Writing Life

Last year, it seemed right to set my writing goals on the first day of the Chinese New Year, Year of the Monkey. This year, it seems right to set my new writing goals for 2017 on the day that Year of the Monkey turns into Year of the Rooster.

Thank God we’re leaving the monkey year.

Last year I wrote, “this year has the potential to be filled with lots of activity, movement, big strides, being inventive, and making things happen.” Oh boy. It had that potential. It sure did. But for me, 2016 was also filled with depression, many moments of despair, and ongoing PTSD (Post- Trump Stress Disorder).

Because of that, it feels really good to start a new lunar year. No matter how badly a year goes, I always feel hopeful about starting a new year. Call it naivete, call it habit, call it what you will. In these strange times of massive upheaval, I will take any sliver of hope that I can get.

Before I launch into my goals for 2017, let’s look at how I did with my goals for 2016.

Goal #1: Write (outline, strategize, revise, edit) for 2-3 hours a day, five days a week.
I didn’t achieve this for a long time. I did try writing five days a week. But did I write for 2-3 hours a day? Not by a long shot. As I describe in this post, some days I could only gear myself up to write for 30 minutes. And that was fine. It was better than fine, it worked. It got me writing on a regular basis. After about six months, I had moved up to 90 minutes to two hours a day. It took a while, but I got there. In light of that, I consider this a win. {High five}

Goal #2: Write one blog post per week, 48 weeks of the year.
I wrote 41 posts last year, not 48, but I’m still counting this as a win. {Patting myself on the back}

Goal #3: Write and publish my adult suspense novel, SEVEN DUDES DOC AND THE SEVEN.
I didn’t achieve this, but I did finish the first draft. I thought it would take three months to write (ha!), but it ended up taking nine months (three times as long seems to be the right way to set any goal deadline). Still, I consider it a massive accomplishment to finish the first draft of a 50,000+ word novel. So, I’m counting this as a win too. {Fist pump}

Goal #4: Write and publish my prelaw book, THE PRELAW GURU GUIDE TO APPLYING TO LAW SCHOOL.
Nope. Didn’t do this. I had all intentions to do this after writing my suspense novel but once I immersed myself into the world of fiction, I didn’t want to leave it. Also, I closed my Prelaw Guru business in July. So, this goal is now nixed for now…and forever.

Goal #5: Write and publish my personal finance book for college students.
WOW. Did I really think I was going to write, edit, and publish THREE BOOKS in one year?! When I look back at this list of goals, it just seems insane. But at the time, it seemed like a great idea–just like the Year of the Monkey seemed to be full of promise and excitement. Like my prelaw guide, this book is now on the back burner. And I don’t know if it will ever come off the back burner.

All in all, 2016 was a mixed bag in terms of achieving my goals. I’m so glad I learned to write regularly 5 or more days a week, and I’m incredibly proud of myself for writing 41 blogs posts and the first draft of my first adult novel. I didn’t achieve my goal of writing and publishing three books, but I’m okay with that.

So, what’s up for 2017? What wild, reach-for-the-moon goals am I setting for the Year of the Rooster?

Well, I’m doing something different this year.

I’m not setting any goals.

That’s right. Your hearing isn’t faulty. I’m not setting any writing goals for 2017.

I know what I want to do. I want to keep working on my novel, and I want to make it the best novel that I can possibly make it. When it’s ready, I will publish it. I hope it’s in 2017, but I don’t know if it will be.

Right now, with all the crazy stuff that’s happening in the nation, it’s enough for me to get out of bed, write, coach other writers, love the good people in my life, resist and protest the s**t I disagree with, and keep going. That’s all. For once in my life, I don’t feel the need to set any goals around that.

So, with that, I leave you with the greeting that my family always gives each other on Chinese New Year: Gong Xi Fa Cai! No matter where you are, I wish you prosperity and good fortune in the new year!

Peg Cheng is the author of The Contenders, a middle-grade novel centered on the question, can enemies become friends? She is currently writing another novel that is a re-imagining of the Snow White fairy tale set in 1980s Seattle. Peg is also a writing coach giving help, encouragement, and feedback to writers from all walks of life.

Art by Natsuki Otani.

The year I achieved my dream of being a full-time writer was also the year when I felt the most lonely, fearful, and depressed.

But before we go there, let me tell you how this past year was great.

I love being creative. This past year, I got to be creative every day and write full time. I have never had that chance ever in my life. So 2016 was monumental simply because of that. But, this was also the year that I wrote my first adult novel, a suspense novel inspired by Snow White that’s been marinating in my psyche for the past eleven years.

