There is nothing like a “big event” to mess with your routines. It doesn’t have to be something bad that happened. It could be something great – like starting grad school! Let me tell you, I never expected to have so much work to do in the first week of class!

You may remember I am studying to get my Master of Arts in Creative Writing degree. Very exciting! But the new life I have as a full-time student (insert long story here that began with “I’d like to study part-time, please” and ended with “Uh, yeah, sure, I guess I could go full-time for the first semester.”) has done away with all my old routines and now I am developing new ones.

The painful part is that I am behind in both my work – including the Routines for Writers blog – and in all three of my classes. Eek! But that only means that I need to find new routines that allow me to get all my work done to the best of my ability and still get other important things done as well. I’ll let you know how it goes! LOL!

Meanwhile, do you want to know about some of the cool things I’m learning as they come up? Do you want me to post some of it here when it seems relevant to you? I don’t want to bore you, but you know me – I love to share new things!

Hope you all have a great week! I’ll talk to you later!

Love and Hugs!  Kitty   

I am so excited to introduce our last Author Crush of 2010. Years ago when I was working as a technical writer/editor for an educational company I had a hard time reading books for pleasure. I couldn’t turn off my analytical brain and just enjoy the story. Then I picked up Liz Curtis Higg’s Thorn in My Heart. I started off with my usual nonstop mental analysis, then somewhere along the way I fell into the story. I was in 1788 Scotland and my heart was breaking.

Now, Liz is my GGR. My Guaranteed Good Read.

Every summer my family goes to a quiet little lake in British Columbia for our vacation and whatever reading material I take with me is all that I have. So it better be good, right? Yes, the GGR. The tough part for me is that Liz’s books tend to come out in the spring. I usually buy early so I don’t risk the store not having any before my vacation. But that means not allowing myself to even peek at the first page. Straight to my suitcase so I’m not tempted. Thank you Liz for being my GGR.

Here Burns My Candle, based on the Old Testament story of Naomi and Ruth is out March 16th.

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Here is what Liz had to say when I asked about her writing routines.

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Even the word “routine” makes me twitchy, but after 27 books, I’ve developed a few methods that help me travel from first page to last—if not efficiently, at least eventually.

I’m a firm believer in having a workspace dedicated to writing, whether it’s a card table, a spare bedroom, or the little building we have behind our old farmhouse. Inside you’ll soon discover I have two desks. In my first-floor office I handle correspondence, chat with my publisher, create marketing pieces, update Facebook and Twitter—all that 21^st-century stuff. On the second floor is a room lined with bookshelves, where I do nothing but write. No food, no phone calls, no kidding.

Surrounded by the Scottish mementos that inspire me, I can quickly immerse myself in another time and place. A cup of Earl Grey tea, a fragrant candle, and some Celtic instrumental music help usher in the proper mood. I have a fairly detailed plot outline in hand, but my goal is to climb inside my characters’ hearts and let them tell their story. I’d rather observe and listen, writing down what they say and do, instead of forcing them to follow my lead.

Each book takes me about a year to write. I have a daily target word count, which is quite low at the start of the book—750-1,000 words a day—and grows with each chapter until I’m hitting 2,000-2,500 words a day. Exactly once in my writing career I hit 5,000 words between breakfast and bed. The next day I couldn’t rub two words together. So, I try not to get too obsessive about how much I get done, and instead focus on the quality of the writing itself.

Whether I’m writing nonfiction or fiction, I’m all about the research. Love-love-LOVE it. I have more than 850 books about Scotland, shelved by subject—architecture, birds, education, food, gardening, etc. And I have another 200 books and commentaries that help me understand the women of the Bible.

For my Scottish novels based on biblical characters, I research the Scriptures first, studying each passage in a dozen different translations, all the while letting the truth sink in and the story take root. Then I dive into the historical material, combing through my Scottish resources for relevant customs, traditions, and folklore that suit both the story and the setting. I’ve visited Scotland eleven times to date, tramping through the villages and over the hills and glens, snapping photos, asking questions, and taking copious notes. I’ve met the loveliest people since my first visit in 1996, and hear the cadence of their speech in the voices of my characters.

