#DraftingGirlSummer☀️

Or, let's write a million words.

Fine. Not a million words. But as I work on the revisions for the last draft of my next novel, I’m already planning what comes next. I’d like to be one of those authors who gets to take five years between books and only need to sell one book every five years to survive, but that author is RARE. And most authors work 3 jobs at the same time, and I am no different. One day, I’ll be able to take a break, but it is not this day. Until then, bitch, we’re WRITING THIS SUMMER.

Last summer, I let a botched deadline [waiting for my edits] derail me with the worst anxiety of my life. This summer, we are drafting like we’re running out of time. (And because we live in a Trump America, I am about to be 38, single, and childless, so my use to society has expired and I might actually be running out of time if they figure out how to make soylent green from “cat ladies”).

As many of you know, I write in several age groups and genres, and I have a hard time staying in one. I’ve often looked at writers like Silvia Moreno Garcia and China Miéville, and admire how they published stories in different genres.

There’s this fallacy that in order to succeed we have to have a “brand” and I think if more people pushed against that, we would have lots of interesting fiction overall. This is not to say that an author who only writes X genre should write ABC. If you’re happy writing one thing, then I love that for you. But I love it all. Romance, fantasy, science fiction, horror. I want to write all of it, too. Genres and age groups (which are different things, fight me).

For me, genre expands the parameters of a story; it doesn’t limit. So my challenge for myself will be to JUST DRAFT (set to the tune of JUST DANCE by Lady Gaga). Write. Write good words, bad words, pretty okay words, absolutely terrible words, brilliant words. I want to start with a genre that maybe scares me, or a subject that I’ve never written about before to see if I can pull it off.

This business bogs us down with things outside of our control. Marketing and lists and event invitations. Do you want to be a writer or do you want celebrity? Sure, some people want both, and both can be nice. But my number one things is that I want to write and have it sustain me, and pay for my beach and travel addiction.

So let’s write. (And happy solstice ☀️)

Start: June 21st - the first day of summer

End: August 31st - (September is Fall/Autumn to me and that’s when publishing starts again.)

Rules: Write.

Other rules: Seriously, just write. Just draft. We’ve got 71-ish days. That’s two months and change to write a novel, or many short stories, or 1001 poems. Every day, write for half an hour, an hour, and see where you get with every session.

Math (ew): If you write every day for these 72 days, you’ll have a 90k word novel by the end of it. You can work with that.

If you want a 60k word novel thats 833 per day.

If you want a 150k word epic…get your own calculator. You get my drift.

It’s like NaNoWriMo but without the AI and weirdo controversies.

Q&A:

Do I have to be a girl? No, just do it.

Do I have to write? Yep.

Does it have to be summer? Yep.

How will we keep count?: Daily check-ins in my open chat and notes posts. Substack automatically made it private but I think I changed it so now it’s open.

Can it be called something else? Nope.

Can we have a hashtag? #DraftingGirlSummer☀️

Are you talking to yourself? Always.

Happy writing!