Jennifer M. Baldwin

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Goal: Finish Norse City Limits

June 9, 2024 / / 0 Comments

My top writing goal for 2024 is to finish my novel, Norse City Limits. Inspired by both my love for Icelandic sagas and my love for film noir, NCL mixes elements from Grettir’s Saga and Norse mythology with some of my favorite noir tropes.

I started out writing it late last summer and made a lot of progress right out of the gate. I guess I was excited about starting something new. The idea for NCL has been rattling around my brain for years, so that build-up and energy just flowed right through me when I finally started drafting. I think I wrote roughly 15,000 words in those first few weeks.

Then the school year started and I began teaching again. That slowed things down considerably, and because I wasn’t outlining my chapters as I went, I ended up forgetting a bunch of stuff as my momentum stalled and I didn’t write everyday.

I wrote a short story, started another short story, started a novella, and then went back through and reread all of the NCL manuscript thus far, taking notes and outlining each chapter.

After that process, I finally resumed drafting the novel, but with a bit of a twist. The school year started with me wanting to experiment with having the students draft by hand. Basically do all their writing in notebooks and on pads of paper. This was my way of resisting AI, I guess. Of getting us all to think more intentionally about our bodies and how doing things by hand shapes how we think.

I realized that while I do a lot of writing by hand, mostly in my writer’s notebook, I was still drafting all my fiction at the computer. I can type faster than I can handwrite, and typing just made sense. Saves times, right?

But that meant that I could only write when I had access to my computer, to the desktop that sits in our basement. That meant that my writing time was limited to those moments when I was home and could steal away to the basement to write.

Translation: I didn’t get a lot of writing done once school started because I didn’t have access to my computer. And even when I did have access to it, sometimes I didn’t feel like holing myself up in the dank, cold basement. Sometimes I wanted to sit on the couch with my husband in the evening, just to be near him, to spend quiet time together.

After watching this video on Neil Gaiman’s writing routine, I realized that I really love writing in my writer’s notebook, and writing by hand has always made me feel more experimental and loose, AND I was asking my students to draft their writing by hand, but I was still shackled to my computer, so the answer seemed obvious.

I needed to start drafting my stories by hand.

I took out the lovely leather notebook case my husband got me a few years ago, stuck a couple of Moleskine softcover journals in it, and started drafting NCL and my short fiction by hand. I started bringing the notebook with me to work, drafting in spare moments at lunch or after school. I sat on the couch in the evenings and drafted while my husband worked on his grad classes.

Basically, I got back into the groove with the novel.

At this point, I’m on chapter ten but not quite sure how many words because I’ve drafted the last chapter by hand. Probably getting close to 30k words. Which is admittedly not a lot. I’m thinking this book will be roughly 100k words, but that’s always hard to say until I get closer to the end. I don’t outline, so I’m simply going by the vague impressions I’ve generated for where the story might go and the scenes I have floating around my head.

Right now, my protagonist is stumbling and fumbling along, trying to be proactive but getting swatted down at every turn by the cruel forces at work in the city. It’s weird writing noir because it’s such a dark genre/style that calls for bad luck and evil fate to circumvent the hero’s actions. I want to be careful that my main guy gets some feeling of progress going even as the net squeezes tighter and tighter around him.

To finish the novel in seven months, I must write roughly 10k words per month. Very doable… except I also have the goal to finish another novel (Ysbaddaden) and even more stories besides. So 10k a month for NCL, but that won’t be all I’m writing each month.

As always, I’m hoping to “fail to success,” so no matter where I am by next month, I’ll be further along than I am now.

A Ridiculous Amount of Goals (that I probably won’t achieve)

June 7, 2024 / / 2 Comments

This might be another one of those “I’m gonna blog everyday” type of promises that I make and never fulfill.

But you know what? Having an ambitious goal that I don’t achieve often turns out better than weaksauce goals or no goals at all. Why? Because even if I don’t achieve my lofty ambitions, I still achieve something, and something is better than nothing.