Anytime I think writing is hard work, I remind myself of the years I spent waiting on tables, cleaning houses, selling wigs, or changing diapers, and suddenly a day parked in front of a computer sounds like a cake walk. With tea, please.

***

Want to see a virtual tour of Liz’s writing study? Especially all those books? Yeah, me too. Here it is (warning, you’ll want a room like this for yourself):

http://www.lizcurtishiggs.com/scrapbook/study.htm

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In her best-selling series of Bad Girls of the Bible books, workbooks, and videos, Liz Curtis Higgs breathes new life into ancient tales about the most infamous—and intriguing—women in scriptural history, from Jezebel to Mary Magdalene. Biblically sound and cutting-edge fresh, these popular titles have helped more than one million women around the world experience God’s grace anew. Her best-selling historical novels, which transport the stories of Rebecca, Leah, Rachel, and Dinah to eighteenth-century Scotland, have also helped her readers view these familiar characters in a new light. And her nonfiction book, Embrace Grace, winner of a 2007 Retailers Choice Award, presents her message of hope in an engaging and personal way, speaking directly to the hearts of her readers.

Liz is the author of twenty-six books, with more than three million copies in print.

http://www.LizCurtisHiggs.com

Lois Lowry is one of those rare authors who writes very well on a variety of interesting and unique subjects, from true events such as the evacuation of Jews from Nazi-held Denmark to the imaginary utopian world of the Giver, to the absolutely-true stories of Gooney Bird Greene (which my daughter just loves).

Best of all, for us writers, is her book of memories called Looking Back. Lots of pictures, lots of thoughts about those pictures, and mixed in between are glimpses into the mind of a writer.

It is about moments, memories, fragments, falsehoods, and fantasies. It is about things that happened, which caused other things to happen, so that eventually stories emerged.

And after reading her blog below, my author crush just got bigger.

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My kids—all middle-aged adults now!—remember that when they were teenagers, I carved out a little spot, a corner of the room that we had thought of as their lawyer father’s den. There was a wall of bookcases in that room, and their dad’s very large desk. Then—to everyone’s surprise—I bought a second-hand table, quite small, which fit into the corner. I set on it the portable electric typewriter that my father had given me for my 35^th birthday (to replace the manual typewriter he had given me for my 13th) and declared the space mine.

Many years later my older daughter told me that she, a budding feminist of 15 at the time, thought my carved-out corner was both poignant and pathetic.

I suppose it was, in a way. But it was so important to me. It was the first space I had ever claimed as my own. I had married at 19, was a mother at 20—and a mother of four by 25. Like all wives and mothers, I had put my own professional dreams on hold, had seen my husband through law school, had changed diapers and packed lunches and done laundry and made dinners and read bedtime stories (and had even gone back to finish college). Then, one day, I plugged in that typewriter, hung my sweater on the back of that uncomfortable wooden chair, and announced: “This is mine.”

That was thirty-eight years ago. The kids are grown, the husband is an ex, and I have lived in seven different apartments, condos and houses since then. In each of them I have set a typewriter—later a computer—on a desk and declared that space sacrosanct.

I am looking at that space as I write this. This desk—probably my terminal desk!—is very large. And cluttered! Spread out in front of me are the computer, the scanner, the printer, the phone. The tax files (business travel, cell phone, postage, secretarial, etc.) upright in their holder (making me feel efficient even if I am not). The coffee mugs filled with pens and markers and scissors: one mug is from a public elementary school, one from a private boys’ school, one from the New Hampshire Writing Project; and one from the USAF Fighter Weapons School has a golden picture of a sleek jet on it—and my son’s name, the son I lost in just such a plane.

I see on my desk an advanced readers’ copy of my yet-to-be released book The Birthday Ball, and the stack of research from Like the Willow Tree, set in rural Maine in 1919 and due to be published next year as part of the Dear America series; and some sample illustrations from a Gooney Bird in the works. A stack of letters from kids. There’s a glass jar of Atomic Fireballs given to me by my friend, writer Susan Goodman.

