I’m Kristen Tate—editor, writer, and proprietor of the Blue Garret. I’m currently chronicling the process of revising and self-publishing my next book in these subscriber-only newsletters. You can unsubscribe at any time using the link at the bottom of this email. Thanks for joining me at the garret!

It is week twenty-six of 2024. How is the writing going these days? We just crossed the solstice, which is a perfect moment to take stock. Setting and meeting incremental writing goals adds up over time, just like those extra minutes of daylight or darkness that accumulate as the days pass. Where do you want to be at the next solstice, on December 21? Set a target, hold it lightly, and see how far it carries you.

Here at the garret, after a week focused on my own writing, I’m gratefully reimmersed in the words of other writers – a prequel novella that has made me wildly excited for the series to come, and a new installment of a charming memoir featuring English expats in France, misadventures in home renovation, and a growing brood of ridiculous pets. The novella is set in London, so I’ve spent a lot of imagined hours in Europe this week, tracing routes and searching place names on Google maps, which has suited me beautifully.

Coming back to Novel Study, I didn’t make as much progress as I’d hoped during that week, but I did make some progress. Let’s look at my stats:

June 22 snapshot

⏱️ 94 hours to date

☑️ 127 to-do list items

✅ 54 to-do items completed

📑 Draft #4: 53/260ish? pages

Previous installments: Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 7, Week 8, Week 10, Week 12, Week 14, Week 22

I only checked off one item, but it was a big one: the second of four planned chapters on The Secret Hours. I also did most of the heavy lifting for the structural analysis of the novel that will be the focus of the next chapter. Alas, not all progress is visible or can be captured in stats like these.

In a recent newsletter, musician Neko Case described writing lyrics as “scratching away on your paper until you start a little fire on your page.” I love this metaphor (reminiscent of Twyla Tharp’s scratching metaphor) and I know the truth is that I didn’t have enough consecutive hours last week to ever get that fire going.

I have the week of July 1 set aside for book work and I have announced to my family that I will not be doing any domestic labor or really anything else at all that week other than working on the book. I need piles of quiet hours to be immersed in my brain and books and words. I have a door on my office, and I will be using it – likely dismaying the cats more than anyone else!

One interesting dynamic I noticed last week was that once I’d moved my projected publication date from the spring to the fall, my ambitions for the book also expanded. Rather than stamping a chapter “good enough” and moving on, I meandered around in my drafts and my brain, asking a lot of “what if” questions.

It’s tricky to know when to shift from one mode to the other – this is a question I often help my clients answer. I’m glad to have some extra breathing and dreaming room for the book at the moment, but I still have a fall publication date loosely held in my mind so I don’t get stuck here.

This past weekend, I got the chance to see this dynamic at work in a very different setting. My partner is a physicist who showed off a personal project at Open Sauce, a science and tech event that felt to me like a Maker Fair with more YouTubers. My partner, like most of the exhibitors in attendance, is used to tinkering with projects right up to a deadline and then continuing to refine them based on audience response. It was invigorating and eye-opening to see makers solving problems, fixing minor (and major) crises, and helping one another on the fly during the set-up and post-show hours. The exhibitor Discord buzzed with messages from folks lending tools, printing parts, and sharing tips on where to find coffee. The showtime scramble was a desired adrenaline rush for this crowd, not a crisis to be avoided at all costs. I’m trying to keep that lesson in mind too as I close in on the final chapters of my book.

Our Thing of Joy this week is a delightful video made in response to the prompt “If different fonts were outfits.” Bonus: a completely ridiculous video of me pushing scissors at Open Sauce. No, the phrase “pushing scissors” won’t make any more sense if you watch the video.

Stay well, y’all, and keep fighting the good fights.

Kristen

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