This is the “fail to success” model of thinking. I think this model is better for me than being all, “Not hitting my goals just makes me feel bad, man,” kind of attitude that I sometimes convince myself is true (for myself). (This whole thing should have a giant caveat that says I’m really working out my own methods and not prescribing anything to anyone.)

I also firmly believe in the “establish your practice” model too (again, for myself… but this one I do get a bit prescriptive about with my students). Establishing your artistic practice means developing habits (often daily, though not necessarily) that allow you to do your art, making it a regular part of your life.

I still think having an artistic practice is important. I’m building a life, and I want that life to include making my art. I want that life to include making my art everyday (if possible).

So yeah, establish a practice. Live it everyday if you can.

But I also think setting goals for myself — goals I often fail to achieve — helps a lot. I need to have lots of irons in the fire. No such thing as “writer’s block” only “project block” is an ethos I stand by. Learning this habit of mind has been CRUCIAL for my work as a writer. As soon as I realized that I could write anything I wanted when I sat down to write (and not just write the thing I was supposed to write), I was free. Free from thinking I was “stuck.” Free from thinking I wasn’t “in the mood.” If I have fingers to type or hands to write, and I have some paper nearby, I can write. No “block” at all. If I didn’t feel like writing the current “work in progress,” no prob. I could work on a blog post. Wasn’t feeling like that novel at the moment? No biggie, just work on a short story.

Having numerous goals is how I can stave off blockage. Having lots of writing projects, as Matthew Dicks mentions on his blog, is what gives me the freedom to keep writing.

I just finished Dicks’s Someday Is Today, which was fabulous, and in it, he encourages creators to have lots of goals and work on lots of projects, switching between them as necessary. This is often how I’ve worked in the past. Having side projects just makes sense for how my brain works.

But as I read Dicks’s book the other day, I was reminded not only to have more side projects, but that even if I don’t fully complete them all by my self-imposed deadlines, just by having the goals, I’ll accomplish more.

Take my embarrassingly unfulfilled “blog everyday” goals. On the one hand, I did not meet those goals, which means I’m a failure. But on the other hand, just by setting such a goal for myself, I blogged way more than I otherwise would have. The lofty goal propelled me to get my butt in the chair and write.

I wonder if I’m being too timid in my goals lately. Let’s say I set the goal to write a short story every week for a year. And let’s go on to say that I fail miserably at that goal. Let’s say I only manage to write three short stories that whole year.

Guess what?

That’s THREE more short stories than I had before. And if I hadn’t set the goal, I might have written none.

So what’s better? Setting no goal and getting little-to-nothing done, or setting a goal, failing at it, but writing more than I would have otherwise?

This is how to achieve things.

In such a spirit, here are all the lofty goals I want to achieve in my creative work this year. I am almost 100% certain I will not hit these goals. I am also almost 100% certain that by articulating them here on my blog, I will achieve more than I thought possible for the remainder of 2024.

My creative goals:

Finish writing Norse City Limits (urban fantasy novel)

Finish writing Ysbaddaden and the Game of Chess (second book in Merlin series)

Finish a short story set in my sword and sorcery world

Finish a short story about a mother who learns a terrible secret about her son

Finish a short story set in my Children of Valesh universe

Publish my short story collection

Finish a novella in my City of Ashes series

Blog everyday (this one again!! LOL!)

Send out Substack newsletter every two weeks

Play more role-playing games with my kids, my husband, family, and friends

Create some RPG modules for Norse City Limits and Merlin’s Last Magic

Make a “Saturday Morning” zine series and publish an issue every month

Make other zines

Read more books with my kids (Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Half-Magic, James and the Giant Peach, the Hobbit, the Silver Chair, Horse and His Boy, Magician’s Nephew, Last Battle, more Little House books, How to Train Your Dragon series, Harry Potter)

Start naalbinding again (finish the hat I started for my son and make another one for my other son)

Practice my cartooning/comics drawing (for the zines)

Write essays, poems, and fiction that will serve as models for my students next school year

Can I meet all these goals? Maybe. Probably not. But having lofty goals means making more progress than having none. If one side project is good, then sixteen side projects is better.