This novel was my most complicated and challenging writing endeavor yet. It features three different points-of-view and nine key characters, and delves into domestic violence, PTSD, friendship, love, and the care of bonsai trees. Writing this story was hard, tiring, and emotionally draining. But I finished the first draft and I’m proud of myself.

But despite reaching my major goal for 2016, I was not happy. In fact, most days, I struggled with loneliness, fear, and depression.

For months, I thought it was because the material I was writing was dark and emotionally difficult. But as the months went on, I realized it was more than that. I realized that one of the big reasons 2016 was so personally difficult for me was because I was working against my nature.

You see, I don’t just love being creative, I also love being of service to people.

Being of service to people and helping them achieve their goals is something I’ve been doing for close to 20 years. It was through the course of this year that I realized I didn’t just help other people achieve their goals because I liked it, was good at it, and got paid for it; I also did it because it is something that is intrinsic to my nature. Being of service is part of my core being.

This led me to have an existential crisis last month.

I knew I couldn’t go on being a full-time writer at home, leading a creative yet solitary, lonely, and depressed daily existence.

At the same time, I had a difficult time imagining myself back at a job.

I have nothing against jobs (I’ve had 35 of them), it’s just that I know from experience that if I got a full-time job, I would be so dedicated to it that my writing would suffer terribly or even cease to exist. That’s just the way I am. And good part-time jobs that fit my skills and experience are hard to come by.

That day in December, I cried and cried. I’ve cried many times this year but this time, I also felt defeated. I told my husband Marcus about it that evening and he felt bad for me. I went to bed thinking I needed to give up my dream of being a writer so I could preserve my mental and emotional health by finding a job where I could be of service to others.

The next morning, I woke up and did my usual routine. And I meditated, as I usually do. That’s when it hit me.

What’s the one thing I most want to help people with, right now?

Writing.

I thought, I’ve already been helping people with their writing and with achieving their goals for nearly 20 years.

Why couldn’t I do that again?

But as a business, not as a job?

It was right there before me.

I wanted to be a Writing Coach.

After a lifetime of writing, and helping others write, I’ve realized that we all write better and stronger when we receive encouragement and constructive feedback.

That’s what I want to do–give people the help, encouragement, and feedback they need to write better and to keep writing.

In 2017, I’m going to be a writer and a Writing Coach.

The irony of this is I don’t think I would have discovered this path had I not gone through this pivotal year of being creative but also being lonely, fearful, and depressed. I needed to go through this year to see what it was really like to be a full-time writer with all its peaks, valleys, and plateaus.

Now that I’m here, I’m grateful for this year. I’m grateful I’ve reached this fork in the road and I don’t need to pick either path.

I can forge my own path.

I hope my story has given you some inspiration as you forge your own path in 2017 and beyond. Please know that if you need some help along the way, I’m here for you.

October 2017 UPDATE: I closed my writing coaching practice on October 31, 2017. Click here and here to read why.

Peg Cheng is the author of The Contenders, a middle-grade novel centered on the question, can enemies become friends? She is currently writing another novel that is a re-imagining of the Snow White fairy tale set in 1980s Seattle. Peg is also a writing coach giving help, encouragement, and feedback to writers from all walks of life.

Some people think I’m a writer because I have talent.

It’s nice of them to think that.

But talent is not makes me a writer.

The thing that makes me a writer is tenacity.

What is tenacity?

“The quality or fact of being able to grip something firmly; grip.”

When a story has a grip on me, it won’t let go. And I won’t let it go either.

The idea for SEVEN DUDES DOC AND THE SEVEN came to me in 2005. I thought about it and took notes on it for 11 years. Finally, in 2016, I started writing the first draft, and after nine months, I finished it.

When you look at it that way, it wasn’t the writing that was the hardest part (even though it was hard!); it was holding onto the story all those years, believing in it, and doing something about it that was the hardest part. That’s tenacity, not talent.

“The quality or fact of being very determined; determination.”

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a determined person. But what they don’t know is how easy it is for me to give up. Case in point: even though I worked hard on my middle-grade novel, THE CONTENDERS, and my four beta readers loved it; when it didn’t get picked up by one of the fifteen agents that I queried, I gave up on it. I felt defeated. I didn’t want to query any more agents. I put my manuscript on a shelf and let it gather dust for four years.

