STOP DOING SHIT THAT MAKES YOU UNHAPPY OUT OF A SENSE OF OBLIGATION

Be patient & give yourself time to grow.🌱🌻

the classic trope of "what if you went to a town and it was weird" never fails

“You don’t need to explain yourself to other people, and you don’t need an excuse for being yourself.”

— Unknown

This a a reminder to not fall victim to the sunk-cost fallacy. Just because you invested time and energy into something, does not mean you should indefinitely waste more time and energy on it, if you decide it’s not what you want anymore. This goes for anything, from books, to relationships, to jobs, to hobbies, etc.

If it’s not serving you anymore, move on.

You are enough as you are.

You don't need to be healed. You don't need to have accomplished certain things. You don't need to have met your goals, or done something you see as groundbreaking.

You are enough, right now, as you are. I promise.

The Fast Drafting Challenge

It's time for the first writing challenge of the year. We'll be starting with fast drafting.

The goal is to fast-draft 1,000 words by the end of the week. Feel free to keep working on an existing project or start something new.

Here's the challenge in Writing Analytics:

https://app.writinganalytics.co/challenge/65a6929ca653549bd3ca1fbb

Why Fast Draft?

Even though it's called fast drafting, speed isn't the point. Writers use this technique to get out of their way and beat writer's block.

When you write fast, your inner critic can't keep up. You don't have time to go back and revise your prose until it's perfect. There's no time to agonise about ideas because you're pushing aggressively forward.

Once you have the first draft, it's much easier to see whether your decisions were correct. That's the time to fix things and tweak the prose.

If you struggle with finishing your stories or get stuck frequently, give fast drafting a go. It might change your writing life.

“One of the things I had to learn as a writer was to trust the act of writing. To put myself in the position of writing to find out what I was writing.”

— E. L. Doctorow

The Neurodivergent Writer’s Guide to Fun and Productivity

(Even when life beats you down)

Look, I’m a mom, I have ADHD, I’m a spoonie. To say that I don’t have heaps of energy to spare and I struggle with consistency is an understatement. For years, I tried to write consistently, but I couldn’t manage to keep up with habits I built and deadlines I set.

So fuck neurodivergent guides on building habits, fuck “eat the frog first”, fuck “it’s all in the grind”, and fuck “you just need time management”—here is how I manage to write often and a lot.

Focus on having fun, not on the outcome

This was the groundwork I had to lay before I could even start my streak. At an online writing conference, someone said: “If you push yourself and meet your goals, and you publish your book, but you haven’t enjoyed the process… What’s the point?” and hoo boy, that question hit me like a truck.

I was so caught up in the narrative of “You’ve got to show up for what’s important” and “Push through if you really want to get it done”. For a few years, I used to read all these productivity books about grinding your way to success, and along the way I started using the same language as they did. And I notice a lot of you do so, too.

But your brain doesn’t like to grind. No-one’s brain does, and especially no neurodivergent brain. If having to write gives you stress or if you put pressure on yourself for not writing (enough), your brain’s going to say: “Huh. Writing gives us stress, we’re going to try to avoid it in the future.”

So before I could even try to write regularly, I needed to teach my brain once again that writing is fun. I switched from countable goals like words or time to non-countable goals like “fun” and “flow”.

Rewire my brain: writing is fun and I’m good at it

I used everything I knew about neuroscience, psychology, and social sciences. These are some of the things I did before and during a writing session. Usually not all at once, and after a while I didn’t need these strategies anymore, although I sometimes go back to them when necessary.

I journalled all the negative thoughts I had around writing and try to reason them away, using arguments I knew in my heart were true. (The last part is the crux.) Imagine being supportive to a writer friend with crippling insecurities, only the friend is you.

Not setting any goals didn’t work for me—I still nurtured unwanted expectations. So I did set goals, but made them non-countable, like “have fun”, “get in the flow”, or “write”. Did I write? Yes. Success! Your brain doesn’t actually care about how high the goal is, it cares about meeting whatever goal you set.

I didn’t even track how many words I wrote. Not relevant.

I set an alarm for a short time (like 10 minutes) and forbade myself to exceed that time. The idea was that if I write until I run out of mojo, my brain learns that writing drains the mojo. If I write for 10 minutes and have fun, my brain learns that writing is fun and wants to do it again.

Reinforce the fact that writing makes you happy by rewarding your brain immediately afterwards. You know what works best for you: a walk, a golden sticker, chocolate, cuddle your dog, whatever makes you happy.

