Write Something You Don't Care About

Lessons learned from NaNoWriMo, and other announcements

NaNoWriMo

This recently passed November was Novel November, or NaNoWriMo. It’s a nationwide, annual celebration of writing where prospective and established novelists challenge themselves to write a 50,000-word novel in a month. It was my first time attempting it, and it was an incredibly educational experience — as well as the inspiration behind this article’s title.

As those who have been following my Substack already know, I’ve been working on a project called Seidrmadr. I used to make weekly posts where I’d share 1.5k–2k words of a new scene. Once all of the scenes of the first chapter were completed, I edited them and shared the full chapter.

Writing Seidrmadr this way was an entirely awful idea.

What ended up happening was that I took myself far too seriously during what should have only been a sloppy and exploratory first draft. Writing and editing should not be done side-by-side. The fact is, I have very little of the story after the first arc figured out (I don’t outline), and whatever ends up on the page later will inevitably affect the beginning chapters. Foreshadowing will be added, geographical and political details refined, and characters will be outright changed. I had no business writing Seidrmadr the way I was, which is why I stopped making those weekly posts a few months ago.

But even after stopping, I was still taking myself way too seriously. I hated my bad prose and would cringe at what I produced at the end of an hour of writing. My progress slowed to a snail’s pace, and the truth is, I’m a complete nobody. I have no business worrying about the quality of my first draft as much as I was. How about I prove myself first?

So while all of that was going on in my head, and I was wondering how to approach the story I have unreasonably grand hopes for, the clock turned to November 1st. I didn’t even remember NaNoWriMo was a thing until I saw a post about it on X, but I did the math in my head and figured it would be around 1,700 words a day — totally doable.

I decided to write 50,000 words of a brand-new story — one I did not care about at all and had no emotional attachment to.

I started that day and wrote about 2,300 words. Every night around 8 PM, after my daughter was put to bed, I would spend at least an hour writing. (Sometimes I hit my word goal in that amount of time; sometimes I didn’t.) My second daughter was born on November 5th. Thankfully, the birth went smoothly, my wife is recovering well, and I was still able to keep up with the writing schedule despite the added responsibilities of a newborn. I even increased my daily word goal to 2,000 to allow for occasional days off, and to guarantee myself a rest day on Sunday.

The month of writing honestly went pretty smoothly, and I finished with 50,016 words written. They are sloppy words. The story is inconsistent. The POV randomly changes from first person to third, and I’m thinking about changing back to first. But I now have over 50,000 words in a project where the most I’ve ever previously managed was the 20,000 I currently have in Seidrmadr — which took a much longer period of time. The story also isn’t done, and I plan to continue writing 2,000 words a day through December, and however far into January it takes to complete it. That should leave me with a story of over 100,000 words.

I want to share some lessons learned.

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1. Write Something You Don’t Care About

I already said it — it’s the title of the article. WRITE SOMETHING YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT.

If you’re like me (and I think you are), you’ve had a project marinating in your mind for years, and it must be perfect, or at least as close to perfect as you can manage. The simple reality is you don’t know how to write a story yet. You don’t have the experience, or the writing (or editing) muscle.

Even if you’re way better than I am, isn’t it obvious that you’ll do a better job writing your passion project with another book’s worth of experience under your belt?

Let the project keep marinating, and become a better writer while you do so.

Take a month to build the habit of writing daily. Then keep it going.

2. Hold Yourself to a Word Count

Time goals just aren’t as effective. Maybe your goal is to spend an hour writing daily instead of hitting an arbitrary word count, but what will often happen is that much of that “writing time” will go into notes, worldbuilding, or scrolling through a distraction.

Books are measured in words — so measure yourself in them too. You’ll see your productivity skyrocket.

And by the way, time goals are arbitrary too.

3. First Drafts Should Suck

Just let the words flow. Let the ideas flow. Let the dialogue flow.

When I had a block, I simply started a new scene, in a new place, sometimes with new people. Then things started flowing again. Editing is when you make it good.

4. 50,000 Words Is Not That Much

I’ve been reading for the longest time that 100,000 words is the genre standard for fantasy and science fiction. Maybe I just tend to read big books, but I imagined that meant 100,000 words would come out to about 500 pages. Nope. In my writing, it will come out to about 260. Meaning the 50,000 words I have right now is only about 130. That’s barely a pamphlet in my eyes.

The experience helped reset expectations. I used to think Seidrmadr would be about 100,000 words, but I now know it should be at least 200,000 — which, at my current pace, is doable in about four months for the first draft. I won’t be returning to it until my current project is done anyway, though.

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Now that that’s all shared, I have some other things I’d like to share.

I’m Building a Publishing House

Most of us here are indie writers. I’ve become involved in the SFF indie space online over the last year or so, and it’s been a blessing, but the honest truth is I doubt the scope of the indie space.

Many of us are in this space because we’ve been pushed out of traditional publishing. Not to mince words, the vast majority of trad-pub companies are run by people who drink children’s blood. So we conservatives — and especially we Christians — simply don’t fit in.

I don’t believe KDP self-publishing is the way forward for the Christian-conservative fiction industry. Our predecessors failed in their stewardship of the institutions, but that doesn’t mean we must go forward without any institutions at all.

What makes A Story Told Publishing different?

We will focus exclusively on fiction, and specifically on genre fiction. We will not produce expressly theological or political works, but only fictional ones. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s wonderful what companies like Canon Press are doing, but a quick scroll through their catalog shows that fiction is their side thing; we want fiction to be our central thing.

Why should you publish with me?

You absolutely shouldn’t — at least, not yet. I’m learning the ropes right now: how to get books into brick-and-mortar stores, commissioning editors and artists, typography and all things design-related, book promotion, and all the other moving parts involved in marketing.

My first project is currently in progress: a re-release of At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald. The introduction is being written by Andrew Snyder from Mythic Mind, and the book will have ten new illustrations throughout. I want to use this project to prove that I can make something beautiful — that I can provide a beautiful edition of a novel that, in my opinion, doesn’t currently have one.

I will then continue with other public-domain novels that fit what A Story Told Publishing is trying to accomplish. My first contemporary novel will be the first book of Seidrmadr. I’m currently targeting 2027, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it drifts into 2028. Then, once that’s done and I’m confident in my ability to market your books well and provide real value commensurate with a publishing contract, I’ll begin accepting submissions. But if your worldview is ugly, then don’t bother.

I’ll also say that I have grand plans beyond just publishing. I envision an app for weekly serial fiction, an animation studio, and games.

My plans are very grand, and I’m self-confident (delusional?) enough to think I can do them. At the very least, if they are part of the good works God has prepared beforehand for me, then I know I can. So I’ll just try to be faithful to the steps in front of me.

Project Sica

Project Sica is the current codename of my NaNoWriMo WIP. I said earlier that I’ll finish the first draft in January. I’ll then put it through three rounds of editing, and once that’s done I’ll release it serially here. Why not through my publishing company? Because it isn’t that deep, and it doesn’t fit what my current intentions are with AST.

I see it as the first entry in what could become a long-running adventure series, and it’s the sort of thing where my only intention is to have fun with it. With all the other things I’m working on, I’m hoping to produce a new entry once a year (maybe that’s optimistic). There will be no professional editing like with Seidrmadr; it will just be me, myself, and I — so the project should go much quicker.

Thank you for reading this far. I’ll try to have monthly updates here for those who are interested. Or follow me on X — but know that I do a lot more poasting than posting, if you get what I mean.

God bless!