I did a hell of a lot of work over a few days to finish the first draft of All We Ever Wanted Was Everything. I did three or four days in a row right around 2500 words, and then on the last night before Anne and I left for vacation, I did about 6900, so I could finish the draft. It comes in just over 61000 words, and once I’m done with cuts and rewrites, I think it’ll end up right around 60000.
I started the rewrite yesterday, mostly going over the first part of the story, seeing where I was clearing my throat, figuring out how I can smooth it out and lay the foundation that the rest of the story will build upon, and discovering that a lot of it holds up better than I expected it would, a year after I wrote it.
I made a few small cuts, added some stuff here and there and smoothed out a few places where I was clear in my head but not on the page. I decided this morning that I’m going to completely rewrite the first chapter, to better and more clearly define the geography of the story, and to better introduce all the characters. I’m glad I have the perspective on it that I do, now, because I can see the places where things make sense to me, but will be unclear to a reader unless I change them. I’ve spent so much time in the back third of the manuscript, this early part I’m working through now almost feels like a different book, which makes sense, because I didn’t know I was writing a novel when I started writing this novel.
So yesterday, I did twenty-one pages before I ran out of gas. Twenty-one pages doesn’t feel like a lot, but we all have to start somewhere, and I feel good about my progress.
I know I have a lot of work to do, and I’m looking forward to it. It’s going to be fun and challenging and stressful and cathartic to go back into this manuscript and polish up the parts that need it. The last bit is going to need more work than the rest, because it was all done in such a short amount of time, but I’m doing so much work on the beginning, getting so submerged in the natural current of the narrative, by the time I get to the end and do that work, it may not feel as clunky as it does right now. Does that make sense? I feel like I’m reading and rewriting someone else’s work right now, making it my own for the first time.
I look back on the last three weeks, the focus and discipline that I needed to stay on target and finish telling the story. I keep thinking that I should have just stuck with it back in 2017 when I gave up on doing anything, because of Shitler and my Depression being the worst it’s ever been since I got treatment and started taking better care of my mental health. I keep thinking that this book would be with readers right now, if I’d just kept working on it and finished it a year ago. But Anne pointed out that I needed that time away from it, so I could do the work I needed to do on myself, to be in the place I am now, so I could finish it.
She was right, and I probably (definitely) spent more time beating myself up about not writing than I actually spent writing. It seems so obvious when I look back on a year of little productivity now, with all this perspective and all this work actually done, that even when I was frustrated and not as productive as I wanted to be, I did the best that I could at that moment. I’m always telling kids to do the best they can do, and to be gentle with themselves about it, to acknowledge that what their best is will vary from day to day. I forgot to be awesome to myself, to give myself permission to accept that my best may not have been what I wanted it to be, but it was the best that I could do at that moment. For almost a year, I did the best I could do, and it wasn’t very much, because I hadn’t yet done the emotional and personal work that I needed to do so I could be more creatively productive. But once I did the work I needed to do, including some painful introspection and emotional therapy, I was able to do the work I wanted to do. And now that work is done (well, the first step is done, anyway). And I am proud of it.
Anne is away for a few days at C2E2. I had planned to spend this time I am home with just the dogs in Skyrim, but I feel so good and so excited about working on this rewrite, that instead of goofing off with my NPC friends and looking for power converters, I’m spending this time in a world that I created, in my own head, working on my own story, and then rewarding myself with some Skyrim at night when I’m done for the day.
I’m proud of myself, and I feel good about who I am, where I am right now in my life, and what I’m doing. It feels so good to be doing creative work that matters to me because I want to share it with the world
I admire your positivity on this project, even when things recently seemed bleak. I honestly cannot wait to read it when it’s released.
I’m so happy for you!
High fives and puppies,
-M
After last year’s posts about depression (which I got a lot out of because I was also going through some of my worst bouts of depression), this is a fantastic post to read. (Also, doesn’t Austin Kleon say that the advice we give other people is really the advice we’re giving to ourselves? Or something like that?) I kind of want to say more, but really, I just love this post a lot and I’m very happy you’re on a track that gives you happiness.
