Tag: Productive

The Last Few Inches

June 10th, 2025

I’m a starter. Always have been. The initial flood of excitement, the rush of ideas? I thrive on it. Execution is a completely different beast.

What this means for writing down my silly little stories is that I can come up with God-tier concepts at the drop of a hat, and struggle like a motherfucker to execute them. It’s the most annoying aspect of how I function.

When it comes to plotting, this looks like a killer first act, outlined to the brink of overdoing it but stopping just short, a satisfying and meaningful ending, and… “hijinks ensue” as the middle 2/3.

All of which is to say, I’m struggling to crawl across the last 2,500 words of a project that should have been done days ago, simultaneously cursing the day job that makes sure I have a patio to write on and a drink to sip on while I write and electricity to keep the computer I write on running and cursing the way a certain nonprofit has a chokehold on people’s idea of productivity in the writing space.

But the important thing is that while I may be crawling, I haven’t stopped. It won’t be over if you don’t stop. One step, one stitch, one word, one tick tick tick of the cosmic spiral at a time, we move forward.

All my love,

BH ❤
New Moon, Old Seeds

May 26th, 2025

Yeah. It’s been a hot minute.

I’ve been here, behind the scenes, doing all the normal shit I do, but I haven’t been posting about it here. Partially that’s because there’s just been too much on my plate and partially that’s because I wanted to keep this space more about the writing process and so so so so so so so much of my life lately has been personal shit that I don’t necessarily want to share.

But the personal shit is what makes you human. And the writing, well, it only matters to you if you’re human, too. If the writing is human. There’s a core essence of us that can’t really be touched by faking it, and the real challenge of writing is finding that core inside of yourself and letting someone else touch it, even if it hurts.

That’s kind of what being in love is like, too.

I want to bring up a soft, tender, raw little core of humanity for this space, but the absolute cold hard truth of things is that what’s been grinding my gears lately has been someone else’s humanity, someone else’s… super secret private medical information, which I would be a tremendous asshole to share on the internet, even anonymously.

So here I am, full of life experience, with nowhere to put it but a book, maybe. I say book. I’ve been kind of hot on shorts lately, actually.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the business end of things. These are things that are not about my lover’s hospitalization, so I can say them. This is a pen name. I have others. This one hasn’t published any actual fiction, yet. I’m fond of this pen name. I’m saving it for something that really, really matters.

Other pen names are writing the literary equivalent of McDonald’s French fries, which are not morally bad per se but perhaps ought to be consumed only in moderation, and tempered by something much better for you. Those are selling. Not much, not yet, but I’ve got a bunch of wheels turning and the business back end of things are moving along quite nicely. I’m happy with it.

I’m sitting on the balcony with an iced coffee and a comfy oversized sweatshirt and my laptop, and there’s a nice layer of clouds over the sky this morning. Birds are singing, the world is otherwise quiet and peaceful. It’s basically my ideal time and condition for drafting, but in nearly two hours of work I’ve barely managed a few hundred words across multiple projects.

This is something I have to work on. I have this idea in my head that writing is just output, just production, just words on a page, and the more ideal conditions I have for writing the easier and faster the output must be. That’s how it works, right? Right?

It’s not, of course. I like to think something is happening internally, in my subconscious, that’s going to let the words flow later. I want to be very forward about this, it’s not a matter of me making excuses. I did 3,500 words on a Sunday without even trying. I’ve been producing a few thousand a day for weeks on end, now. I’m satisfied with what my production is generally.

But it’s not all production. Sometimes you have to let your subconscious do its thing, and unfortunately mine has been occupied by aforementioned hospitalization and the general instability of my day to day life. Things are calming down, now. We’ll be okay.

The sun is shining, but not too brightly. The birds are singing. There’s food in the fridge and money in the bank and even though things are hard right now, I’d rather have my problems. And underneath it all, the raw, pulsing human seed moves through phases like the moon. Tonight, it’s something new.

Maybe I can be something new, too.

All my love,

BH ❤
Discombobulated

September 26th, 2023

I wish I had something more exciting to say, but I managed to get the first draft of book two ready for the initial read through which I hope to do tomorrow, and I pre-wrote the plotting for book three so that I could perhaps zoom through my draft at a reasonable pace instead of crawling along at three hundred word intervals every few weeks.

In short, everything is happening at once and I don’t know how to balance all the plates I have spinning.

Unfortunately, my life is most familiar to me in chaos. I need to spend some time, hopefully this weekend, resetting my home and my mind for the fourth quarter, but in the interim I have late nights and early mornings and no routine and I sincerely hope I’ll be able to report back in a week or two with much more consistency.

In short, I think I’m starting to understand the importance of routine in all of this.

