The wind’s coming in. The red and gold of early autumn is rapidly turning into the brown-gray sludge on wet asphalt of late autumn. Seasons within seasons. Gardening teaches us to live within the season, and taking that to heart what better time could there be to break out pen and paper and let words flow as rain pummels the cold windows.

And I have been writing. Some days just a sentence, other days a short story. I’ve not had any days of massive output but always something, and little by little that has moved me forward, given me momentum. Checkbox after checkbox has been ticked until one day the list I had set up for myself was all done.

My own method of working, I’ve decided to call Phases, has worked out really well. Phases entails working in longhand for the first drafts and brainstorming, and each Phase is comprised of a set of manageable tasks. This has so far been a stepping stone for me moving forward with my writing. (Read more about Phases in my previous blog posts.)

I’ve given myself permission to write badly, to experiment. I used to be able to get stuck, not able to get going because an idea or sentence wasn’t good enough. But viewing everything as an experiment takes that away, and also realizing that the first draft of anything is garbage and that a whole series of revisions will follow, takes away a lot of the pressure. I’ve also set the bar low enough that on days when I have neither the time nor energy to produce anything substantial, I can still always do something, and that’ll be enough. Hard days always happen, life happens, and that used to derail me. But with this way of working I never really stop moving forward even if the pace slows to a crawl at times.

The more I write, the more I learn how to write. Isn’t it funny how that works. “Learn by doing.” And learn by finishing. That has been a big deal these past few months, actually finishing texts, going from the first often terrible draft to something that after several revisions could hopefully pass for good. Previously I would write and rewrite and not make much progress. Now I try to get that first draft, even if some bits are really rough or outright bad. If I can get the first draft out on paper I have something to mold into a finished piece; a piece that may or may not look anything like the original text, but that’s okay.

Sixteen texts of various lengths and styles is what I’ve produced in Phase 1. Finished texts. Despite working slowly and when life allows, because I’ve kept at it every day, I’ve made progress. In the end actually a lot of progress.

I’m going to go ahead and call Phase 1 a raging success and I’ve now entered Phase 2. This will mean a few longer texts and starting to dip my toes into working with bigger projects. Still not that big though, and still sprinkling in a lot of shorter ones. One step at a time. Ramping up my word count output is something I’ll need to work on gradually.

Thanks to my new way of working I’ve gone from, sometimes, dreading writing and having a feeling of hopelessness due to perfectionism and not being able to finish everything in one go. Now I look forward to writing, at least a lot more so than before. I know that taking just one step forward means getting closer to finishing, and writing is a process, a journey rather than a destination. And I also know that I can do this pretty well. I’m not just nurturing a childish dream, I’m actually quite proficient at this thing.

Anyway, that’s a little update on the writing. It’s a process – that’s for sure. And with each Phase, I’m moving closer to my writing goals, one task at a time.