Welcome to 5-minute writing tips – answers to questions that clients ask me that can help you be a better/happier/more efficient writer…
Today’s question: “Why do writing intensive sessions like AcWriMo work? ”
You can read here about my impressions of 2022 AcWriMo and why it was so successful for me (finished nearly a whole draft of my book, had fun doing it). I offer these workshops a few times a year - here’s why I think they’re so successful, based on this year’s writing session.
I was my own personal assistant: Instead of just waking up in November and deciding to write every day, I used October to make my November easy - I said no to a lot of things, moved around some optional meetings, did a bunch of work that was neither urgent nor important but that would be annoying if it was still lingering in November. Then, I did all of the research and planning I needed to jump into November. I was basically my own personal assistant in October.
I created a hype squad: I love hosting AcWriMo as a gift to the writing community, but it also helps me. Every day, there are people I am accountable to, which means that I’m more likely to write and to post. And, because of my well-timed “no assholes” rule, everyone in the group was really amazing and supportive of each other, so it was a fun writing group to be apart of. I miss it already.
I embraced slow writing: I am a newcomer to the “slow” movement - slow cooking, slow teaching, slow living. I mean, I live in New York City, I have three kids, I run my own freelancing business - not very much about my life is slow. But I knew that I needed to slow it down: most people cannot write for 30 days straight, but maybe you can think about writing for 30 days straight. Maybe you can let making notes in your phone, or teasing out an idea over coffee, “count” as writing, and you can build a sustainable writing practice that works for you.
Slow writing has meant giving people lots of options about finding rhythms and spaces that work for them, letting people know they can disappear and always come back, and generally creating a space where the goal isn’t just to put thousands of words on the page, but also to lay the foundation for good writing and complicated writing, which takes time and revision. Part of this is an asset-oriented perspective: what writing exists in the world that didn’t before? What are you proud of producing? And then taking all of that and applying it to myself.
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