Creative Project Post Mortem

Creative EmpowermentPersonal DiscoveryWorking with Oracle and Tarot Cards

Jul 19

In June, I decided to 30-Day Challenge through Mr. Lionharts (aka @lionharts on IG). Now that the thirty days are over, I thought it would be interesting and appropriate to do a post mortem on how it went. I’m a huge fan of “behind-the-scenes” write-ups, commentary, or explanations from creators. I feel like it allows me additional insight into their creative practices and thought processes. So that’s what I’ll attempt to do here.

The “Why”

When this challenge was posted, it felt like divine timing. I’d been considering running my Tarot + Fiction Workshop again but I’d also felt a little creatively dry and thought this might be just the thing to get the wheels spinning again (Spoiler alert: I was right!). Also, it was just something different from the same old “pick a daily card and reflect on it” that I’d been going with. This felt new and exciting. I also wanted to try something out of my comfort zone and a little vulnerable. These were the perfect conditions to do so.
Additionally, I’ve read so many wonderful close, third-person books in the last year. I’ve always felt my weakness was in writing third-person, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to attempt close third-person. And close third-person in present tense at that (more on that later).

The Self-Imposed Guidelines

It was important that I set some self-imposed guidelines for myself, otherwise, I’d have probably chickened out on doing the entire thing. So these are the guidelines I set forth:

I was to pull a card and write at least a chapter daily with little to no editing or revising. The purpose of this challenge was not perfection rather it was getting words down on the page. I knew that the writing would be raw and probably pretty ugly, but again, that wasn’t the point.
I heard a piece of advice once, “To write freely, you must remove all constraints, real or imagined. You must believe that whatever is coming forth is the next right thing to be there at this time.” In order to make it to the end of the challenge, this would need to be my approach. Letting everything else about the challenge disappear except for the card and the words.
Explain a bit about the card, the chapter, and my thoughts as I wrote it. This was important not only for myself to reread and consider — but I wanted to show other participants and writers that not everyone’s process looks or feels the same and that’s more than okay. I wanted my readers to see the struggle because without that — we look at the end result like we do with someone’s social media posts. Only the highlights. Only the good stuff. But the reality is much different. I wanted to show the struggle, but I also wanted to show the chapters that were effortless to write. I tried to explain why it felt that way to me.

So… how did it go?

Such a loaded question! If I were to base my answer on the goal and results, I’d say it went swimmingly. I achieved pulling thirty cards and writing thirty chapters. Hooray! But as we all know, there’s so much more to it than the goal and the result. Much like any creative or personal project, I started off excited and exuberant about the challenge. I had enough courage and bravado to think I could pull it off but was scared just enough to not be overconfident in the actual writing material. Toward the middle of the challenge, that excitement and exuberance gave way to doubt, insecurity, and a tinge of resentment toward myself. Here’s an actual excerpt from my journal (terrible penmanship and all the feels attached):

Look, I’m not immune from imposter syndrome, self-doubt, fraud-y feelings, and just plain ole feeling like shit about myself.

The reason why I show you this is because of what happened after I wrote it. I didn’t stop the challenge. I didn’t self-sabotage and let the self-doubt win. I kept going.

Because inevitably, there were days where I felt like this:

These entries are also examples as to why I wanted to write about the experience in-the-moment for readers — because it’s NOT going to be sunshine and roses, fun, and movie scenes in the head all the time.

However, it’s because of those days when things go well, where we feel rooted into exactly where we should be that we keep going on the days we feel like shit about ourselves and our writing.

So overall, this question of “how did it go?” is a bit nuanced and it has several answers. It went well! It sucked for some of it! I wrote 30 chapters! I sucked at a majority of them! But I think this next section is probably the part that matters most…

What did I take away from the challenge?

I fell in love with decks that I previously have neglected! There were even some decks I thought wouldn’t be a good choice for inspiration for this challenge and they turned out to be some of the best material to work with.
I learned how to loosen up a bit and have FUN! Yes, there were some really challenging days, but overall — this was such a fun project. Especially once I was able to get over myself and open to the idea that this story didn’t really have to go anywhere or be anything outside of what it was. Acceptance and surrender, my friends. It was the key to a mostly enjoyable experience.
I proved myself wrong. I thought I would quit halfway through to be honest. Not out of a lack of interest or hating what I was writing or even the self-shaming. I honestly thought I would fail because of my hectic and crazy schedule. But you know what? I didn’t! I found or made the time to do it at least once every day. This also has ramifications beyond this challenge — this tells me that I can’t really use the excuse of “I don’t have time” to work on any more of my creative projects. Clearly, I can find or make the time… it’s about what I’m willing to do to get it.
I found that I really enjoyed the process of writing out my thoughts about my process/and writing the chapter after it was done. I think this could be a potentially game-changing habit to get into when I write other books. Most importantly, it gives me context as to my state of mind and what I intended to do in the chapter. Because when we know what we intended to do, it’s so much easier to go back and edit/revise it to fall more in line with that intention. No one gets it right the first time out anyway.
I very clearly love cliches, metaphors and smilies! Holy Ham Sandwich did I overuse them in these chapters. I mean, it’s okay, because it’s a first draft and all, but I didn’t realize just how much of a crutch they were until reading back everything I’d written. I now have a post-it note on my computer that says: “WATCH OUT FOR THE CLICHE AND METAPHOR MONSTERS.” Enough said.
Close third-person in present tense is hard as fuck. There, I said it. Wow. I give kudos to writers who have mastered this part of the craft because, damn. It was hard. But it showed me that this old dog still has plenty of tricks to learn!

Conclusion

Overall, I think this was such a fun and enjoyable experience that offered me so much insight into my creativity and writing. I don’t know where the story will go from here or even if it will go anywhere. But it sure was an exciting ride to be on.

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