There are framed photographs of friends. Ashley Bryan (and there’s a not-yet-answered letter from Ashley on my desk, too); Trina Schart Hyman, with whom I was going to do a book, and then cancer swooped in and snatched her (but I’ve written her in as a character in a new, not-yet-published book called Bless This Mouse); Carol Otis Hurst, story-teller extraordinaire, also gone too soon, and her funny e-mails are still in my computer; and Annelise Platt, whose Danish childhood formed the basis for Number the Stars.

On a shelf nearby, part of a crammed-full floor-to-ceiling bookcase, are volumes of poetry. I begin my days by reading the poets I most love: Mary Oliver, Billy Collins, Ted Kooser, Jane Kenyon, others. I am not a poet myself. But reading their work reminds me of how language is best used: with cadence, nuance, mystery, and metaphor.

Not much of what I’ve described falls into the category of “writing tools.” But all of it does, really: the memories, the connections, the thousands and thousands of words that affect me, that I savor and wonder at and think about each day.

And I have a comfortable chair, now. It swivels and tilts and twirls. So different from the stiff ladderback that I placed in front of the little table in the corner once!  But it wasn’t the chair, or the corner, that mattered then, or that matters now, really. It’s the feeling of the space, and the sanctity of what can happen here.

Lois Lowry

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Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, author Lois Lowry has lived all over the world. She attended elementary school Pennsylvania, junior high school in Japan, high school in New York, and college in Rhode Island and Maine. Currently she divides her time between her residence in Cambridge, Massachusetts and an 18th-century farmhouse in rural Maine.

Twice the recipient of the Newbery Medal, given each year for the most distinguished contribution to children’s literature by an American author, Lowry has also received countless other honors for her work.

Her 35 books have been translated into over twenty languages, and in 1996 her novel The Giver, called in translation Le Passeur, was chosen by the children of Belgium and France as their favorite.

In addition, several books have been adapted for film and stage.

She is a mother and grandmother and has worked as a photojournalist as well as a writer of fiction.

Today’s author crush is special partly because she is someone I have already stalked met. Last spring Karen Cushman spoke at the Tucson Festival of Books and I was thrilled to get my picture taken with her. If you haven’t read her Newbery Award winning historical books, you need to try them out. These are historicals with a lot of oomph to them. For example, here is the opening to Karen’s first book, Catherine, Called Birdy:

12^th day of September. I am commanded to write an account of my days: I am bit by fleas and plagued by family. That is all there is to say.

Her characters really do live large,  jump off the page, and steal your heart. I’ve enjoyed every one of her books and am looking forward to reading Alchemy and Meggy Swann when it hits stores in April.

Here is what Karen Cushman has to say about writing routines:

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My husband laughed when he heard I was to write about my writing routine.  After 40 years of watching me work at one thing or another, he knows me pretty well, and routine is one word he would never use about my process.  I do have what might be called procrastination routines:  I read the newspaper (in print.  I am loyal and old fashioned that way), emails, writing blogs, and Google News. I eat breakfast, shower, do a load of laundry, think about dinner.  I answer emails, play computer solitaire, and talk baby talk to my cat.  Finally I am impatient enough with myself to sit down and work.

I don’t outline or make 3×5 cards, or storyboards, but I do have a story pretty well developed in my head before I start to write it.  I hate facing the blank page and find writing the first draft by far the hardest part of the job, pulling words out of me like, Katherine Paterson says, a spider spinning a web out of her own guts .  Revision is much easier.  So with my work in progress, Will Sparrow’s Road, I tried something different.  I set up a vague outline of chapters, typed notes and ideas in each chapter, added a few sentences, a character description, an action, some dialogue, whatever occurred to me, until the book was laid out on the computer.  Then when I went back, writing that first draft was more like editing and revising, not writing.  Much easier.

As I write my first draft, I go back and polish those pages and chapters that came before.  Over and over.  This is how I start working each day–reading over and polishing what I have already written.  It gives me a running start on the day’s work–like an Olympic long jumper.   From a dead stop, she might leap a couple of inches.  But if she gets a running start, she’ll go 20 feet–easy.

It’s those early chapters that establish mood and voice and I like to know these as I write on.  Is the voice humorous and ironic, like Birdy?  Naive but wise like Alyce?  Sad and angry like Rodzina?  Complaining and confrontational as are Lucy and Matilda?