Optimistic,

BH ❤
The Second Book

September 20th, 2023

I had fully intended to write about the drudgery of following up a first piece with a trudging second one, and until yesterday I could have. Yesterday was magic, though, the moments I live for.

I love the puzzle aspects of creating stories. I love thinking up strategies, genres, series, I love the ideation that occurs when you get a good concept in mind. The generation, the synthesis. It’s fucking magic.

There always, always, always comes a point in the middle where things go sideways. I get stuck. The 3,000 word count days become 300. It’s like being lost in the woods with a lamp and a general sense of I’m going that way to guide me. It’s slow, and it’s the worst.

It’s the moment the demons start calling. It’s the part of the process where voices in my head which aren’t mine get louder than I’m comfortable with. It would be easy, so easy to stop when I reach this point.

But I don’t. I keep going. Step by step. 300 word day by 300 word day. And what happens, if I keep crawling through this part of the process, is that eventually the forest thins, the words come easier, and there’s an inevitable moment when everything falls into place. It’s almost like a click, and when I feel that moment, everything falls into place.

I can’t say I want to do both drafting and editing at the same time going forward, but in this instance, I had fallen into the thick of it well before I had to edit. A day or two back into the process, and I’ve got the space I need to sort out the problems I was stuck on. The whole thing flows, now, moving more or less smoothly from beginning to end.

There’s still more work. I have about four scenes left to write. There will be big picture revision, rewriting, line editing, proofreading. Layers and layers and layers.

But the base is there. And that’s exciting.

BH ❤
Some thoughts on productivity…

September 2nd, 2023

I clocked 24 hours of overtime this week.

It doesn’t feel like much. It doesn’t feel like anything in terms of productivity, but it feels like exhaustion in my body. I’m not slowing down on social commitments, I’m not volunteering less, I’m not doing fewer chores (not that I’m great at keeping up with housework to begin with). I’m cooking from scratch more, which is something I can honestly say I regret after spending a whole day making ravioli from scratch. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t better than store bought.

I’m trying to keep so many plates spinning at once and I think that I might be tired, but I don’t know how to rest. I’m beginning to see, in experience and not just conceptually, a divide between what is realistic to produce and what feels sufficiently productive. I know that this is very much a result of the society in which I live, of technology clashing horribly with the very real human condition.

Was there ever a time where everyone wasn’t too focused on making a quick buck to function? I try not to let it make me cynical, but it’s hard. Part of the problem is, I know, the nature of my mind. I want too many things at once. I’m not averse to hard work. I rather enjoy it. I just can’t manage to organize my thoughts and ideas and dreams and visions and goals in a way that makes sense, to me or in context.

I love creating things. I love striving for something. I put in 24 hours of overtime this week. One whole day of my week dedicated to a passion that might never result in financial compensation, for a love of the process and the hope that someday, it might.

I love what I’m doing. I’m also tired.

BH ❤
10,000k

August 15th, 2023
I started writing longer fiction as an adult when I was sick, and in a very unhealthy relationship.

While it was unknown that I was working on a manuscript, I was regularly able to write 5,000-7,000 words a day. On a good day I could make 9,000, but the allure of a 10,000-word day never left.

I fully believe that if I had been left to my own devices (or, perhaps, even encouraged), I would have eventually been able to produce 10,000 words in a day. I was in love with the story I was writing.

Unfortunately, I was not permitted to do so. Writing was making me happy, self-confident, and sure of myself in a way that people in abusive relationships are generally not allowed to be. The other person found out what I was doing, and made it a life mission to undermine me.

I always feel terribly self-conscious writing about it. To anyone who hasn’t been in this kind of relationship, the concept of being prevented from engaging in one’s own hobbies and interests sounds foreign, unrelatable. Why wouldn’t you be able to just do what you want?

But for those who understand… my ambitions were interfered with, and stayed fractured until years after I had left the relationship. I had to put my life, and my craft, back together around the rubble of what my life (and relationship) used to be. I did well, but I never quite returned to the 5,000-7,000 average I used to be able to do as easily as breathing.

I’ve been struggling a lot lately. I’m close, I can feel it, but the last two years have seen a lot of false starts. I never give up, but I never feel like I’m going anywhere, either.

Underneath all the struggles, I keep hearing a voice in my head that isn’t mine, saying that I’m wasting my time. I’ll never be successful. I need to be realistic. Who do I think I am? Why do I think I can do this?

Last weekend, I dug my heels in. I sat down, pulled out my journal, and wrote that I was going to write 10,000 words in a day. If I couldn’t do it, the voice was right and I needed to quit writing.

I made 10,000 words that day. I wrote 10,000 words in a day… and then didn’t write for three days. I wrote 10,000 words in a day, and then 3,000 in the next eight days.

