Drafting Diaries: Keeping the Momentum Alive
Here’s to keeping a strong momentum alive in my current WIP this month, and next! And to relenting that sometimes what you need to write chooses you and not the other way around. Can you relate?
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Work In Progress
I’m currently working on the third draft of an untitled novel as we speak— the fourth iteration of the debut novel I’ve been working on over the past several years. I have some ideas for its title in the works and will share them with you as soon as I can, but for now I will just call it Untitled.
I decided to stop working on the last draft when I made some of the recent updates to Daily Drafts & Dialogues over the past couple months because I was running out of time each day to do both. But now I realize that was a mistake because I seemed to have lost my writing momentum for the project. Yet I’m still excited to write the latest iteration I’ve come up with for this novel, and I have an outline to work from, so I’m going to keep on keeping on, especially because I already outlined enough chapters to convert this draft into a trilogy.
The outline I’ve drafted for my WIP (Work in Progress) offers plenty of leeway for the world I’m building, but I needed to create it because of the world I’m building— a world that takes place in a speculative future after AI has gripped every facet of society. Never in a million years did I believe I’d be writing a novel like this, as I tend to gravitate toward literary fiction, but here we are. Sometimes what you need to write chooses you and not the other way around.
WIP Behind-the-Scenes
Here are a few stream-of-consciousness excerpts from my current WIP outline notes:
Quotes to keep in mind: “To explain is to explain away.” “Bending the arc of history toward progress” “For the greater good” “The mission is so much bigger than any of us.” “Get rid of all human bias.” “Effective Altruism” EA (same as The White Man’s Burden?) “Science is the process of consensus building.”
[Name of AI] is an advanced generative AI that tells people what to do... and as long as people believe in it (like a religion), it will work to organize society after The Great Division, for now… it gives people someone/something to believe in and blame, even if what it generates/insinuates isn’t true. If bad things happen, in other words, it’s because of the people who didn’t follow [Name of AI]’s directives and suggestions.
They sell the Freedom Myth— that anything outside of scaling [Name of AI] endangers freedom and peace and safety… BUT if [Name of AI] is constantly being scaled, then the people under its directives and purview can never be completely free from it and its scaling bandwidth, or safe. The Sovereigns make everyone believe that [Name of AI] is the only way forward, for the progress and betterment of humanity (present it as a meritocratic entity) and that it is THE ONLY AI that is worth using/that people can use (they basically have monopolistic control to ensure this) to “follow their dreams” they say, though there aren’t really any other options people are allowed to use without being ostracized from society or penalized in some way, so The Sovereigns passively insinuate it is inevitable anyway via propaganda and such (like it’s a god to believe in), all while presenting that using [Name of AI] is a choice.
Though I’ve revised and cut the following excerpt from my current draft, it does capture important elements of the WIP that will remain:
“So, you must really like it here, huh?” Eve asked, starting to feel more relaxed. [Eve notices the wheelchair dislodged.] “I mean, if you’re willing to take such a big risk when you’ve barely finished your assigned Analog duty, this place must be pretty special.”
“Now, that is a bit of a stretch,” he guffawed. “No one truly likes being on Analog duty, V, or being in Analog housing. It’s punishing here. This is where they send the Demeritus, remember?
“But—” he paused to consider what he was going to say next, “for the first time in my life, I’m starting to feel like I can really make a difference in the world, in people’s lives. Like I can do something mom would probably be proud of, ya know?”
WIP Reflection
Over the past several years, I’ve been working on a debut novel that has undergone so many iterations and drafts and revisions that it has made me wonder if I’m ever going to finish it. At first, I thought I kept starting over because I suffer from severe perfectionism (which does have a slight ring of truth to it), but now I realize it’s more about maintaining a sustainable writing momentum that has built-in flexibility.
When I keep a steady writing momentum, I make better progress on my current WIP overall. When I don’t, I get sidetracked by other projects or ideas and narrative possibilities or lose crucial bits of my WIP’s narrative thread that’s already established and working well.
I’ve realized that keeping daily averages and monitoring overall weekly and monthly drafting progress is more important than specific daily outputs that happen no matter what every day, if I intend to maintain my writing momentum. Basically, I can get distracted by word counts, so I have realized it’s much better to average 5,000 words per week, for instance, than get bogged down by writing 500-800 words per day, no matter what, especially on the days I’m tired or need a break to reflect on my WIP.
At the same time, however, I know that to maintain a consistent writing momentum I do at least need to touch my WIP every day, even if I only write a few sentences. And that whether I like it or not, tracking my progress (which I find to be a necessary evil, if I’m honest) does keep me maintaining a strong writing momentum overall, because when I don’t track anything at all my progress starts to get hazier and I get distracted by other things. If I have only written a few hundred words for a couple days, for instance, I find myself more intentional and eager to write more in the following days to maintain the average word count and overall progress I want to see in my WIP.
I’ve also found that I often feel overwhelmed with possibilities when it comes to who my characters can and should be and what they can and should be doing in relation to the world I’m building for them when I don’t maintain my writing momentum. So, I’m forever perfecting the art of deciding on a plotted path for them while allowing them to tell me where they want and need to go each day I visit their world, constantly toggling between the WIP outline and being open to what naturally emerges onto the page. But it’s so much easier to do this when I maintain a strong writing momentum.
This month’s takeaway is simple: I need to keep my daily writing momentum no matter what, even if I only add a few sentences to this new draft some days. Otherwise, I’ll risk becoming overwhelmed by possibilities and other shiny things and might end up needing to start over again.
Today’s Dialogue
What is the current stage of your WIP? And what challenges are you currently facing while drafting it?
© This work is not available for artificial intelligence (AI) training. All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton; Creighton’s Compositions LLC.
Community Notes
THIS WEEK’S WRITING SHARE IS LIVE
Share one line you wrote this week.
Drop one line (or a short excerpt) from anything you wrote this week. Then, if you want: why did this line matter to you?
Or share some of your writing based on a writing prompt shared in a previous Daily Drafts & Dialogues post.
