As you may have noticed, there’s no Flash Friday this week. In truth, there probably won’t be a Flash Friday for a little while. I’m finding as I get back into regularly working on the novel, that my creative brain is pretty much locked on to that story and plot, and I’m finding it incredibly difficult to squeeze in any alternate story writing. Since Friday Flash was always meant to be a fun, playful thing and it’s started to feel like a burden, I’ve decided to pause it for now and resume it whenever my brain decides to play around like this again.
I’m a little sad about it, because I’ve honestly enjoyed it so much, and it’s taught me so much about generating ideas and forming very short fiction. I’ve still got a lot to learn about it, too. However, I need to follow my gut for now, so novel-focus it is! I’m hoping at some point in the not so distant future to put together some illustrated PDFs of a few of the Friday Flash stories, or maybe make some cute, printable ‘zines that incorporates them, so we’ll see! If there’s any particular story you’d like to see physically manifested in this way, shoot me a DM or a comment here or send me an email!
What I’m working on this week: I completely missed my Monday update this week. It’s been just CRAAAAA-ZY. I’m finally feeling a little more confident with the new schedule/routine, but I’m still getting comfortable with it. However, this week has been really productive, writing-wise. I did some calculating last week, and determined that I could probably finish the novel (budgeting for about a third overwriting) by December 31st if I wrote 1,500 words per day. This isn’t impossible for me–I’m a pretty fast writer usually. And this week, I’ve hit that every day (and even 1k over on Wednesday for some inexplicable reason!). That means I’ve added 4,500 words to the novel this week alone, and that feels SO GOOD. The words are beginning to flow again, and the story is shaping itself bit by bit, and I’m thrilled to see where it goes. I’ve just jumped into Chapter 4, and am plunging ahead on that.
What’s inspiring me this week: In the midst of chaos and new routines, I’ve been reenergized by going back to the methodologies described in the book Work Clean by Dan Charnas. There is something about the mise-en-place mentality that I find incredibly soothing and seems to fit the way I function extremely well. This week, I’ve been making my list of Missions and Actions, and in addition to that, I’ve been experimenting with bringing certain rooms in my home to “zero” every night. “Zero” in Work Clean is like the polished starting point for your workspace: everything in its place. Which requires first that everything HAVE a place, and second, that you take the time to put it all back where it belongs at the end of the day.
In that spirit, I’ve picked my bedroom, the upstairs bathroom, and the living room to “get to zero” this week. I went through each room, taking out anything that didn’t belong there, clearing surfaces, sorting and finding homes for everything that did belong there, and then documenting in the form of a checklist (and a photo!) what “zero” should look like. I used my trusty laminating sheets to make dry erase marker friendly checklists. One of the reasons I did this was related to another tenant of the Work Clean methodology, which is to put other people to work on the things they can help you with. In this case, that means Thing 1 and Thing 2. Since I got the rooms initially to “zero” and made a clear list of what’s required for that room to be done (and created a fun checklist they get to go through, AND gave them permission to “yell” at me and their dad if we’ve left things out that need to be put away), I’ve harnessed their own desire to control their spaces. So far, they LOVE it (and yes, it’s only been a few days, so I’ll let you know how it goes in several weeks!). Thing 1 is in charge of the bathroom (which also will hopefully make him a bit more cognizant of not peeing all over the toilet/floor *side-eye*), and Thing 2 is in charge (with an adult helper) of the living room. Thing 2 is OBSESSED with the checklist. For that matter, so is Thing 1 (and scolding people for leaving things out). And it’s helping me to clean up after myself better, too, so they don’t get the opportunity to scold me. XD
So we’ll see how that goes, but at least for the past week, we’ve had some LOVELY spaces that actually get tidied nicely at the end of the day without a lot of whining, AND I don’t have to do it all myself, which is huge.
Oh! I’m also getting obsessed with the late Paulus Berenshon’s journaling practice/binding his own creative books to just play in and keep. Oh man, those paste paper covers! You can watch a clip of it here:
I’d love to get into a free-form journaling process like this, but I honestly don’t know how to start. (I’ve also been reading Austin Kleon’s blog about his journaling process, found here and here.)
What’s challenging me this week: Just the usual getting things done in the time they’re meant to be done. Writing-wise, the last few days have gone surprisingly smoothly, and I seem to have developed a method for figuring out what I need to do each day I’m in the office, even if I’m not sure what to write to begin with (free writing!).
Hope you have a lovely weekend!
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