Two lessons.
1. I can do anything I want to, and no one can stop me. Not even that person.
2. I can burnout. Fairly easily, actually.
I’m about done with the draft on this, which means I’ll be revising and editing and generally working in a way not conducive to tracking daily word counts. That’s going to be uncomfortable for me.

But the next time I start a first draft, I know I can’t be pulling 10,000 word days. I can do 2,000 a day, every day, comfortably until it’s completed. Maybe I can push myself to a 3,000 daily average, maybe 5,000, but I am a marathon person, not a sprint person.

That’s an okay way to be. 5,000, or 3,000, or 1,000 words a day will, over the course of time, produce a completed draft. The time will pass no matter what I do. I may as well spend it doing what I love.

Until next time,

BH ❤
Writing vs. Productivity

August 1st, 2023

I’ve been reading a lot about writers trying to maintain productivity while balancing everything in their life, and falling short.

If I’m being completely honest, I’ve been having a hard time keeping up lately. With my day job, with my craft, with my friends, with my family, with the housework. There just feels like so much to do.

All around me (and I realize how much of this is my own fault) the language of productivity hovers like low-grade pollution. There’s the corporate kind, encouraging you to “manage your own career” by doing four people’s jobs at once with the promise that it will pay off someday, we swear, in the form of more money and even less of a life.

There’s the #girlboss kind, the social media philosophies pretending to be feminism that don’t just say you can have it all, they demand it. Have a #cleangirl #minimalist home, replace breakfast with green smoothies but never be hungry, have cute decorations and buy the latest TikTok trending item but don’t be materialistic. Be a trend chaser but never, ever try too hard.

I have a lot of plates spinning, except most of the time… I don’t. When I say I can’t keep up, I mean that quite literally. I can’t do everything that I want to (or think I should) in a day. There is always, always, always something getting pushed off.

That thing is never writing.

I’m lucky. I know that. I have no delusions on that front. I have one job which sufficiently pays all of my bills. I don’t have children, or care for elderly relatives. I have a lot more wiggle room in my life than other people.

But I also prioritize writing over everything. If I have to choose between writing and cleaning, the dishes stay in the sink. If I have to choose between writing and laundry, I’m wearing yesterday’s tee shirt and a lot of perfume. If I have to choose between writing and making dinner… there’s a salad and go across the street.

Other people have different priorities. That’s okay. But often writing gets pushed off. There’s always something more important. Sometimes the thing that’s more important than writing is legitimate, like housekeeping or childcare or an additional job.

Sometimes, the things people prioritize over their writing is social media. Netflix. Video games. Binging distractions so you don’t have to actually put in the work. I don’t want to be that person. I want to be focused, I want to get things done, but I want to keep actively prioritizing my writing.

I don’t have a snappy conclusion. I just hope that I can keep showing up here to prove I showed up, that as I look back at this part of my life in the future I remember how hard I worked at something that seemed impossible, and I don’t remember the giant pile of floor laundry.

I could spend another half an hour trying to tie this together nicely, but I have other priorities.

BH ❤
Belated Beginnings

July 17th, 2023

I admit, I intended to start this a few weeks ago and got caught up. I wish I was one of those over-productive people who could go full steam ahead even while on vacation, but I took a few weeks off (planned, I had PTO) and even the housework took a break. It’s kind of a problem hole I dug myself which I now have to crawl my way out of, but I feel better than I did before. More rested. More relaxed. Less stressed, even though I objective put more on my plate than I had been trying to juggle before my time off.

I’m trying to balance my day job, which I have to do all the time so I won’t be homeless, with my housekeeping duties, which I have to do to justify working so much to pay rent for. Nothing makes your mental health take a hit quite like having a home that isn’t up to par. Clutter and mess and disorganization and piled up dishes you haven’t cleaned will tank your creativity faster than anything.

And on top of that I have multiple projects I’m juggling, tentative titles I’ll be keeping to myself just a little bit longer, while also trying to do all the necessary ground work to make sure that I’m making good stuff while I’m doing the creative work.

Objectively, it looks like a lot for one person to have on their plate all on their own, and subjectively it just feels like spinning a hundred thousand plates at once. I know that the pace I want to set won’t be sustainable long term, and I’m unfortunately a work horse. I have the kind of personality that I could work myself to burnout every three weeks if left unchecked. I definitely don’t want to do that.

But I’m also feeling so, so excited for the future and energized right now, and I want to make sure that I capitalize on every ounce of initiative I have while I still have it. The more I can systematize and automate the parts of my life that are sisyphean, the better it will be for my creative work in the long run.

I’m trying to finish up one craft book, which I hope to ~review next week, but I’m also reading fiction for background research on a secondary project. In the meantime, the steady clackety sound you’ll hear will be me abusing my poor, poor keyboard.

Much love,

BH ❤