Keep writing, inspiring, and sharing your creativity with the world! I know it’s hard not to doubt yourself, we are all our own worst critics. Self deprecating to the fullest, but we paint our lives in multiple colors! Look at Picasso’s blue & rose periods. Look at Van Goch’s works! Emotions drives us.
It’s good to have an Other Half, to pull you away, so you can approach your work fresh, with a different frame of mind.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, because you word it in a way that shows that we too are not alone in these tumultuous emotions!
You’re a badass, Wil. Thanks for sharing this with us. One depressed person to another, it means a lot to hear about your journey.
This is an awesome update. Your doing a great job and I can’t wait to read your novel!
And thanks for the reminder to do the best you can do at any one given time. It’s so easy to compare myself to myself before anxiety and depression took over, so it was a timely prompt.
Keep up the good fight!
You. Rock.
It’s great that you’re making progress on this, and I can say from experience that the time away while you take a break from writing something is not wasted. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product one day.
As an aside, don’t waste your time and energy beating yourself up. There are plenty of misguided, small-minded, fundamentally unhappy people willing to do that for you!
21 pages is huge. l have this folder called Compost for stuff l know can be good but l am not ready for it yet. Trying to do NaPoWriMo poem a day during April, and this is just not the year to beat myself up for not doing a poem a day. Compost is happening. Reading other poets and watching performances is happening. Attending and performing at open mics in Second Life is happening. There is a short story in my head that wont come out. Yeah, not the year to beat myself up. My mental health is too fragile, and it took too long to learn to recognize those times. You make me happy for you going out the other side,
Yay! Can’t wait to read this!
I’m always amazed at storytellers; I’m not sure I’m good for more than a short story. Twenty-one pages is pretty good creative output and damned hard work! Kudos!
Pin this post for yourself. As all of us with depression know, if depression is not currently smothering us with lies and confusion it will be soon. Remember the times of clarity and self pride. You deserve them.
That sounds great!
Also, when I consider that it takes me weeks to put down a short story and then days to smooth it out – hell, 21 pages in one frigging day is totally awesome! And I always admire writers for their discipline. I can’t do it and I sure tried.
Wonderful update, so good to hear!
I can’t wait to buy and read your book. Congratulations!
Excellent.
I’ve been losing myself in good books, films, and music as a means of surviving our dictator-in-chief’s reign of terror. Looking forward to some good, long-form Wheaton in the near future to help me do more of the same!
SAME – thank goodnes for audio books!
You said “I keep thinking that this book would be with readers right now, if I’d just kept working on it…”
Actually, no. That would have been a different book, written by a different version of you. THIS book had to be written THIS way at THIS pace. It is the way it was meant to come into this world. And you did your role, guiding it into existence.
Congratulations at all the work you have done. And now, enjoy the editing. It is so painful and hard, but dammit it is worth it to see your creation come through it better and stronger and more than you originally imagined. I cannot wait to explore your world.
❤️
I am glad that you are in a good place right now, and that you are able to have such a clear perspective of yourself. That alone is amazing! You are a talented writer, among other talents you possess, and I cannot wait to read your novel!
Regardless of the reason, some of my best work has always come after I have taken a break/pause for a while. What a great recharge! Can’t wait to see your final product.
Anne seems like a really smart person.
Shitler has 54%+ of us depressed – you are in good company! Congrats on your progress. Agreed – space and contemplation provide vluable perspective.
I am so glad you are feeling good about where you are. I am also glad you took the time for yourself. Your work will be better for it. Personally, I would rather wait for something your proud of, than read something you pushed out to satisfy fans. Finally, I am excitedly looking forward to the book being published. Please keep us informed about the date so that we can all buy it. Remember, when you put your health first, we your fans do get rewarded now that you feel better. Keep taking care of yourself.
Nikoah
Good for you, Wil! I am so looking forward to reading this new book!!!
