06 | the darkening of the year
Some words for the in-between times, what's been filling my cup, and a sort-of NaNoWriMo update
Greetings, friends. November is upon us, and along with it, a sort of darkening of the year. The hours of daylight are shortening. The year itself is moving into its final act. Things are starting to fold in on themselves in the way they seem to every year as soon as Daylight Savings Time ends and all the leaves have left the maple trees.
Depending on the day, this can feel restful, or it can feel heavy. The last couple of weeks have perhaps skewed towards the side of heavy. This is undoubtedly due in part to the suffering that we are currently witnessing in various armed conflicts around the world. I'm guessing this has been weighing on a lot of us, and I wanted to acknowledge the heaviness of processing through a hundred media sources telling us how to think, feel, and act regarding events that already elicit anger, grief, uncertainty, and a dozen other difficult emotions. All this paired with the knowledge that no matter what we feel about what's happening, it pales in comparison to the experience of those living these conflicts as their day-to-day reality. I hope that in the various ways you're responding to this particular moment mentally, emotionally, in actions, and in introspection, that you're able to find some peace, too.
There has been a lot going on for me internally the last few months as well. What a time to launch a business. While I'm very happy that Labyrinth Editing is open for booking, the amount of work it takes to keep things running has not exactly slowed, and it feels weird to be self-promoting on social media at this moment, to say the least.
It's also been a time to reflect on my personal goals for my work, and to look at how I'm structuring my time. While it's a privilege to be in a position to get to both write and edit and do a day job that provides some level of flexibility to take on projects I'm excited about, it's also just...a lot. There are things I'd like to be doing with my time in addition to just working, and it raises some questions about what exactly I'm trying to do, here. Whose vision of success is it that I'm chasing, exactly? Am I really a writer if the majority of my time is going towards work that pays the bills? (Yes.) Is taking on editing just a way for me to help others with their stories while I avoid my own? (It depends.)
Iām sort of doing NaNoWriMo + a mood board
While these are all worthwhile questions to ask, that last one has perhaps been on my mind a lot now that NaNoWriMo is in full swing. While there's obviously been a lot on my plate I can't help feeling like I've neglected Project Alchemy, my main work in progress.
A lot of folks in my writerly circles are participating in NaNo this year, which is great! I enjoy and sometimes respond well to the challenge of getting a story idea down over the course of a month. There are years when that particular push is exactly what I need to start or finish a draft (sometimes both), but this year I was concerned that my tendency towards focus on arbitrary rules and the word counts might contribute to burnout.
The last few years I haven't officially participated in NaNo, as I've generally found that fast-drafting causes me to end up with a tangled spaghetti draft that, yes, is technically done. But in the aftermath, the satisfaction of writing 50,000 words becomes secondary to the crushing uncertainty of whether those words actually say anything worth revising. I start to question my skill as a storyteller rather than just as someone who knows how to write a lot of words quickly.
To be clear, I'm not knocking anyone who finds it helpful to fast-draft, or who finds that over-writing is the necessary predecessor to finding the meaningful threads in a story. There are times when both of those approaches have served me, and I don't think that writing quickly is mutually exclusive with writing well.
Still, I knew that this year I wanted to find a happier medium between drafting a lot and drafting well, which for me just means lessening the focus on word counts. I'm riding the coattails of my friends who are participating all-out in NaNo this year while working at a pace that makes sense for the moment. Even if I don't draft on a given day in November, I'm trying to do at least something (brainstorming, scene blocking, worldbuilding) that contributes to my story.
So of course I started with a mood board. It's pictured here, using a template created by De Elizabeth (wordsbyde) on Instagram. Just as with NaNo I skirted the rules a bit, switching out the film for a video game and bending the definition of āanimalā to ācreatureā. Iād say this does a decent job of encapsulating the vibe for Project Alchemy, my stand-alone adult fantasy that takes place in the Severed Realms - half of a broken world where monsters roam and men were once immortal.
