Writer’s Demand Avoidance; Or, Run Your Own Race

I recently discovered yet another psychiatric disorder. I call it “Writer’s Demand Avoidance,” the primary symptom of which is being unable to compose the usual type of writing which one is accustomed to, for a period of at least fourteen consecutive days. Upon trying to force oneself to work on a piece of writing, anger, anxiety, and writer’s block ensue, leading to greater frustration and feelings of Author Inadequacy.

The primary cause of this distressful disorder?

Deciding on a minimum daily word count, which minimum exceeds the prior minimum by at least 800 words and leads to resentment toward other daily tasks and hobbies because the increase word count also means decreased time available for non-writing activities.

I’m being facetious, and I know that deciding to stick to writing 3200 words per day this past mid-winter wasn’t the real reason for my novel writing shutdown for the past two months, but it didn’t help.

In the meantime, I worked on a self-help book. But before I started it, and while I was in between chapters of that book, whenever I tried to restart the fourth novel in my latest Christmas romance series, it just.

Wouldn’t.

Go.

Anywhere.

I had a similar trouble with the third book in the series, though I didn’t have in my head at the time to write more a day than my usual 2,000 words. So I was determined to write this final novel. If I could break through the demand avoidance with that one, I could do the same with this one.

I finished the self-help book, got a skeletal outline going for the romance novel… and threw the 3200 words per day idea out the window.

I’ve been steadily writing 2,000 words, and only 2,000 words, every day, even when I’ve felt like I could write more, for the over a week now. For the first time in a long time, writing fiction is fun. I’m not pressuring myself with a deadline. And, I have a lot of free time for chores, hobbies, and enjoying the outdoors.

I’m also finding that limiting my daily word count helps to keep the story momentum going. I don’t run out of steam.

Long story short? I believe pressuring myself with a high daily word count was causing novel writing burnout even though I was spacing the composition of said novels a good deal apart, as I’d promised I would do in this article. Why did I do it in the first place?, you might ask.

Because of having heard, over the past several years, other self-published fiction authors talk about how they whip out five thousand and more words per day. Without the help of AI, I might add.

I also might add that these authors usually don’t have any children, often are single, are younger than forty-five years old, and – here’s the clincher – if they don’t write that next book, they’ll have trouble paying the light bill.

I have no need to try to write a book a month. Or a book every two months. I write because the process fills a place in my soul, and makes me feel like I’m contributing something good to the world.

As long, that is, as I’m writing on my own terms, and not somebody else’s.

As I was reminded in an e-mail I received from Malory Ford, another Christian romance author, I need to run my own race, not somebody else’s.