It was only when my husband Marcus convinced me to take another look at it, and consider publishing it myself, that my old determination kicked in again.

I learned from this experience that being determined doesn’t mean you never give up. Sometimes you need to quit. Sometimes you need a break. Sometimes walking away from a project can help you realize how important (or not important) something is to you. People with talent often think things should come easy to them. But being willing to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start again after many years? That’s not talent, that’s tenacity.

“The quality or fact of continuing to exist; persistence.”

Over the past thirteen years, I’ve written two screenplays, five picture books, three prelaw books, two novels, and a smattering of poems. I’m still a novice. I’m still learning my craft every day.

But I realized something important this year.

I’m a writer because I continue to write. No matter where my life takes me, and what thorny paths I’ll need to traverse in order to survive, I’ll know inside that I’m a writer. By continuing to write, even if it’s just for five minutes a day, I’m a writer. I may have started writing because I had some talent, but it’s tenacity that keeps me writing.

So, next time someone tells me that I’m a writer because I have talent, I’ll smile and say, “Thank you.”

But inside, I’ll know the truth.

Peg Cheng is the author of The Contenders, a middle-grade novel centered on the question, can enemies become friends? She is currently writing another novel that is a re-imagining of the Snow White fairy tale set in 1980s Seattle.

I love Sveta Dorosheva’s art. When I saw Sveta’s beautiful illustration of a girl diving into a lake with all the fishes and lotus flowers surrounding her, it made me think of a post I wrote almost exactly six months ago called, Jumping Off the Cliff. It made me realize that I’m in a very different place than I was before.

In that post, I declared that I was shutting down my prelaw consulting business in July and committing myself to writing full time for the next ten years.

Did that. Closed my business on July 1 and have committed myself to writing full time.

But why ten years? Is it an arbitrary number?

Sort of. It sounds good and I love round numbers.

But here’s the thing. I think it will take that long. In fact, I think ten years is a conservative estimate no matter how much my ego wants to believe otherwise.

Ten years from now, I want to have learned a great deal about the craft of storytelling. I’ll always be learning, but my hope is that after ten years, I will be in a place where I feel that I’ve absorbed the key principles of great storytelling and will have used them on a daily basis like a habit.

I will publish during those ten years–I don’t believe in hoarding my stories until they’re “perfect”–but even though I’ve been writing part-time for the past 13 years, I believe it will take another ten years (give or take a year or two) to become the kind of writer I want to be.

I don’t think it’s unrealistic to say that it will take me 23 years to reach the level of skill and expertise that I want to reach. Even though I’m more of a sprinter, I know–have always known, though I’ve resisted it–that writing is a marathon. To succeed, I need to be in it for the long game.

I also wrote in my Jumping Off the Cliff post the following.

I realized that the last 13 years have been all about planning my next career move, saving up money to support myself, developing my skills, talking to people (and reading their blogs) who have made the dive into full-time writing, and then talking myself into actually making the dive.

I’m glad I wrote that so that I can return to it every once in a while and remember those 13 years were long but they had a purpose.

Will the next ten years be just as long? I don’t know. But I do know that I’ve finally reached a point where I feel good about where I am–where I’m not beating myself up about not having saved more money or wishing I had started writing earlier, etc. Somehow, at age 44, and after working at 35 jobs, I’m okay with where I am. This is no small feat. This is huge for someone as perfectionistic and critical as I am.

Maybe it was going to Iceland last month and having my body clock and world view shaken up in a good way?

Maybe it was returning to Seattle and feeling so grateful to be back?

Maybe it was becoming a morning person after decades of being a night owl and major sleeper?

Maybe it’s a combination of all three and then some?

I don’t know the exact thing that turned, that clicked over, that flipped the switch for me, but I do know that it happened.

Six months ago, I didn’t know what would happen when I jumped off the cliff. I dove in and the cold of the water was a shock, but now it feels normal. What also feels normal is accepting that I vacillate between believing I’m a good writer, thinking I just can’t do it, and everything in between. I realize now it’s all part of the growing pains of being a writer, and of being a creator. It might not ever go away, but I’m okay with it.

I’m going to dive into writing for the next ten years.

It’s not the easy path. It scares me. But it’s so beautiful down here, I can’t imagine doing anything else.

Peg Cheng is the author of The Contenders, a middle-grade novel centered on the question, can enemies become friends? She is currently writing another novel that is a re-imagining of the Snow White fairy tale set in 1980s Seattle.

Art by Sveta Dorosheva.