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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

TELL ME MORE

What’s behind those overambitious targets and self-imposed deadlines?

11/8/2018

12 Comments

 
The happier my life’s become, the less inclined I feel to take a holiday. Why go to the trouble of packing a suitcase – or worse, boarding a plane – when you’ve got (almost) all you want at home? Five nights’ in Cumbria seeing friends and family, and researching my possibly third novel, back in April, have furnished a perfectly adequate change of scene for this year, along with a three-day non-residential music course next week.
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Although only my third year attending the August summer school, I’ve already internalised it as the point when I put my ordinary life on pause, as the more festively inclined do for Christmas. It’s also – because some things, like harvesting beans, once paused, don’t get going again – a marker of the end of one chunk of time and the beginning of another, like a truncated school holiday.
 
Last year I successfully used the looming deadline to motivate myself to complete a new strand of my novel-in-progress
Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home. Towards the end of last month, I had the bright idea of doing something similar with my current WIP Snowflake, and finish the first draft I’d begun at the end of February. If I’d managed it once, why not do so again?
 
This is why! When I worked in the NHS, and did feel inclined travel, I’d make a frantic effort to complete my to-do list as the holiday approached. Some of that extra energy proved productive; some crazy as I tried to cram several months’ work into a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, this year’s writing target belongs in the crazy category.
 
For those who write 2000 words before breakfast, my target of 18,000 words across thirteen potential working days might seem modest. But we must all find the pace that works for us, and I’ve learnt that
an average 1000 words a day is fast enough for me. Even so, towards the end of last week the writing was going so well it looked as if I might manage those extra 5000 words.

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Until my throat began to protest. If you write by voice rather than keyboard, a sore throat is a sure sign of overwork. And even a struggling soprano knows she won’t enjoy a singing course with an aching throat.
 
Why had I set myself an unworkable target? Something in
Charli’s post last week gave me a clue. She wrote movingly about her husband’s response to increasing disability as a kind of running away. (Forgive the paraphrasing, and oversimplifying.)

We are all prone to this when confronted with the unbearable. Everyone knows about denial as the first phase of grief. Some might follow this with a period of intense activity, a manic attempt to rectify what can’t be fixed.
 

Despite blogging recently about the need to mourn writerly disappointments, I’ve come to the conclusion my poor throat is the victim of writerly denial. My unnecessarily ambitious deadline represents an irrational attempt to wipe out disappointment in one area by overachieving in another.

In a (fortunately short-lived) confrontation with reality, I wondered who or what I’d be if I abandoned writing altogether. Scary moment! But, mindful of my forthcoming short story collection,
Becoming Someone, on the theme of identity, I’ve been contemplating my identity as an author, and the function it might serve as a defence against other possible identities. (Old hag, anyone?) But that’s for another post.
 
Over to you. Are you guilty of overworking to avoid confronting writerly disappointment? Or other kinds of disappointment perhaps?
 
Although I have accomplished a reasonable amount this week, I’d prefer to close the lid of my laptop with a sense of completion. But perhaps absorption in something completely different next week will also provide the change of focus I need.


With the latest flash fiction prompt – peering from the woods – I thought the following 99-words would comprise my total output on my WIP Snowflake for this week. But, of course, one idea sparks another, and I couldn’t resist composing another 1000 word scene. Let’s hope I can rein in my enthusiasm so that, on Monday morning, I still have a voice.

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Watching out for the birdwatcher

Birdseed on the fence post again. My heart skips. Who would dare feed animals when people starve? An ornithologist, that’s who. Another forbidden word.

Scrambling over the layers of barbed wire, I pick my way through a soggy carpet of mashed leaves into the shelter of the trees. Birds flit from branch to branch, their sweet song sweeping all worries from my mind. Then I hear it, smell it: someone’s stopped at the fence.

Peering from the woods, I must be dreaming. Whacko has a gentle side? Something to use against him the next time he brandishes his cane.

Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
12 Comments
Norah Colvin link
12/8/2018 05:03:16 am

Hi Anne,
I'm sorry your voice is tired from writing. Maybe the singing retreat is just what you need - a joyful use rather than a stressful attempt to get stuff done. I think you do marvellously well to write 1500 words a day. I'm not sure I had registered, if you've previously announced, the current WIP Snowflake, or is it the dystopian one? (The page isn't loading fro me right now, must be my slow internet.)
Looking forward to both Matilda and your short stories though.
I enjoyed your flash and the question you opened with. I often wonder the same thing myself. But don't animals have a right to life too? Perhaps even more of a right than we do. They do far less damage to the planet and would probably get along a whole lot better without us. Maybe "Whacko" isn't so whacko after all. :)

Reply
Annecdotist
12/8/2018 04:44:02 pm

Thanks, Norah, I’m looking forward to singing tomorrow although still haven’t decided whether to drop down a line from the very very very high notes to the very very high!
Yes, it’s the dystopian novel, although as with Matilda Windsor the name will probably change as it develops. (If it develops – it feels pretty crazy right now.)
And, incidentally, you’ve given me an extra 500 words to my daily average – that’s how targets get inflated!

Reply
Norah Colvin link
19/8/2018 12:22:47 pm

I didn't think 18000 over 13 days was far off 1500 in one! :)

Annecdotist
19/8/2018 01:45:40 pm

Apologies, you’re quite right. I thought you were referring to my achievable target of 1000 words a day as I failed to get through 18,000 in the time I had available.

Geoff link
12/8/2018 11:13:28 am

Someone last week, far too kind as they were suggested my little shorts were getting better and better. Which made me wonder at what point I might peak and tail off. Which led to a discussion with Linda who’s been creating a lot longer than me about inspiration, energy and improvement. Which concluded somewhat obviously that the creative process, after an initial learning upwards trajectory that has more to do with understanding and developing technique, is neither linear nor exponential. It’s like life, a heart beat monitor of ups and downs and the downs don’t kill you, a flatline does. So I may well start to generate crap, I may slow down but that doesn’t make it the new normal any more than today’s output is fixed. Sorry for the ramble... I blame your posts for engendering that!

Reply
Annecdotist
12/8/2018 04:50:14 pm

Thanks, Geoff, and you’ve got me thinking too. We’re continually changing, but it’s counter-productive to try to make a particular success the new normal. Although I have to say your own output is pretty monumental. I love your analogy of the heart monitor – things do indeed go up and down. Let’s just hope they don’t go backwards.

Reply
Robbie Cheadle link
13/8/2018 05:35:15 am

It is an interesting idea to write using your voice instead of typing. I know others who do that and it seems to work for them. I think I just work all the time because I enjoy work and writing. Disappointment doesn't seem to make a difference to me, my path has been fraught with it working in a male dominated environment in a patriarchal society like South Africa. I like your flash very much, Anne.

Reply
Annecdotist
17/8/2018 02:08:18 pm

Thanks, Robbie, and glad you manage to rise above your disappointments. Sexism is bad enough over here so I sympathise with your situation in an even more misogynistic culture.

Reply
Charli Mills
15/8/2018 05:57:19 am

I've been thinking about the middle ground lately, and wondering why it seems harder to balance such energy. Overachieving in response to disappointments seems a harder road than the middle path, but it also reflects a drive, and drive fuels on purpose. Sometimes I feel like, just let 'er rip and shoot for the high goal! We'll still have disappointments. I appreciate the paraphrasing you've given me (especially the reluctant patient with a hard-to-diagnose condition) because it's often difficult to do.

Your flash inspired more words and I hope your voice holds up! I'm enjoying your dystopian WIP with its building complexity.

Reply
Annecdotist
17/8/2018 02:05:47 pm

I think the middle path can be hard because it entails maintaining motivation while fully acknowledging the disappointments. That over achieving drive would be great but risks burnout.
Glad you liked the flash. I hope to finish this draft by the end of the month.

Reply
Chelsea Owens link
17/8/2018 04:03:35 pm

Not sure what the hot tea and lemon solution is for a writer's mind, but I love reading your words.

Reply
Annecdotist
19/8/2018 11:53:04 am

Thanks, Chelsea, that’s very kind. I think for me it would be snuggling up with the latest novel in luxurious hardback from a writer whose words I love.

Reply



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