This month’s topic: ZOMBIES are a July tradition for WriYe. Do you have a writing tradition of your own? How did it come about?
Well, this is awkward. As one of the founding members of this annual tradition… I’m actually not participating in Zombie July this year. I always love plotting and planning to write a zombie novel, but then when it comes down to actually writing them? I get maybe 10k in and then things die out and I get super frustrated that I spent all the time to plot / plan the book and wasted July… So, that’s a thing.
But, the real reason I’m not working on Zombies this month is because they don’t really fit into my genre. That is the downside of writing primarily realistic fiction — to do so many of the challenges that I’ve seen around, you either have to be writing speculative fiction or completely abandon what you’ve been working on the rest of the year. Which, normally isn’t an issue for me and I welcome July as a break from the “normal grind.” But, since I’m writing on borrowed time and July is one of two months I have to really dedicate myself to my craft? It’s very difficult to want to give up even a second of my time to something that isn’t one of my more “serious” projects.
I do, however, have some of my own writing traditions, however. For one, I do love hosting a kick-off party for large WriMo months (January, July, November) by grabbing myself some Wavy Lays plain potato chips, cheese dip, Cheez-Its, and Cherry Coke, then at midnight, do a 15 or 20 minute word sprint and just basically try and get as high a word count as possible before falling asleep while writing (usually around 3 or 4am). This started back when I was writing a lot more and would never miss a monthly WriMo kickoff. I would do that for every single month… And now it’s just stuck as something I “have” to do in order to really get into the writing groove, especially that late at night.
Other than that, I don’t really have any writing traditions. I mean, I try to outline before I write a novel. I usually watch Twitch or YouTube while I’m writing. I always edit in pink, purple, or green ink… But, those are more habits than traditions, I think.
What about you? Any writing traditions?
Aliquet Press 