Hello from that lull between the birth of Jesus and the new year. It’s been good in these parts and will be even better once the indoor pool opens. Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough, but I won’t begrudge Livio (pool owner and collector of cheap clocks) the time off.
I got a little taster of holiday season by taking the first week of December off for rest, long overdue life admin and a stocktake of all the words from all writing related to my manuscript going as far back as late 2021. I have amassed a magical 30,000 words! Why is this magic? It is the number needed to apply for a subject I want to do in semester 2, 2025. That tally was bolstered by the writing I did during this year’s NaNoWriMo.
Over the next few months, I’ll be polishing 10,000 of those words and refining my manuscript outline and chapter summaries. To give it my best, I know I’ll need to apply a consistent effort over the months rather than a panicked sprint just before the course application cutoff. As filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan says, ‘Being a writer is like having homework every night for the rest of your life’.
That angsty, perfectionist not-enoughness feeling has been with me since before I called myself a writer. When I finished university the first time round (class of ‘97), there was a surreal boundlessness in emerging from 16 consecutive years of formal education with its rubrics and rankings to evenings with no expectations or demands and no quantifiable measures on how well I spent my time and how good I was. Losing that misguided sense of self was disorienting, and it’s unsurprising that so much unravelled in its aftermath (a story for another day).
My feeling that there was something I should be doing was reinforced by family members who’d ask when are you doing a masters? why don’t you study medicine? why don’t you do more? Almost three decades on, I’m sure a mere associate degree falls short of that pedestal, but I’m not doing it for family approval nor to increase the odds of financial security (in fact, I may be wilfully decreasing the odds of financial security, at least in a conventional sense). I might not even finish the course, and that is fine.
Being a writer is a way to channel that nebulous homework-to-do-very-night feeling into tangible goals and outcomes. Yes, there’s the stress of deadlines and the constant feeling of not being ‘enough’, but there is also the acceptance that it is okay to never resolve that feeling, not least because it is outweighed by the joy I derive from the flow state when I am actually writing.
It’s a privilege to have this homework every night for the rest of my life and I look forward to more of it in the new year!
NaNoWriMo update
Writing output in November
I went into November with a modest goal of 20,000 words, which is less than the official 50,000 for NaNoWriMo.
Before starting, I outlined discrete sections I wanted to explore, with the aim of loosely focusing on a different section each week.
Here is a summary of my efforts, in numbers:
8 days missed (it was a month of life truly lifing)
22 days of writing
9,426 words written
2 backstories newly extracted from my subconscious
3 new minor characters entered the building
5 sections of my manuscript received attention
314 average words per day over the 30 days
428 average words per day on the days with writing sessions
15 to 25 minute timed writing sessions (some days 2+ sessions)
Some standout moments and observations:
25 November, post swim and sauna, I was perched on a stool at the narrow window bench of my favourite cafe. I decided to focus on writing place and drew inspiration from elements of various houses I could see through the window to describe my protagonist’s childhood home.
29 November, post phone conversation with a vulnerable family member, I channeled the underlying emotions into a scene. While the scene doesn’t depict specific details, I was able to write, with emotional honesty, my character’s experience of complex family dynamics
1 to 29 November, with much annoyance, I noticed my habit of asking rhetorical questions when writing a character’s interiority. I refrained from self censorship and eventually embraced this first draft quirk of mine as flagging future points of departure for dialogue or scene, highlighting items for further exploration or research, raising concerns or preoccupations to later incorporate in subtext, or simply being necessary throat clearing that will disappearing in the next revision
30 November, when I wrote, but not toward my manuscript, meaning the word count didn’t count. That day, I relished writing Issue 31 of The Raptorial, ending the month with a reminder of why I love writing.
Hurrah for going in with I wanted (20,000 words) and coming out with what I needed (the short fall for the 30,000 words for my semester 2 application)!
My faves of 2024
2024 has been a year of immersion in books, books and more books. Here’s my top 5, in order of earliest to latest read:
The Singularity, Balsam Karam
Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar
Theory & Practice, Michelle de Kretser
The Children’s Bach, Helen Garner
The Hypocrite, Jo Hamya
The ones in bold, I reviewed for The Big Issue and gave 5 stars. The last two were my picks for my book club’s current read (Hamya’s is a bonus as it will be a while till our next catch up). I am zooming through my summer reads and moving on any minute now to Dylin Hardcastle’s A Language of Limbs.
For more on my 2024 faves, check out my contribution to Kill Your Darlings’ 2024 Culture Picks along with those of other journal contributors and staff.
What were your faves this year?
In the black
On the rewards of doing what I love
One of the admin tasks I did in my mini break in the first week of December was prepare figures for my tax return. In incredible news, my writing and editing business, WordOSaurus, did not run at a loss in 2023–24, a first in its short history. I covered all expenses with a little left over, as in enough to fund my pool membership for a year. As we say in the business world, WordOSaurus is, finally, in the black.
I established my business in late 2020, hot off the heels of the final semester of my first year subjects. Logo! Company name! Copy! Branding! Website! It was a time of much excitement and expenditure. Then more years of much expenditure and a wee bit of work. Each year the gap between expenses and earnings narrowed till it finally tipped over the edge in my fourth year of operation.
The coolest part is that all projects in the 2023–24 financial year (and to date in this one) have been aligned with my creative practice (book reviews, feature articles, submissions reading, comic worksop facilitation, newsletter publishing).
There were also volunteer efforts that have drawn on the ever expanding skillset at WordOSaurus HQ: moderating a panel at a literary festival, and working, in a lean two-person team, on a continent-wide Palestine activism project that continues to grow in impact, reach and network of collaborators.
I’m also figuratively in the black this year thanks to the wealth of inspiration and instruction on craft, and the community I have found through my work.
Huge thanks to Mel Fulton and The Big Issue; Suzy Garcia and Kill Your Darlings; Emilie Walsh and Laneway Learning; my fun, creative and generous workshop participants; Rachael Cilauro and Goldfields Library Corporation; Alice Reid and Odyssey Literary Festival; and my sole paid newsletter subscriber, the uber talented and lovely writer, editor, artist and PhD candidate Caitlin McGregor.
And of course, many thanks to you, for reading. The Raptorial is a huge part of my writing practice and a commitment to showing up that I take seriously (in a fun way). It is an honour to have 5 to 10 minutes of your time each month.
Raptorial Writes
A monthly writing prompt
This one requires preparedness. Carry a notebook and pen on your person at all times (or a phone and notes app).
Pay attention to any phone conversations you overhear in public. Jot down what you hear (with respect to privacy, as in maybe not their date of birth, address and credit card details). Also note the tone, emotions, body language, volume, and any other elements that will evoke the moment when you write.
Your story opens with the first snippet of one-way overheard conversation. Fill in the missing dialogue of the other person on the line. It needn't all be dialogue. Throw in backstory, scene, summary, poetry, internal monologue, whatever.
Set a timer for 25 minutes and write!
I’d love to know how you go! Post your story to Instagram using #RaptorialWrites, or share it in the comments here. Happy writing!
Raptorial Bites
A monthly short story book club
This month’s read is Jamil Jan Kochai’s On the Night of the Khatam, which was published in The New Yorker in February 2024. If you prefer audio, here's Kochai reading his story: