Let's Play AcWriMo Bingo!

Clear your clutter, do some writing, get ready for November

Friends, it’s sloggy around here. Do I owe you an email? Probably! Maybe send it one more time to remind me! I’m trying, but my brain is molasses. There are birthday parties and tense Mets games* and quick trips out of state and fights against banned books and invoices to issues and books to edit and an election in 4.5 weeks and my brain feels infinitely pixelated. And it’s Halloween, so there’s the building of spooky book advent calendars too! (What Cyrus calls “happy wrapping things we already own month!”)**

But it’s mostly good clutter! in the midst of this, I’m reminding myself that we do all of the clutter clear in October so we can write like hell in November and then rest in December.

AcWriMo Bingo!

SO, what do we do in October? Here are some ideas (download and share the pdf here! Tell your friends!)

First we are the cleaning crew for November. This means we’re finishing and submitting zombie projects, saying no to things that will weigh us down, pushing things back until February when it’s cold and miserable anyway. It also means we’re doing everything we need to do in order to start November writing—cleaning data, doing lit review searches, nudging coworkers to do their jobs. And finally, it’s thinking about what you need to do in November to keep going. Joining AcWriMo with me? Doing a writing retreat? Having rewards? Buying your favorite Trader Joe’s candy (super sour Scandinavian swimmers, obviously…and then their little holiday star cookies) and then hiding it from yourself until November? Yes to all of it.

Here is your Bingo card!

It ALSO means starting to flex your writing muscles again. For this, I suggest morning pages. Pour some coffee, do Wordle, don’t check email, and then set a 30-minute timer and start writing. Here’s a morning pages bingo card to give you some ideas!

Some people use morning pages as a way just to clear their heads for the day and don’t need or like any prompts. Some people use them as a way to do some meta-processing about their project and what’s working and what isn’t.

I’ve also started suggesting to my clients that they use the space to do writing that is orthogonal (bleh) to the project they are working on. People will tell me “I keep thinking about xx, but it doesn’t fit. I don’t know where it goes.” All of that deserves to be out of your head and on paper!

Doing morning pages will help you get in the habit of low-stakes writing that doesn’t have an immediate home, and that is a great way to think about AcWriMo.

Alright. So this week, your homework is to a) sign up for AcWriMo if you haven’t already, b) start to unfuck declutter your life, and c) to start doing some more regular writing. Next week, we tackle the question: what kind of projects work for AcWriMo anyway?

Write all the things,

Kelly

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*As a dedicated non-sports person, Mets playoff baseball is a weird exception for me. My grandfather moved to New York City from Ireland after WWII and became a devoted Mets fan from the day the league started. When we went to the beach, he’d extend the antenna on his old analog radio so he could listen to the game. My grandparents eventually settled in Portland, Oregon after they retired, but he never stopped following the team. In 2006, he asked me to get him a copy of The New York Daily News so he could read about them losing “in his own language.” I also married into a family of lifelong Mets fans, so I think somehow there is an epigenetic predisposition to anxiety whenever they are in the playoffs. Sports post over.

**We have so many holiday books and I don’t just like to dump them in my living room, so every October and December, I wrap them up and we read one a day counting down to the holidays. This year we’re also reading a chapter from A Night in the Lonesome October every night. Fun!

What’s going on around here

Hi friends, old and new!

I’m Kelly, a political-scientist-professor-turned-academic-editor. I live in Brooklyn, have three kids and a new book. I post here once a week or so about all manner of things related to writing and making space for writing.

I own Epilogue Editing, and here are some of the things we do:

Editing and publicity work: We have late fall availability! But the calendar is filling up fast. If you have a piece of writing you’d like to get out into the world, now is a great time to reach out.

Coaching: I’ve accepted my final coaching clients for the fall! If we haven’t talked yet and you need some writing support, I’d love to have you join a writers’ circle—or reach out and we can talk about working together in the winter/spring.

New! We do have a few coaching slots available for international scholars, so feel free to reach out about those.

AcWriMo: It’s here! Click this link to sign up for AcWriMo, where we write every day in November (and then take a break). Get excited!

Coming soon: More information about signing up for spring writers’ circles and the spring sessions of our book writing workshop—stay tuned!