Setting Goals in Unorthodox Circumstances

Take lots of photos, journal your experience, use the journal for inspiration in your world building. Your travel will only enhance your writing. I'd not worry so much about adding to the novel as keeping the writing habit going by journalling and taking every opportunity to make the most of the experience. But that's just me

Keeping the habit going in any way possible is good, but 27000 words is a pretty bad time to pause a novel for a year, I think.

Could you set aside 20 minutes a day to write, and write all you can in those 20 minutes, and make yourself stop at that point, no matter whether you've written anything? And then give yourself an hour a day in the weekends? That shouldn't cut too badly into your time.

And especially if that time comes after a shower or something that lets you think about the novel, you ought to get 200 words a day in, which isn't bad.

I can relate... I'm heading to college so soon I'm not sure whether to scream or laugh, and along with all the changes, I have to deal with a maddening muse. Maddening in the good sense - I am absolutely addicted to writing. How I'm going to balance that with college, I have no idea... but for now I'm planning to focus on the once-in-a-lifetime experience (college) and set writing on the back burner. Not sure it will let me, though.

Whatever happens, it'll be an adventure...

I lived in Tokyo for a little over a year (from fall '03 through fall '04). I was teaching English there, but my situation was similar to yours. I wanted to experience the culture and make new friends while staying committed to my writing. Honestly, it wasn't as hard as I thought.

My one mistake was trying to hold myself to a very high word count goal during the first month I was there -- I had a WIP I wanted to finish, and I had given myself a deadline to do it by. Not a good idea. I spent a lot of time in my (tiny) bedroom during my first few weeks in Japan. My roommates were worried about me. They thought I was either a.) unfriendly, or b.) homesick, and fully expected me to quit my job and return home. (To be fair, I was pretty culture-shocked. I hadn't traveled very much before that.) I didn't even realize I had come off to them like that. After a few weeks, I loosened up my goal and my deadline, promised myself I would just write something every day. I got out a lot more after that, started making more friends and exploring the city either with them or on my own. I started carrying a notebook with me, and would often do my writing at a cafe before or after work, or even on the train.

I had a HUGE urge to write while I was there. I really shouldn't have been worried about keeping up with it. If it's what you want to do, you'll make time for it. You might find you write well when you're in an unfamiliar and occasionally uncomfortable situation -- there's a constant tension to that kind of situation that makes for very good fiction. Sometimes I would sacrifice sleep to write about things that absolutely had to be recorded before I could rest for the day, or sometimes I would just make a few notes and then catch up with my writing on one of my days off. I don't even like writing longhand, but I filled up an entire 500-page notebook before I headed back to Atlanta, and that was in addition to the metric ton of writing I did on my laptop.

Good luck with it! And enjoy! Tokyo is a trip. I need to go back sometime soon -- I miss it!

I don't think 1-2 weeks is too long, but you may want to keep it in your brain-- maybe make notes, think out plot issues. Surely you'll have some spells where you're traveling (plane, bus, etc) when there is nothing to see or do that you can use to work on parts of plot or character. It's something, even if it's not on the bulk of your story.

I used to write whatever I could during my fifteen minute break at work. Just to keep writing.

keito said:

Shweta, I think you've gotten at what I'm most anxious about. I'm scared that if I leave the beast alone for too long, I'll forget where I was going when I last stopped and the daunting task of reacquainting myself with the story seems like it will take up more time than doing a little something every day.

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I'm at 28K words and change, and that's not what I'd worry about. This far in I doubt you'll forget, though details might slip your mind; it's that... well, since the "30K doldrums" seem fairly prevalent, stopping at 27K might be a good way never to finish the story

I might be reading too much into that number, of course. I know in my case, if I stop for more than a month or so, I'll come back and hate everything and want to start over, and do that often enough and I never will finish a draft.

However, for the first week or so I might not be able to get any writing in at all. Jet lag, orientation and getting acclimated to the complete absence of my native language might throw me for a spell.

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Seriously do not sweat the first couple weeks. You'll have a lot to do. You'll be wiped. If you have story ideas, I'd write 'em down and leave them as notes.

Which is to say, er, what Clair said

Use the BIC method each day only set a shorter time period to do it. Instead of two hours use 20 or 30 minutes.

And like was said before use a journal or take down notes hear nd there to feed your ideas.

I'd advise not holding yourself to a strict word count, especially until you get into a routine in the new place. But maybe have a goal to write *something* every day, even if it's only a sentence or two.

I spent a year in China after graduating from college. Up until that point I had written almost every day, compulsively, since I was sixteen. Almost exclusively fiction.

During that year, I wrote NOTHING. That's right, a big fat nothing. My fiction well just completely dried up. Every once in a while I would open up a project and just stare at it, or fiddle around with a few words. I think it was a combination of factors:

- Trying to deal with my new environment took all of my mental resources
- I was majorly stressed
- What little time I had was used for keeping in touch with my loved ones at home.
- Later in the year, I became majorly depressed.
- Everything I was experiencing was so new, it was all I could do just to absorb it. I couldn't produce anything while I was processing because it was just too much.

I knew I didn't want to lose my writing skills, however, so I didn't beat myself up for not writing fiction. Instead, I:

- Blogged - chronicled my adventures
- Wrote long, long letters to people
- Wrote poetry (something I almost never do)

I was a little afraid when I came back that I had lost the novel-writing bug. I hadn't. I'm totally obsessed with it now. And yeah, my experiences have contributed to my writing a great deal. I've changed a lot.

So as to your WIP dilemma - my suspicion is that after a year abroad, you're going to see it in a completely different way. You may end up rewriting the whole thing. But that doesn't mean what you're doing now isn't valuable.

ETA: I should mention, I was teaching for the first time (hence the excessive stress). I did a study abroad in the UK while I was in college, and it was relatively stress-free. I got a TON of writing done.

I don't think you can go wrong writing 250 words a day.