I’ll try to take a page out of Dicks’s blog and post updates on my progress. I can almost guarantee that I will not meet some of these goals. But having these irons in the fire means there’s absolutely no excuse for “writer’s block.” There is ALWAYS a project I can switch to and work on when BIC time comes.

Creative Writing: Week 7

May 13, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Unbelievably, the term is almost over. Two more weeks to go. This is the time of the school year when I become incredibly self-critical.

All the things I could’ve done! All the lessons I should’ve changed! All the feedback I wish I’d given! All the ideas I never tried!

I am heavy with regrets. Every May, every end of the term, I am heavy with self-recriminations. Not enough time. Not enough quality. Not enough… perfection?

In a lot of ways, approaching the end of the term is like approaching the end of a writing project. Lots of couldas, wouldas, shouldas. Lots of second guessing. Lots of self-loathing.

The project we envision at the start is never what actually ends up on the page. This disconnect between head-book and actual book is disappointing. We beat ourselves up about it. I know I do.

My teaching is often the same. I have such grand plans, but when the end of the term rolls around, it feels like I just survived a post-apocalyptic road race.

And then I wonder, “Am I the only one who feels this way?” Maybe I’m just shitty at my job (possible).

It’s the same for my writing. I approach the end of a story or novel and think, “I feel like a failure. Is this normal?” (And not just the end; often in the middle, when I read over what I’ve written, it can feel like swimming through tar and slowly sinking.)

I think it’s normal. I think there will always be a disconnect between the work we have in our head and the work that ends up on the page. I think the key is to keep going even when our self-critical brain tells us we stink. I think these moments of self-loathing are “product-focused” thinking and not “process-focused” thinking.

Yes, the finished product isn’t exactly what I envisioned. It isn’t a perfect story. It isn’t “great.”

But what about the process? Was the process fun? Did I enjoy it? Did I get deep into the creating and find flow with my work? Did I surprise myself? Did I discover something new? Did I experiment? Did I do the best I could?

These are the questions that matter, and when approaching the end of either a story or a term of teaching, it’s important to look back on the entire process, not just the end point or where you think you should be.

The day-to-day act of teaching this Creative Writing class was a good experience. I learned a lot. What to do next time. What not to do next time. I learned more about myself as a writer and about what it means to teach others to write. I learned that often the best lessons or ideas are ones that come to me in the spur of the moment right before class. Sometimes the best lessons happen because a student asked a great question. I learned that learning never stops, and whatever fruit came from this term, it will continue to grow even after the last bell rings.

Because it’s all process. As long as we continue to write creatively, as long as we continue to be artists, there is no “end point.” There is only the process. This is one of the great things about teaching: it’s cyclical. We have terms, we have holidays, we start new school years, we start new classes with new students. There is a constant process of renewal and new beginnings. Whatever this semester was, the next one will be another season to try new things, refine the old, and enjoy the process along the way.

What Does One Do with One’s Comics?

May 6, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I used to buy a lot of comic books. So many, in fact, that I often didn’t get around to reading them each month, and then more books would come the next month, and I would fall further behind. But I continued to buy them, and store them in those plastic bags with cardboard backing to keep them straight, and I swore I’d read them some day.

Then, when that some day came, I didn’t read them. I decided to sell them back to a store and make some money and free up copious amounts of bookshelf space.

But I still really love comics. I’d love to buy them again. I just don’t know what to do with them once I’ve read them? Keep them? Sell them back? Give them away?

Comics (the floppy magazine comics, not the trade paperbacks) are in this weird space between disposable and keepable (yeah, I know that’s not a word).

This is all to say that I took my daughter to Free Comic Book Day 2024 and we brought home a haul of comics, and now I’m itching to start subscribing to a few books, but what do I do with them once I start buying them? I don’t want to have boxes and boxes of comics again. Do I read and purge right away? But then what if I want to reread the comics? I might (I tell myself). And comics aren’t cheap. So I’m spending four or five bucks per month (or more) on something I’m just gonna get rid of?