What little plot I have in my books grows from character.  I have to know as much as possible about my characters before I know what they’ll do or say.  Exercises don’t work.  I have to write them into situations, say “aha, that’s what she’d do or he’d say”, and then build on that.

If I get stuck or blocked when I’m writing a new scene or passage,  I go back to page 17 or 13 or 1, read what I’ve written, and get myself back into the story.  But I must say I am always aware of writing versus editing.  It’s important that I don’t write and edit at the same time.  I have to know which hat I have on.

I don’t write every day and I don’t always write in a chair.  I don’t have a set number of words or pages to do before I stop.  I don’t follow anyone’s rules, and I don’t have rules of my own.

Writing can be difficult and a struggle but sometimes the words flow, from my brain and my heart to the page and even I don’t know how.  And oh the joy when a book or a sentence or even a word is just right.  I have an overwhelming sense of well-being, what Lee Stringer says is like shaking hands with God.

I once despaired of my lack of routine to my editor, Dinah Stevenson, and she said, “Your process is your process.  Honor it.”  And it does work for me.  So I recommend you discover your own routine, even if it is lack of routine, and honor it.  There are no rules.

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To read more about Karen Cushman and her books:

Here is her website: http://www.karencushmanbooks.com/

Here is a sample of Alchemy and Meggy Swann due out in April:
http://www.karencushmanbooks.com/pdfs/Meggy_excerpt.pdf

Jeff Gerke is an author, but more that that, he’s a visionary. A man of faith who desires to write and publish what he calls Christian speculative fiction. Paranormal, spiritual warfare, science fiction, fantasy, alternate reality and other genres written from a solid Christian viewpoint. He’s written several of his own books, but he’s probably most well-known for his championing others’ efforts, first as an editor at various publishing houses and now as founder and editor with Marcher Lord Press. He launched Marcher Lord Press in October 2008, has published multiple books each October and April since, many of which “earn out” in months (earn back in sales the costs associated with publishing them). Because all those “out of the mainstream” genres are fascinating to me and I prefer reading stories that don’t attack or degrade my faith, I’ve had a “Editor Crush” on Jeff for years. (He’s a pretty good author, too.) Here he outlines his latest “out of the box” endeavor.

American Idol Meets Fiction Publishing
by Jeff Gerke

          When Marcher Lord Press had released its third successful list, I decided to try an acquisitions experiment.

          I had recently been approached by a man in Chicago who had an idea for a new way to do acquisitions. He called it American Idol meets fiction publishing. The idea was that “the people” would read samples from a group of candidate manuscripts and then vote–and the winner would be published. Like American Idol, the contest would go through multiple phases, narrowing down the list and showing more of the remaining mss. After thinking and praying and talking about this with peers, I decided to go for it.

          Marcher Lord Select launched on November 1, 2009 and concluded at midnight on New Year’s Eve.

          In talking with folks before we started the contest, I realized I needed to have two contests going on simultaneously. One would be the primary competition, the winner of which would be given a contract and become my next Marcher Lord Press novel. I was limiting that contest to mss. I had already read or one or more of my volunteer readers had already read. I needed to know that the pool of contestants would include only books I would be comfortable publishing.

          But that left out many novelists who had completed their mss. and submitted proposals to me, but which I had not yet gotten a chance to read. Those couldn’t go into the main contest, because I hadn’t vetted them yet, but they could certainly go into a secondary contest if the prize were simply to be put at the top of the list of mss. I would read for careful consideration.

          So I began sending out invitations to authors–most unpublished but a few published novelists. I originally thought I’d begin with 15 full mss. for the primary competition, but I quickly realized I had many more books and authors I’d like to see given this opportunity. We ended up with 36 full mss. in the first round of voting for Marcher Lord Select. Everyone knew that one of those 36 would be the next MLP novel.

          In the secondary competition, I began with 49 entrants. I announced that the 3 entries receiving the most votes at the end of the process would receive a full ms. request and priority acquisitions reading by me.

          On November 1, the fun began. In the primary contest I posted specs for each entry (title, genre, wordcount), a 20-word premise, a 100-word blurb or back cover copy, and a 1-page synopsis. Voters had to decide which 18 (of 36) to vote for, based only on those things. This was to emphasize the importance of pitch or marketing writing, even for novelists. If an agent or acquisitions editor doesn’t like your front matter, she many not go on to your sample chapters.

