Riding the Rollercoaster
After we wrapped up a recent podcast recording, Stephanie and I started talking about what it felt like to accomplish my latest writing goal, completing the (third) full draft of my memoir. I decided to hit record again in case something good came out of it. You can watch that clip here. I equated the way the progress of writing felt to riding a rollercoaster and more specifically, the initial steep climb.
Over the course of almost 3 months, I set aside time several days a week to sit down and write out the last of my stories to add. Most of the time it was just an hour here or there between leaving work and before afternoon school pick up. Occasionally I had longer blocks of time on weekends where I could work for a maximum of three hours. Essentially it was little bites at a time, slowly adding to the word count and checking off items on the long list of rewrites. To be honest, in the moment it didn’t feel like I was making much progress. It felt like the initial slow chinking up the hill of a rollercoaster.
When I finally finished the last chapter, added the last story, that’s where all the thrill lived. I couldn’t even tap into the reality that I was almost there until I crossed that peak. Normally when I have goals, I’m able to feel my progress along the way. With this one, I found it difficult to grasp.
When I set this goal back in January, I had certain beliefs about myself. One major limiting belief I held tight to was that I wasn’t disciplined. I had planned to write these stories before. I’d wanted to work on them last summer. But every time I sat down to write, I struggled to turn off my full-time mom brain with kids running around my house and tap into writer mind for the hour they napped, if that. Because I wasn’t successful, I interpreted that to mean I wasn’t disciplined. I’ve heard a lot of motivational speakers advise that you have to “do” before you can “be”…maybe that’s what I unknowingly did with discipline.
So many things happened for me in achieving this goal. For one, I have a completed manuscript ready for editing. But there were other outcomes too. I no longer believe myself to be undisciplined. I clearly showed up for myself every time I said I would. If I marked a date on my calendar, I sat down at my desk and made an attempt at a story, no matter my mood.
And the biggest gain from meeting this goal outside of the completed manuscript? I cultivated a writing practice where I can sit down at my laptop and immediately get to work on the project. When I had more time to write, before having a part time job to balance, I used to have all these rituals and things I needed to do first to get into a writing mood. I’d journal a bit, maybe pull a tarot card, read something inspiring, and then finally start adding words to the page. Through the limited time and intentionality of meeting this big goal, I’ve learned how to skip all that extra stuff and settle straight into the storyline, picking up wherever I left off.
Throughout the first quarter, there was only one day where I couldn’t bring myself to sit down and write. Life threw a curveball that consumed all of my mental attention and emotional energy. I had to dig into some deep self care practices, and that included not forcing myself to write that day. The wild thing to me is that in the past, having a setback like that and risking goal completion, has meant that I’ve given up on striving for the goal altogether. This time I didn’t let the setback derail me. Sure, I was behind and I stayed behind for several more weeks. It wasn’t until the final day when I wrote for 6 hours that I finally caught up on that missed time. But what I noticed most is I never got more behind than that single day. I didn’t let it serve as an excuse to not continue to push myself.
And now as I hold my printed out manuscript in my hands, I’m filled with so much pride for all the work I poured into this project. This is only one benchmark as there are still many steps to complete before I can publish it, but this is huge for me. I didn’t feel anywhere near as confident about the work I’m putting out in the previous two drafts. These were the changes the book needed.
