Unexpected Writing Experience

I’ve recently had one of those moments when you’re going along, just experiencing life then BOOM! A realization smacks you upside the head!

I occasionally complain about the fact that intuitive writing tends to be so much slower than traditional writing. It’s even more frustrating as an INFP because I am CONSTANTLY churning out more ideas than I will ever be able to write or finish in my lifetime. However! I recently realized I’ve written far more than I’d thought.

But first, I have to introduce you to a friend.

Once upon a time, a young CJ set forth onto the internet. In her wanderings she found a little website that catered to fan drawings, wallpapers, and even some blogging. It was there that she found her Kohai, a fellow fangirl. After a bit of chatting, she discovered Kohai was a writer. As an aspiring writer herself, CJ brought up her own characters that she had tried (and continually failed) to write a complete story for.

Then Kohai suggested something novel (pun intended).

What if we introduced our characters to each other? It would give us a chance to write more about our beloveds and see how they would interact. I was intruigued.

So we tried it, starting very slow. One person would type up a scene with their characters then send it on to the next person. Then that person would add another scene to the story and send it back. This took awhile (or at least I did), and we ended up waiting days and occasionally more than a week before the other person sent back their response. That is until we finally moved from the website to a messaging app.

Instead of whole story scenes or chapters, we would simply write character dialogue before letting the next person add onto the story. Each day the chosen victim-er, writer would be responsible for copying all the story dialogue we’d made onto a word document. This, as you can imagine, took a lot of time and energy. (And people say nobody works for free.) Eventually, we came up with the idea to share a Google Doc. No interminable copy and pasting. No losing documents between people’s computers. We’ve now been writing this way since 2017.

And now we come to the whole point of this post: the realization that knocked me sideways.

In the week before Christmas, I wanted to reread one of our stories and started searching through Google Docs for it. After scrolling for what seemed like days, it occurred to me that I had no clue exactly how many stories we actually had. So I started counting. And counting. And, that’s right, counting some more.

The number I came up with blew me away.

There were 136 individual stories. That’s right. You read this correctly. One hundred. Thirty. Six.

But wait. There’s more!

The thing about Google Docs is that it starts shorting out on the app when you reach over 100 pages per document. So Kohai and I started dividing up longer stories into Story 1, Story 2, Story 3 etc. once it reaches 100 or so pages.

So what you might ask? Surely you don’t have many stories longer than 100 pages...or do I?

In addition to the 136 individual stories, I have 29 stories that are 2 documents long, 16 that are 3 documents, 8 that are 4 documents, and last but not least 2 that are 5 documents long. That’s 55 extra stories, bringing our total to 191 stories. 191 stories! That’s so many!

This means that we’ve written close to 200 stories in almost 6 years at the time of this post. That’s an average of 31 stories per year! Here I was feeling sorry for myself for not being productive when in reality I’ve been churning out stories as fast as my little fingers can type!

Now to be fair, shared stories are “easier” in two main points: I’m not worried about publishing and I have a partner. First, these stories are just for us. Occasionally they’re shared with family and friends, but really they’re just about giving us feels and a place to practice our writing skills. After we finish there’s no formal editing process. I do simple line edits whenever I read through the story. That’s it. Second, I have a partner-in-crime when I feel ‘stuck’. It’s a great feeling to simply be able to hand off a story with a ‘Kohai I’m stuck :)’ Then she’ll add in a bit more to jump start my brain or switch scenes. If we’re both stuck, we can always switch to another story. Regardless of those points, neither change the fact that I’ve helped write 191 stories! I’m still blown away by this fact, fiends!

This also brings me to a brand new realization I had looking at these numbers.

When I felt drained energetically—I couldn’t write anything on my stories, blog, or had little creative juice in general—it’s often because I was using it to write a shared story. Does that mean I should no longer write shared stories? Hell no! The sheer volume of stories shows that I enjoy them, and they’ve given me a ton of writing practice. Gone are the days when I was uncertain I could ever finish a story. Where I wondered where or what my writer’s voice could be. Shared stories have helped me better understand my characters and even meet new ones!

The real question I should be asking is whether or not I will continue putting so much of my time and creative efforts into shared stories.

The answer is no.

I have other things I want to focus on now. My website for one. My novels for another. Not to mention my editing business! And somewhere in there I have to add in time for filling up my creative well and interacting with other human beans.

That being said, I’m not entirely set on my writing roadmap for 2024. I’ve taken shared story breaks before when I’ve been burnt out or needed time to focus myself. In fact, I did one from October through November of 2023 mostly for the sake of Nanowrimo. (That didn’t end up working out the way I’d anticipated, but it DID help me survive some big holiday drama and illnesses.) Two months away from writing shared stories was a bit too long if I’m honest. I was definitely feeling the urge to reengage, and when I finally did come back, we belted out a 3-doc story in about 17 days. That’s approximately 90,000 words, fiends! To say we were ready to write again is an understatement.

So on the one hand, it’s clear I need to take more breaks. But on the other hand, shared stories are currently an essential part of my creative life. So how long should my breaks be? And how often should I take them?

As an INFP, predictable routines make me want to drop to the floor and roll, keening loud and long. While it would be logically easier to decide to write one month off shared stories and one month on, I know that won’t be reasonable for me long-term. I do think having done this research, I will be a lot more aware of how much time I’m spending on (or off) my own projects. When I’m starting to feel the urge for shared stories or personal projects, I can be flexible and decide reengage with whatever is calling for my attention.

This calls for communication (the key to all relationships), paying attention to what I’m actually craving, and a dedicated commitment to writing when I am able. Will I get it perfectly the first time? I wish. Will I get it perfectly the second time? Nope. Not the third either. In fact, I’ll never completely perfect the balance. But it will be better and better always matters.