Writing may be different for everyone in some regards, but in a way we all follow the same pattern. We write what we know, and if we know it enough, we can write it very well. For the past year since Covid hit I have been writing my in-progress novel and the process is what I am eager to share with you today. When I was a young teenager, I struggled profoundly with major Depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Multiple times, I was committed to mental health treatment facilities due to my struggles.
I learned about and met the most one-of-a-kind people with psychological struggles of their own. What I knew when I was 14 is that I would never meet people like this again. I came up with the idea back then to write my novel based on what I had learned and experienced. It wasn’t until this past year that I, as a now healthy college student, decided to write about the people I met and the place I experienced when I was a young teen.
My novel is about mental health patients who experience an apocalyptic event due to a biological weapon and they need to survive together. I am using what I know of the people I once met, to create the most fascinating characters. The aspects of the apocalypse are based on what I have learned from studying biological weapons and neuroscience as a student. The ability to imagine is essential to writing fiction, but my best details in my novel are about the reality I, and others, have experienced. My novel addresses what it is like to experience fear, sexual assault, coming from a broken home, poverty, abuse, mental disabilities, apathy, and deliberate cruelty. My story also includes friendship, help, kindness, romance, loyalty, resilience, persistence, protecting those you care for, and healing. I write what it is I know, and when I can, I believe I write very well.
Because I am a college student and I am also working, I do not always have 4 hours a day to write 2,000 words continuously. Stephen King may believe that a full first draft should not take any longer than a season; however, I have been writing a year and only have six chapters, and about 68 pages written. For me, I write best during my short breaks from work and school such as winter and spring break; however, if I have too much free time, such as during summer break, it is harder to motivate myself to write frequently. This is because of Parkinson’s Law, which is a concept that says the amount of work you require for yourself will adjust to the amount of available time. This means that if I give myself too much time to complete a large goal I will most likely get distracted because I know there is so much time to fill. Whereas, if I have a limited time, such as the end of winter break, I work more efficiently because I want to reach my goal by the end of winter break. I personally like to set a writing goal for every day during winter break and I have at times completed 1,200 words in a single day when my goal was about half that. The secret is to allow yourself time throughout most of the day specifically to be productive but only a limited time throughout the day for “free time”. This way your brain does not confuse availability throughout your day with free time vs. productive time.
I love seeing how my story unfolds as I write because I only have what I remember of those people and the hospital; beyond memory I have my imagination. The events in the story such as the apocalypse have never been something I experienced but that is why I love writing about it. I love that I can take memories from people I loved and people I was terrified of and change what they do throughout the story. I write what I know, and when I write beyond that I write what I believe in my story. I thoroughly believe that quality will override the importance of quantity. If I write 10 novels but they are all written terribly I have accomplished a meaningless victory; however, if I write 68 pages that are written in a way that I can be proud of, I have already reached what it is I desire. I desire to write well, and if I can, great. I desire for the person reading my pages to flow through it like pouring milk and imagine it all in their mind.
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