Inkhaven Is A Gym For The Pen
Inkhaven has announced it will run again in April (you can apply here!). This is fantastic news for people who want to get better at writing in general, and short-form writing in particular. My previous post covered the most important things I learned there. Here’s a few other things that it helped me with.
Brain Gains
Writing is a muscle that can be strengthened through use. Almost everything is like this and everyone knows it, but we’re spoiled monkeys and we don’t do it unless forced to. InkHaven forced me to. I was gonna put in the reps every damn day or I was getting kicked out. And by golly, I literally got to watch that writing muscle grow stronger over the weeks!
When I came in to InkHaven if I was going to write a blog post that was going to take up my creative energy for the day. Maybe I could do accounting or renovation work, but nothing that takes serious word-brain. And to be honest, it would take a lot of my free energy regardless.
But I had to miss four days of InkHaven in the middle (for reasons!), so at least four times before that I had to write two posts per day, to store up for my days away. This wasn’t possible at first. But by the second week I could actually do it. My writing speed went up, and my stamina to wrench words out of my brain and put them on the screen for hours at a time also went up. The days that I had to write two posts in one day were crushing, but they were possible at all, which was a major improvement.
The amount of relief this brings, and it’s sibling Joy, is almost embarrassing. When I write, which already isn’t often enough (see next section), I’d have to choose between fiction or blog. Fiction is emotionally un-rewarding. Blog posts get seen immediately, and sometimes get engagement! Also some people pay me monthly for blog posts (thank you!). So if I can only do one, I choose the blog. Once my writing muscle got strong enough I was able to write TWO blog posts in one day. IRL this won’t mean two posts in a day, it’ll mean a post in the morning, and working on fiction in the afternoon! :) This is a huge upgrade. A whole new branch of tech tree can be pursued now! I am massively thankful to InkHaven for this.
Limits Are A Thing
InkHaven demanded 30 posts in 30 days. My fastest post took ~2.5 hours, I already knew exactly what it would cover without new discovery, and it didn’t demand a lot of labor to turn into words. My most difficult post took 15 hours. Even my average posts, which were ~4-5 hours of work, took intense focus and effort to produce and left me drained. I can only do this for so long. By the final week of the program I was running on fumes. I think my post quality suffered. My mental health certainly did. I appreciate endurance trials, and I’m proud to have made it through this one. I cannot do that every month.
I also put the rest of my life on hold for InkHaven. I was not otherwise working. I stepped away from my podcasts. I didn’t do chores and I worked out drastically less. I saw less of my loved ones. This was balanced out by the insanely rich social opportunities of InkHaven (see previous post), but it isn’t sustainable. I do think two posts a week is a solid goal now that real life has returned. It’s perhaps disappointing to learn I’m slow enough of a writer that my output will never match my idols. Perhaps my compartive advantage isn’t in word-making? But it’s good to know my limits and work within realistic boundaries.
Upgrading The Gym?
Various other Inkhaveners have posted thoughts on what could improve future Inkhavens, most of which I agree with. Having more structure, earlier deadlines, and a staggered draft-due, publish-due on different days would all be great. But if I could make just one change, it wouldn’t be any of those. The change that would make the biggest difference is turning the gaze of Inkhaven upon itself. Because if there is one thing that was missing from InkHaven, it was a narrative arc.
The first two weeks of serious writing and getting a feel for our abilities was very valuable. All the initial quest-giving and adventuring were there. But the further into the month we went, the less additional information each day of doing that gave us. The story needs to evolve over the month, and it did not. Continuing to grind posts for the whole month without refocus left the project feeling anti-climactic at the end. There was no arc, no resolution.
Starting in the third week we would have benefited from a change of format that altered what was required of us, to stretch us in new ways and bring a feeling of advancement and discovery. Best of all would be if the final week introduced a major project or collaboration or challenge. A progression with distinct phases that resulted in the subject ending as an (at least slightly) changed person from who they were when they started. Some residents did this either intentionally or stumbled into it accidentally. I am one of the latter, and I got incredible value from this program. I’m naturally kinda lucky though, and also I was at a point in my life where that sorta thing was almost inevitable.
Again, it’s highly valuable even with no changes, and you can apply for the April cohort right now, at this link.
[edit: draft of this post was written before new Inkhaven was announced, fixed some wording to reflect this XD]
If You Missed it
To avoid spamming my readers I didn’t push most posts to email in November. There were some good ones (based on reader engagement and feedback) that I didn’t push so you might have missed them. Here are links!
The Superior Threesome - Find out which threesome is the better one!
My Short, Sweet, Sexy Side Gig - My stint as a kinda-sex-worker
Leap Anyway, part 1 and part 2 - On restarting my life, again
Hobo Forest -What to do with all the hobos??
Only The Young Will Survive - The harder it is to change, the more important it is to keep some things unchanged. This creates some conflicts.
Being The Target Demographic - How you can tell you’re getting old
Desire Without Apology - What we want is impossible, but we can dip into that world for little bursts if we’re brave enough to try