I conditioned myself to associate writing with specific stimuli: that album, that smell, that tea, that place. Any stimulus can work, so pick one you like. I consciously chose several stimuli so I could switch them up, and the conditioning stays active as long as I don’t muddle it with other associations.

Use a ritual to signal to your brain that Writing Time is about to begin to get into the zone easier and faster. I guess this is a kind of conditioning as well? Meditation, music, lighting a candle… Pick your stimulus and stick with it.

Specifically for rewiring my brain, I started a new WIP that had no emotional connotations attached to it, nor any pressure to get finished or, heaven forbid, meet quality norms. I don’t think these techniques above would have worked as well if I had applied them on writing my novel.

It wasn’t until I could confidently say I enjoyed writing again, that I could start building up a consistent habit. No more pushing myself.

I lowered my definition for success

When I say that nowadays I write every day, that’s literally it. I don’t set out to write 1,000 or 500 or 10 words every day (tried it, failed to keep up with it every time)—the only marker for success when it comes to my streak is to write at least one word, even on the days when my brain goes “naaahhh”. On those days, it suffices to send myself a text with a few keywords or a snippet. It’s not “success on a technicality (derogatory)”, because most of those snippets and ideas get used in actual stories later. And if they don’t, they don’t. It’s still writing. No writing is ever wasted.

A side note on high expectations, imposter syndrome, and perfectionism

Obviously, “Setting a ridiculously low goal” isn’t something I invented. I actually got it from those productivity books, only I never got it to work. I used to tell myself: “It’s okay if I don’t write for an hour, because my goal is to write for 20 minutes and if I happen to keep going for, say, an hour, that’s a bonus.” Right? So I set the goal for 20 minutes, wrote for 35 minutes, and instead of feeling like I exceeded my goal, I felt disappointed because apparently I was still hoping for the bonus scenario to happen. I didn’t know how to set a goal so low and believe it.

I think the trick to making it work this time lies more in the groundwork of training my brain to enjoy writing again than in the fact that my daily goal is ridiculously low. I believe I’m a writer, because I prove it to myself every day. Every success I hit reinforces the idea that I’m a writer. It’s an extra ward against imposter syndrome.

Knowing that I can still come up with a few lines of dialogue on the Really Bad Days—days when I struggle to brush my teeth, the day when I had a panic attack in the supermarket, or the day my kid got hit by a car—teaches me that I can write on the mere Bad-ish Days.

The more I do it, the more I do it

The irony is that setting a ridiculously low goal almost immediately led to writing more and more often. The most difficult step is to start a new habit. After just a few weeks, I noticed that I needed less time and energy to get into the zone. I no longer needed all the strategies I listed above.

Another perk I noticed, was an increased writing speed. After just a few months of writing every day, my average speed went from 600 words per hour to 1,500 wph, regularly exceeding 2,000 wph without any loss of quality.

Talking about quality: I could see myself becoming a better writer with every passing month. Writing better dialogue, interiority, chemistry, humour, descriptions, whatever: they all improved noticeably, and I wasn’t a bad writer to begin with.

The increased speed means I get more done with the same amount of energy spent. I used to write around 2,000-5,000 words per month, some months none at all. Nowadays I effortlessly write 30,000 words per month. I didn’t set out to write more, it’s just a nice perk.

Look, I’m not saying you should write every day if it doesn’t work for you. My point is: the more often you write, the easier it will be.

No pressure

Yes, I’m still working on my novel, but I’m not racing through it. I produce two or three chapters per month, and the rest of my time goes to short stories my brain keeps projecting on the inside of my eyelids when I’m trying to sleep. I might as well write them down, right?

These short stories started out as self-indulgence, and even now that I take them more seriously, they are still just for me. I don’t intend to ever publish them, no-one will ever read them, they can suck if they suck. The unintended consequence was that my short stories are some of my best writing, because there’s no pressure, it’s pure fun.

Does it make sense to spend, say, 90% of my output on stories no-one else will ever read? Wouldn’t it be better to spend all that creative energy and time on my novel? Well, yes. If you find the magic trick, let me know, because I haven’t found it yet. The short stories don’t cannibalize on the novel, because they require different mindsets. If I stopped writing the short stories, I wouldn’t produce more chapters. (I tried. Maybe in the future? Fingers crossed.)

Don’t wait for inspiration to hit

There’s a quote by Picasso: “Inspiration hits, but it has to find you working.” I strongly agree. Writing is not some mystical, muse-y gift, it’s a skill and inspiration does exist, but usually it’s brought on by doing the work. So just get started and inspiration will come to you.