Perspective and clarity for you here, Wil. If your book is going to be around 60,000 words, then 21 pages is ~10% of your book. You edited 10% of a whole novel in a day. That’s a lot.
So go you! And I can’t wait to hear about it’s publication so I can pre-order it and read it.
You rock! You are an awesome role model and inspiration! Can’t wait to read your novel.
Wil, thanks for the reminder that writing doesn’t always flow smoothly, and that sometimes you have to chuck a whole chapter if it isn’t working. My NaNoWriMo movel should be done by 2020. 😉
I say the same things to my students every day, it seems. Do the best you can each day. Know that your best will vary. It’s the truth.
YAY! So glad you’re doing good work on your rewrites (21 pages in a day?! I can manage 9-10 on a particularly good day when the stars align and Venus is in retrograde and a pig walks by Castle Dracula on a Tuesday playing a banjo). It is always a better book when you spend some time away and then come back to it with fresh eyes. I can’t wait to read it!
goes to open a word doc and put some words on her own down because this is Camp NaNoWriMo time and I. Can. Do. This.
“Twenty-one pages doesn’t feel like a lot”. I still think that is a monumental amount of writing. Objectively, it is greater than 1 page, and that is an achievement. Keep it up and I can’t wait!
Don’t beat yourself up about that “lost time”. You’ve written a first novel in a pretty amount of time (other authors take decades!), and if your emotional and health-related frame of mind slows you down at times then it evens out with the 6900-words-a-day and 21-pages-of-edits-in-a-day (that’s effing amazing!) periods, so in the end there’s the average Will Wheaton Writing Speed. Which isn’t better of worse than the GRRM Writing Speed or the William Faulkner Writing Speed or whoever’s. It’s your writing speed, and I believe that all authors have better or worse days/weeks/months.
I started following your blog about 10 years ago and I really enjoyed your other books. For what it’s worth, I didn’t hate you on TNG when I watched it almost 30 years ago. That show and you is one of the reasons why I am going will be able to go get writing lessons from GRRM and some other ace authors, and for that, Sir, I am thankful.
So, good luck with the re-write and your next draft, and let us know when and where we can get the finished book. If you other books are any indication I’m pretty sure I will enjoy “All we ever wanted…” a lot.
Best regards,
CS
pretty decent amount of time. Not a pretty amount of time. Can an amount of time be pretty? Beautiful even? We shall never know. 😉
I am currently in the process of finishing my Masters thesis and what you wrote here is so important while also being so hard to realize and allow oneself to do: “give myself permission to accept that my best may not have been what I wanted it to be, but it was the best that I could do at that moment”
Beating myself up about being not “university-material” in the first place does not help bringing this project forward. But still I continue working on it every week and I WILL finish this thesis, with all its ups and downs.
I wish you the very best for your project!
Taking a break from any project is a good thing. It gives you the time and space to look back and decide if this a project worth finishing or was it just a great exercise “in the process of creating”. Glad the process works with the end project. And “sometimes it’s okay if the only thing you did today was breathe”. That is on my wall at work next to your “Be honest. Be kind. Be honorable. Work hard and always be awesome”
So happy to see this update. I’m pulling for you, and I’ll be in the preorder queue whenever it may happen.
I’d call 21 pages of rewrites quite a burst of energy… It just can’t happen at a steady pace. Many years back when I did some serious cycling everyone impressed on us that permanent exertion is just lethal. We must free ourselves of the expectation to constantly perform at the same level. Modern society is obsessed with that idea, though it only makes people sick and inefficient. So you’re absolutely right, don’t second-guess yourself about time lost along the way. You can be proud of yourself.
I’m just reading Shackleton’s “South” again, and it sort of makes me melancholic to reflect on the days when the best of us just fought the elements instead of fighting for resources and battering each others’ heads… But then I realize that nobleness is still there in honest people that have taken up the good fight within themselves.
