the hands of an external editor/beta reader(s) and start collecting feedback.
Here’s the “fun” part of our agreement. Failing to miss each deadline with result in me writing a $500 check, which Conor is free to donate to his cause of choosing. Knowing Conor’s love for creative playfulness finding out where those checks end up may be worth missing the deadlines.
One of the common feedbacks I hear about this sort of accountability setup is that if you have to resort to such extreme majors to push yourself to finish or do something, you may not want it bad enough. Oh, I so wish it was true! Through this process, and through years of difficult projects in many other domains, what I have learned is that there is a knowing-doing gap. There is a large gap between knowing what to do and doing what you know you should. The feeling of being unable to make progress on the things that you have made your number one priority can be paralyzing. The reasons are many and the subjects of a long list of books: way outside of the realm of this post or my expertise.
So, I’ll return to the topic of this post, to talk about writing, specifically the progress of this Novel and the role of writing in Public. Without a doubt, writing this newsletter, even though it’s read by a small group of people, helped me get outside of the idea phase and make tangible progress on my second Novel. Knowing that I would be sharing an update every Tuesday helped me sharpen my focus. No tool or technique is perfect, and this was no different. It got me to a point, and I failed to realize when it had run its course.
Moving forward, I will return to updating my progress routinely, but not at the original weekly cadence. As I get closer to June, I will share a link to a draft. You can also expect a reflection post somewhere around that point.
Thank you for reading and being part of my writing journey. As always, I welcome any questions/comments/tips.
P.S.- If you are new here, you can learn more about the project and find the previous week’s updates here.
It’s great to see the project moving forward and you setting up some accountability goals, Bikul! I had recently been thinking about this substack and was about to check in with you before I saw this post.
Re this point:
“One of the common feedbacks I hear about this sort of accountability setup is that if you have to resort to such extreme majors to push yourself to finish or do something, you may not want it bad enough.”
I’m so glad you saw through that common, but incorrect, assumption! As you are well aware, Conor was also my motivational accountability partner for finally completing my PhD dissertation. I am so glad I finished the degree and I reflect on the achievement all the time. It was not lack of motivation standing in my way, but analysis paralysis, writers block, and fear of failure. I’m glad we worked together to break through!!