Will my draft be complete by the end of November? Probably not. But if I can find a way to move the story forward and enjoy doing it, I'll count that a win.
The stuff thatās filling my cup
So what else have I been up to, aside from work? Here are a few of the things filling my cup and (sometimes!) keeping me from spending my entire day parked in front of a computer.
Reading: I've just started Eugene Vodolazkin's latest novel, A History of the Island. His 2015 novel Laurus is one of my all-time favorites, and this new book, which follows a fictional monk's chronicling of the struggle between good and evil on a particular island over several thousand years, has been described as a companion piece in terms of style and tone. I'm looking forward to seeing how it unfolds.
Playing: Ok, so this one is a screen activity. I recently completed my first full playthrough of Elden Ring thanks to a co-op mod I used with friends. Elden Ring was the first game I ever picked up to play on my own, and over the course of late 2022 I stumbled around the Lands Between for a good 70+ hours and died many hundreds (thousands?) of deaths before trying co-op this summer. Playing with others opened up a whole new experience of the game, which was frankly probably beyond my skill to complete on my own. The scope and scale of this game is bonkers, and while it remained challenging, playing co-op allowed it to be really fun as well. The lore (and the fact that the gameās worldbuilding was co-created by Game of Thronesā George R.R. Martin) is what originally drew me to Elden Ring as a non-gamer. The gameās admittedly enigmatic handling of death and time have also given me some ideas to chew on for my own WIP. I chose a melee build for this playthrough, and I can't wait to re-spec and try something new on a second go-round.
Listening: I've really been enjoying Worlds Beyond Number, a new-ish DND actual play podcast from Brennan Lee Mulligan, Aabria Iyengar, Erika Ishii, and Lou Wilson. Their campaign The Wizard, the Witch, and the Wild One just wrapped up Arc 1 of what is planned as several years of storytelling following the same three characters as they level up. It's been a blast listening to them collaborate and improvise their way through encounters with some terrifying creatures and the political intricacies of a large wizarding empire on their way to recover a magical item needed to break a curse. Arc 2 has just begun, and I'm happy to be along for the ride.
Baking: this pumpkin olive oil cake. It went perfectly with the pumpkin chili and jalapeƱo cornbread I made for friends when we gathered to carve pumpkins this year. My jack-o'-lantern is pictured below - the Raven Queen from Critical Role. This is the latest in my attempt the last few years to carve a dark or spooky figure from a story I love.
That's it for this time! Good luck and godspeed to those of you participating in NaNoWriMo; may the words and the hot beverages flow.
I'm going to leave you with a poem from John O'Donohue, an Irish writer that I turn to during times like this where the world feels heavy and the tangle of what Iām experiencing in the moment seems too close and in-progress to know how itāll turn out. This is from his book To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings.
For the Interim Time
John OāDonohue
When near the end of day, life has drained
Out of light, and it is too soon
For the mind of night to have darkened things,
No place looks like itself, loss of outline
Makes everything look strangely in-between,
Unsure of what has been, or what might come.
In this wan light, even trees seem groundless.
In a while it will be night, but nothing
Here seems to believe the relief of dark.
You are in this time of the interim
Where everything seems withheld.
The path you took to get here has washed out;
The way forward is still concealed from you.
āThe old is not old enough to have died away;
The new is still too young to be born.ā
You cannot lay claim to anything;
In this place of dusk,
Your eyes are blurred;
And there is no mirror.
Everyone else has lost sight of your heart
And you can see nowhere to put your trust;
You know you have to make your own way through.
As far as you can, hold your confidence.
Do not allow your confusion to squander
This call which is loosening
Your roots in false ground,
That you might come free
From all you have outgrown.
What is being transfigured here is your mind,
And it is difficult and slow to become new.
The more faithfully you can endure here,
The more refined your heart will become
For your arrival in the new dawn.