Healing Burnout with #1000WordsofSummer

Why I'm Writing an Unsellable Book

On June 1st, I woke up with one goal: write a novel that’s impossible to sell.

June 1st marked the first day of

CRAFT TALK

’s #1000WordsOfSummer. If you’re new to this challenge, you can read more about

Jami Attenberg

’s community here. Here’s the premise: for 14 days in June, the goal is to write 1,000 words every day. Over the years, this challenge has helped me finish the query draft of Good People and several drafts of You Will Survive This. I highly recommend checking out this challenge if you’re looking for motivation to make progress on your book!

The first draft of You Will Survive This, formerly titled Cheonjimun, on the last day of #1000WordsOfSummer in 2021.

This year, I was on the fence about whether or not to participate because last year was the worst year of my (writing) life. My second book died on sub, and I didn’t have it in me—the interest, the motivation, the magic of discipline—to write another book. When I shelved You Will Survive This, I lost everything: the confidence that took a decade of conscious effort to build, my purpose in life, a reason to get out of bed. Above all else, I lost my love for writing.

A common question people ask me is: “How do you write while working full-time?” I always answer this question with concrete, practical advice. Set SMART goals. Create a consistent, independent writing habit. Keep your eyes on your own paper—avoid comparing your writing habits or progress to others; everyone is living under wildly different circumstances. While I do practice all of these things in my own life, this answer is not the most truthful.

I could easily write while working full-time¹ simply because I loved the act of writing. There was nothing I loved more than sitting at a computer with a blinking cursor and putting words on a page. I never had to “make time” for writing or worry about “having energy” to write because the act of writing was the love of my life. Even after teaching a 12-hour shift at a hagwon, it was a pleasure to come home at 11 PM and write one page. I loved writing. Until I pursued publication.

After my second book died on sub, it physically pained me to write because publication felt impossible, and writing anything at all felt pointless if publication was impossible. But two months ago, my attitude toward writing began to shift. I caught up with a former classmate over a video call. We had both studied creative writing in the same undergraduate program. We both went on to get MFAs and Fulbrights for our books, and we were both so presently angry at the horrible day jobs we had recently rage quit. Calling in from different sides of the world, we sat together, communed in the disparate misery of our hopes for life and the harshness of our realities. Our burnout was the kind that scorched the soul, turned aspiration and ambition to ash. 

We spoke of our grief, the loss of love, of our sense of selves, of our purposes in life. I shared my worries about writing marketable stories. You Will Survive This follows the story of Izzy Hayes, a folklore anthropologist in Seoul who must find a mythical weapon to kill an immortal man before his step-daughter takes his immortality for herself. Survive had concrete plot, a high concept, and an age-appropriate protagonist for the adult market. It had all the things that Good People originally lacked. Survive made up for all the reasons why my first book died on sub, and my agent and I even had six solicitations from editors at major publishers. Above all else, from story structure and scene craft down to the line-to-line writing, You Will Survive This was easily the best thing I had ever written. In the end, none of this mattered; the book still died on sub.

With my friend, I shared the quiet suspicion that I had always had about this book. “I don’t think there’s a market for books about Black people in Korea.” The next book I had outlined was a crypto heist novel also about a Black woman in Seoul. “I don’t know how I can write another book that won’t sell.”

My friend shared her own experience and the experiences of classmates in her MFA cohort. It was a healing conversation that made me feel seen, feel less alone in the depths of my disappointment with life. Our conversation also kickstarted a new line of thought. In my writing life, the source of burnout isn’t the publication process or the marketability of books; it’s my relationship with the act of writing. Lately, I’ve been asking myself: what if I intentionally wrote the most unsellable book? What if I save the heist novel for later and write something that was completely impossible to sell? If I wrote something that was inherently unsellable, I would have to write for the sake of writing again. Maybe the only way I could rehabilitate my relationship with the act of writing was to write without any professional stakes.

I recently rewatched Kiki’s Delivery Service. Just like Kiki, I’ve lost my magic, and I’m using this notebook for this project as a way to get it back.

Now, that’s exactly what I’m doing for #1000WordsOfSummer. I’m writing a Dungeons & Dragons-inspired fantasy novel that would be 100% impossible to sell for many reasons, but mostly because I’m not well-read in the fantasy genre at all, so my attempt will definitely be trite. It’s been a week since I started this project, and I am having so much fun writing badly and unmarketably on purpose. The prose is so purple, the plot so over-the-top. As I’m writing my 1,000 words each day, I think to myself, “Damn, Kat is really jumping the shark with this one,” and it’s great!

I’m even using dice rolls to determine beats in each scene. As my characters try to get what they want through dialogue, action, or violence, in true DnD fashion, they must pass charisma, strength, and dexterity checks. In each scene, I know what they want, who is standing in their way, and what happens if they fail, but I leave their success up to the RNG gods as I roll a dice to determine their fate. This book project is embracing the outrageous random silliness that is DnD, and it’s been such a healing journey for my writing life.

I’m thinking about making a writing exercise that uses dice rolls to determine what happens next in a story. If this exercise is something you’d be interested in, let me know in the comments:

What are some things that help you heal from burnout? Are you also doing #1000WordsOfSummer? What are you working on? Let’s talk about our projects and trade tips in the comments!

See you next week,

Kat

1. I do want to acknowledge some privilege here. I live alone, and after work, I have no obligations or responsibilities to anyone outside of myself. These two things play a huge factor in my ability to write while working full-time.