          In Phase 2, I posted (via secure download that did not violate the “published” status of the authors) the first 500 words of the remaining 18 entries. So now the voter got something like a bookstore experience: title, genre, back cover copy, and first few pages. Based on that, voters had to pick their top 6 favorites.

          Phase 3 began with a list of 8 semifinalists. Voters got to read the first 30 pages of those entries–and were allowed to vote for only 3.

          Phase 4 featured 3 finalists. Voters read the first 60 pages of these books and were allowed to vote for only 1.
          The winner of the primary contest was “The Sending,” by Matt Koceich. His book will be published via MLP October 2010.

          Over in the secondary contest, voters were working with less content. Phase 1 consisted of the 20-word premise only (plus title, genre, and wordcount). Phase 2 added the 100-word blurb. This knocked the field down to 20. Phase 3 added the 1-page synopsis and cut the list to 10. This was all front matter material: the sizzle. Phase 4 added the first 500 words of the finalist entries, allowing voters to see some of the steak.

          The top three winners of the secondary contest, who will receive prioritized acquisitions reading, are:

• Dreamwalker by Gerald Sims
• The Haunting of Cowhole Mountain by Michael Johnson
• I Am Ocilla by Diane M. Graham.

          I’d have to say Marcher Lord Select was a major success. I hosted the voting and discussions over at my forums site, The Anomaly. Before we began, we had like 200 registered members. By the final day of Phase 4 voting, we had more than 2,300. The contest has increased awareness of Marcher Lord Press and continued the core market penetration we’re after–and introduced us to secondary audiences (the people who registered just to vote for a friend in the contest), who may spread the word to ever expanding circles of potential buyers.

          Even before we launched the competition proper, and then along the way as needed, we instituted a number of measures to try to prevent the competition from being nothing but a popularity contest. I didn’t want the person with the most friends on Facebook or the greatest charisma to win. I wanted to put all entries on equal footing and have people vote based on the entries’ quality and attractiveness to the reader.

          The measure that seemed to work best was requiring that everyone vote for at least 3 entries (except in the final round) or their vote would be thrown out. That seemed to diffuse the impact of the very popular person, because two other authors would get the benefit of every voter’s presence.

          But I didn’t want to completely reject the popularity factor. American Idol is, in a sense, a popularity contest. It’s not necessarily the person with the most talent who wins. It’s the person who can gain the largest number of votes–whether through talent or cuteness or compelling story or whatever else. With Marcher Lord Select, I wanted the book that won to be popular–because if X number of people vote for a book that wins, that’s X people who are very likely to buy the book they helped get published.

          This has been an experiment. I would do some things differently if I were to do it again (and I might: next fall), but on the whole it met all my goals and was fun, to boot. And I know of at least 2 authors who “got voted off the island” but who have been approached by other publishers and may receive a contract out of it all. It’s also not a negative that Marcher Lord Press in general and me in particular are seen by many key people as the nexus for all things pertaining to the publishing of Christian speculative fiction.

          You can find out more about Jeff and his endeavors at Marcher Lord Press and Where the Map Ends.

When I write, I write for the little girl who used to curl up on the chesterfield (yes, I’m a Canadian girl) and completely disappear inside of a book. Today, that little girl in me is jumping up and down clapping her hands. Because today’s author crush is the author of one of my all-time favorite books, The Velvet Room. I can hardly let myself imagine writing a book that little girls will read one day, and then remember fondly some thirty years later. What a joy that would be. (See all the love here in the Amazon reviews for The Velvet Room . I’m not the only one who thinks this book is special.)  Thank you, Ms. Snyder for the Velvet Room. And thank you for joining us today to give us the behind-the-scenes tour of your writing routines.

My rules for writing?   If I had ever had any, they seem to have weakened a bit over the years.  For example, I have never had a strict writing schedule, such as a time to start and a rule about how much I had to have done, before I could allow myself to stop.  I don’t know why, except I knew that such a schedule would only make me feel guilty when I didn’t obey the rules. It sounds self indulgent to say I just write when I feel like it.  But that’s pretty much the truth of it. I like writing.