Accountability and community

Having social factors in your toolbox is invaluable. I have an offline writing friend I take long walks with, I host a monthly writing club on Discord, and I have another group on Discord that holds me accountable every day. They all motivate me in different ways and it’s such a nice thing to share my successes with people who truly understand how hard it can be.

The productivity books taught me that if you want to make a big change in your life or attitude, surrounding yourself with people who already embody your ideal or your goal huuuugely helps. The fact that I have these productive people around me who also prioritize writing, makes it easier for me to stick to my own priorities.

Your toolbox

The idea is to have several techniques at your disposal to help you stay consistent. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket by focussing on just one technique. Keep all of them close, and if one stops working or doesn’t inspire you today, pivot and pick another one.

After a while, most “tools” run in the background once they are established. Things like surrounding myself with my writing friends, keeping up with my daily streak, and listening to the album I conditioned myself with don’t require any energy, and they still remain hugely beneficial.

Do you have any other techniques? I’d love to hear about them!

I hope this was useful. Happy writing!

I have no desire to fit in. No plans to walk with the crowd. I have my own mind, heart and soul. I'm me and it has taken me years to realize how important that is.

❥﹒♡﹒☕﹒ 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗻𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗿𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗲: easy tips to form healthy habits ( based on this alessya farrugia video )

if you don't have a solid night routine, you may as well throw away your whole morning routine, because the decisions you make at night are gonna to directly affect you in the morning and how you go about your day. if you binge watch netflix 'til 1am calling it your "rest time" only for you to wake up in the morning feeling tired and frustrated, it's time for you to build a night routine and stick to it.

pro tip do not try to improve everything all at once, you're gonna fail. just try to incorporate something small in your routine to start forming healthy habits. it might take months, but one year from now it will all be worthy.

𝟭. prepare for the next day ( 📒 )

write down your to-do list for the next day. when i don't plan out my day i just end up doing nothing, because i don't even know where to start. but if you know what you have to do you don't end up procrastinating and start getting things done. also, do not overload yourself with too much things to do, you're just not going to accomplish them all, so keep it realistic.

bonus put the most important tasks on the top of your list so you're gonna accomplish them as soon as possible.

𝟮. clean you room ( 🫧 )

it really depends on when you are the most active – for example i'm a night owl and i can't even imagine cleaning my room in the morning – but yes, removing all the mess you made during the day will help you leaving it all behind and starting fresh new the next day. put your clothes away, remove books, notebooks, make-up products, trash all around and i guarantee you that you're gonna feel so much better.

𝟯. take care of your body ( 🌷 )

take a warm shower that can help you relax, do your skincare, change in your comfy clothes, basically wash away the stress and negativity of the day. last semester i would literally stay at uni for 10h straight and coming back home at 8pm after the gym, i used to take a warm shower straight after that so i could let all the negativity of the outside world slide off me.

𝟰. drink hot tea ( 🍵 )

avoid theine but treat yourself to a hot drink that helps you relax and restore your calm, also take your vitamins and give yourself those ten minutes in your personal space.

𝟱. self love and affirmations ( 💖 )

reflect on your day, write down in your diary all the things that happened, pray, meditate, do your affirmations, leave everything in the past, do not let today's disappointments, stress and frustration affect your tomorrow. the only way in which you can truly move forward is by facing the things that happened today to leave them in the past, tomorrow is a new day.

𝟲. get off your phone ( 📱 )

definitely the hardest part for me. i don't even want to explain why it's so dangerous for you to stay awake scrolling through your phone at night – blue light and whatever – so just be strong and try to get off your phone at least 1h before going to bed, use eye-protection mode after sunset and use blue glasses if you can.

bonus use only red light at night, blue light are gonna inhibit your melatonin production ( which is what makes you sleep at night ).

𝟳. go to bed on time ( 🛏️ )

do not delay your bed time in order to get more dopamine scrolling through social media or binge watching netflix. do not sacrifice your sleep in order to do more work/study ( i did it in the past and it's definitely not worthy ), prioritizing your sleep is going to reward you in the long run. trust and believe.

𝟴. 321 rule for better sleep ( 💤 )

3 hours before bed –> stop eating. it gives you enough time to digest your food so you're not going to waste energy during your sleep to digest and you're gonna wake up less tired.

2 hours before bed –> stop studying/working. you need to drag your brain out of your "fight or flight" mode in order to get deep rest at night.

1 hour before bed –> stop screen time. allow your body to produce the melatonin that it needs in order to fall asleep properly.