I’ve said this before and it will probably come up again, but the non-fiction is so much easier to write. It should. I’ve been immersed in this field for nine years both professionally and as a blogger, and I have pages of research already sorted into an outline.
Plus, the non-fiction book is separated into much smaller sections, based on sub-headings within my chapters. So, I’m not dealing with a 10,000-word behemoth of a scene (that one was a total mess) or even a 2,000-word one. Today, I only got about 600 new words down, but that was enough to complete a section and there’s a nice sense of accomplishment that goes with that!
It feels good on non-fiction days for the words to simply flow onto the page. On those days, writing feels easy and motivational, whereas when I was writing only fiction, there were days on end where I felt like I was spiraling into a hole and nothing was working.
Switching is also motivating. I know on my fiction days that I won’t be able to get back to my story for two days, so it helps push me to try to get more done – more specifically, to overcome that initial moment of resistance before I get started or when I come up against something hard.
Of course, I’m still at the beginning of both projects, but I am grateful to be able to have this approach.