This is why I’ve started reading comics on the Hoopla app from the library. One, they are free. Two, I don’t have to worry about them taking up space.

But still, as a person who loves physical media, there’s something wonderful about holding a floppy comic book in my hands. Going to Free Comic Book Day reminded me of that feeling.

Maybe I start small. Start with one or two subscriptions. See how it goes. And if the issues start piling up and space gets limited, then off-load them. Sell them or put them in my classroom or something.

Now which series to start with… The new TMNT looks pretty good…

(Free Comic Book Day did it’s job, I guess. It got a new customer.)

Creative Writing: Week ???

May 5, 2024 / / 0 Comments

“Take art seriously without going about it in a serious way.”

Rick Rubin, The Creative Act, p. 354

I’ve lost track of which week it is in the term. End of April and all of May are such a whirlwind when teaching high school. I feel like All the Things are happening. I can’t keep up.

Anyway, in one of my recent weeks of teaching Creative Writing, we spent a week dedicated to playing games and thinking about how making art is/can be/should be playful.

To help them along the way, we played a storytelling RPG where I and another student were the game masters, and the rest of the class were our players. I played with two different groups on two different days, and one of the groups was a real struggle to engage with.

There were some in the group who just could not take it seriously, and therefore they could not be playful.

I don’t mean they were being silly and I wanted them to be serious. My aim was quite the opposite, in fact. I wanted shenanigans. I wanted laughter and high jinks.

The first group I played with was generally able to do this. They committed to their ridiculous characters (the world we were playing in was a bit of a spoof of the Twilight series), and we all laughed a lot and had a fun time. They approached the game on its own terms and took it seriously, while at the same time, being playful.

But for the students in the second group who wouldn’t take the game seriously, there was neither laughter nor pathos nor anything in between. Only grim faces and boredom.

Now, maybe my GMing skills were subpar and that ruined things. Maybe I should have done a better job of crafting the world and the challenges. But I don’t think that was the case. The likelier culprit was that for some of the students in the group, the game was beneath them. They were embarrassed by the whole notion of playing an RPG. Of pretending to be a character. Of romping around in a fantasy world.

And that’s fine. Not everyone digs that kind of fun.

But I think their overall attitude to the game illustrates Rubin’s point quoted above: Games, like art, should be taken seriously without going about it in a serious way. The first group, who DID meet the game on its own terms, ended up having a blast. They weren’t playing in an overly-serious, solemn way. They were light. They were silly. But they accepted the game on its own terms and committed to what the game was trying to do.

The second group could not do that. They didn’t see the value in the game, nor could they approach it with any sort of commitment. And thus, they couldn’t have fun.

Or maybe they thought they HAD to approach the game in a serious way, and therefore they were blocked from having fun. Because they thought they had to be serious, they disengaged entirely.

Either way, their experience illustrates Rubin’s point. We have to take what we’re doing seriously, whether it’s playing an RPG or writing a story or illustrating a comic or directing a film or whatever. We have to believe that the thing we’re making is worth making. That our commitment to the project is worth our time and effort. That we’re doing something worthwhile.

Because this is the paradox: If we don’t have that commitment, that seriousness about the enterprise, then we can’t be playful about the making of it either.

In order to do good work, we have to go about it without seriousness. We can’t make the work “important” because then we’ll freeze or play it too safe. So in order to be light and playful, we must believe in the seriousness of what we’re doing. But in order to not get bogged down, we can’t approach our work with a grim-faced sense that we’re taking our medicine or doing what we’ve been told. We have to be playful.

For my grim-faced, bored students playing the RPG, they were being told to play. And they couldn’t be bothered to. Playing an imaginative role-playing game was beneath them, I guess. So they slogged through it and never got to experience the lightness and playfulness of taking something seriously without going about it in a serious way.

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