Wil, I had to take 7 months off from running at the beginning of 2017 due to an injury, and I think that time off put me in the place I needed to be when I came back with a vengeance. I’m lighter, faster, and crushing my goals now. But yeah, like you, I kept saying that I should have made these changes to my diet and training years ago. Where would I be now if if if if…. Well, we’re here now, and we’re crushing it, and we can use the lessons we’ve learned to continue to crush it. Keep it up!
Just remember.. Grow slow like the tree. Dig your roots deep. Stretch your branches high and wide. You shall weather the storm.
This is awesome! I’m so happy for you and hope I get to read your book one day.
Congrats! 21 pages in a day is a darned solid chunk of work and anyone who says otherwise is a poser. I think it was… Hemingway? (I couldn’t find the reference just now, and heard it many years ago, so it may be apocrypha) Anyway – he was asked something like: “What makes a good author?” His reply was: “About 6 good pages a day.” There’s truth in that.
Be healthy, be with the people you love, be productive. Secret to life, man. Secret to life.
Rock on.
Fantastic post! Words I will remember
This is fantastic. I think we all often forget that time spent stepping away from a creative project is still time put toward that project. If you had pushed yourself last year, you probably wouldn’t have ended up with the book that you did.
This is a lot of work to be proud of. My son and I are big fans of your writing and story telling, and you have cast a positive influence over my son (and me) on several levels. Describing hard work, frustration, goal setting and perseverance are lessons we can all learn from. So glad you will make it to Calgary at the end of the month.
Shout out to Level Up YEG – character building and positive social development for at-risk youth through a love of gaming!
😘😘😘😘😘😘
Hiya Wil. Been dipping into RFBs and upon hearing your jalapeno episode, need to tell you mine.
I worked as a clerk in a book and music retail chain called Olsson’s in Bethesda, Md. in the early 90s.
One day, one of the shipping receiving crew brought in a bag of green jalapenos sent by his folks in the Southwest.And
Some were more eager than others to indulge, none more so than t his one buff Asian American dude who fancied himself as the Brits say a hard man.
Clue: he had a six by six foot poster of the first Terminator movie on t h e wall of his work area.
Anyway, he grabs an entire green jalapenos out of the bag, puts it in his mouth…
And, within ten seconds, is screaming for water
Luckily we had a water cooler in the back office. Joke on him tho: those thumbnail Dixie cups.
So whilst he’s recovering, this other shipping receiving worker, brought up in the Southwest, older wiry grizzled dude in maybe his 50s then…
Takes another full green jalapeno, eats it, swallows…(With Buff Terminator watching and recovering, mind you.)
Then sez: Hmm, not bad’. And walks away!
Anyway, just a tale.
I’m one of those strangers that worries when your depression overwhelms and celebrates when you’ve had a happy milestone! I know you get a lot of negativity from trolls so wanted to make sure you knew there are lurkers who silently cheer you on.
So happy to hear, Wil! That’s a real accomplishment. And a definite inspiration to remember to be kind to ourselves when we’re writing. It’s a brave undertaking and something to be proud of, no matter how many words end up on the page. <3
I find constantly that I rebuff time and I rebuff my efforts. I realize that they are two sets of frequencies that some times line up and sometimes don’t, but when they do it’s beautiful. I have only one silly book under my belt. But, I know that 21 pages in a day is freaking spectacular shut down of the inner critic and that anything worthwhile takes more time than even the most patient of people would like. I admire your voice and your vulnerability and hope you’ll keep sharing both.
Can we preorder the book?
Terrific! To that I just wanted to add a big thanks for the great talk you gave with John Scalzi at the LA Times book festival the other day. I hope you know how many lives you touch in positive ways 🙂
Congratulations! Now the WORK begins.
I see yours and Anne’s posts on Instagram and I think “gosh they’re a cute couple”. Then I read things like this and I have to say – I am SO glad that you and Anne met. Your love for each other is so evident and it’s a comfort to see some light shining in the world. Thank you 🙂 #TeamSoftG (my shirt came in and I love it!)