This Is Not Writing Advice

So, I wrote a book. Or, at least a draft. And I'm really, really happy with it. And here is how I did it, and here is not writing advice for anyone.

First, I have been struggling for some time with serious depression, as I have mentioned here and here. And this depression puts me in bed most of the time at 3:00pm, and it's been doing this for the past three years and it super, super sucks.

Well, as mentioned previously, my doctor changed my meds about three months ago at the same time that my therapist gave me some really high quality advice about behaviorism, and things have changed.

I mean, I still go to bed at 3:00pm, because I remain depressed. But it's a different kind of depression, and the new meds have bought me about three extra hours of productivity each day. The thing is: those hours are not in a row. It's just that between 3:00pm and bedtime, I have three hours sprinkled here and there.

So, the new thing that's worked is, first, I bought a new notebook and pen, and I filled that notebook up with an entire book's worth of ramblings. Not prose, just lists and outlines and brainstorming. But I filled the entire notebook, front to back, in about three weeks. And I had a pretty good idea for a book.

And then, I just started taking my laptop to bed with me and I'd lay down for an hour and then sit up and maybe churn through 45 minutes of good writing, and then lay down again. I don't like typing on a laptop actually on top of my lap--I cross my legs and put the keyboard on the bed and type in a fashion that is probably very bad for my back.

But I do it! And then I do it again and again, and I usually get through that three hours of productivity in four or five bursts and have 4000-5000 words to show from it each night. And, a month later I have a rough draft.

I don't follow an outline, which is super weird for me because I've always been an outliner. But I did so much notetaking in that notebook for weeks that I knew the story in my head, and then I just kinda pantsed the whole thing. And I loved pantsing! And I don't know why it worked?

And that's why none of this is writing advice: because I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't for the life of me know why my brain suddenly turned into Book Writing Mode and pumped out a book after five years of nothing. It's very weird, and even as I write this I have no idea if it's replicable.

Because while I've been waiting for readers to finish the rough draft and get back to me I have tried this method again and: it's not working the same! I don't know why! My brain is super dumb.

Anyway, I used to teach a lot at writing conferences, but I don't think I'm gonna do it again because my advice would be "Write when you're magically not depressed! Make it up as you go!"

And all of this will be for nothing if the book doesn't sell, so who knows. But for now it's a lot of fun.

Oh, hey. You want to know the working title of the book? I don’t have one yet. But the working title of the trilogy (it’s a trilogy) is The Catechisms of Mars.