What I did develop over the years is something I called the Notebook Method.

1. Very often the first page of my Notebook would include a map or house plan–if the layout of a small town is important to the story, as in Cat Running, or the floor plan of a house, as in The Headless Cupid.  I have a strong visual sense and I need to know how things looked and where they were.

2. The second page in my notebook (which by the way used to be a loose leaf binder, but is now on my computer, of course) holds notes about the beginning “gotcha” idea that started me going.  That is, the idea that hit hard and begged to be explored.  The gotcha” has been, at various times:

A person, a character that either in their personality or life situation is unusual and intriguing (as was April in The Egypt Game).

Or a place, as was the boarded up stone mansion in the Velvet Room.

Or an event like the flushing of Sweetie Pie down the toilet in my latest book, Wiliiam S. and the Great Escape.

3.  Next for me is a character list page where I name all my important characters (as I discover them) leaving room to describe not only their looks and their important characteristics, and attitudes, but also notes about their past histories. Information that is added to and sometimes even changed drastically as the story grows and I get to know them better.

4.  Then comes the VERY IMPORTANT plot page.  Where I try to do what I sometimes tell kids is like writing the book report– before the book is written.  What I try to do on this page is write a very lean and mean version of the story–but one that begins to hint at what the ending might be like.

5.  Next, I used to start a new page for each chapter of the book.  A page that I divided into two columns.  The first side was labeled ACTION, under which I wrote short notes describing what will happen in this chapter.  The other side of the page was headed INFORMATION.  In the ACTION column I made short notes about what was actually going to happen and/or be discussed in dialogue. In the INFORMATION column I reminded myself of the background information I needed to get across to the reader in that particular chapter.  I don’t do this much any more.

6.  At the end was a section for research where I wrote notes about pertinent background information I had looked up in the encyclopedia or with the help of research librarians.  Nowadays, of course, most of my research is done on Google.

So there it is.  To tell the truth I don’t follow my notebook method very religiously anymore.  Simply put, I write when I have time and when I feel like it, which is fairly often because I do like doing it.

And Isn’t working on a computer marvelous?   Pre-computer rewrite used to be a chore but now it’s my favorite time of writing.  Even the kind you do because you editor says you have to.

So here it is–the Truth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth–more or less.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder

The recipient of three Newbery Honor Book awards for “The Egypt Game”, “The Headless Cupid” and “The Witches of Worm”, Zilpha Keatley Snyder has been writing books for children since 1964 when her first book, “A Season of Ponies”, was published. She now has 45 published books, mostly for children aged 9 to 13, but also including two books for young adults, four picture books for younger children and a book of poetry.  Nine of her books received recognition by the Junior Library Guild, six were named notable books by the American Library Association, and two were awarded Christopher Medals.  The Headless Cupid was the sole U.S. nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen International Honors List and The Witches of Worm was a nominee for the National Book Award.  Her books have been translated into 16 foreign languages.

Here is Ms. Snyder’s website if you want to read more about  her or her books:

http://www.zksnyder.com/

James Scott Bell in his new book The Art of War for Writers mentions a Writing Improvement Notebook. He includes these sections: Exemplars (good writing examples), Outside Comments (feedback about your work), and Self Study (setting up a thesis question about an area of craft you need to work on—then answering it.)

Two weeks ago I mentioned that I was starting a writer’s notebook. Actually, I called it a novelist’s notebook because of the alliteration, but writer’s notebook sounds better.

I’ve got lots of notebooks scattered around my house filled with writing tips and samples of the writer’s craft. I have documents on my main computer and on my laptop. I never read any of these.

Time for a routine. Yes, if you want to do something right, best make it a routine.

I repurposed a 3-ring binder. My SNAP goal-planning sheet slides in the front. (I’ve talked about my SNAP plan several times. If you’d like to know more you can search the term in our handy search feature in the sidebar.)

What: Goal Sheet
Routine: Post it on cover of Writer’s Notebook. Update as projects are completed.
Prompt: Review at beginning of each writing session.

Then I started with a section on character descriptions because this is the area of craft I am working on right now.

What: Character Descriptions
Routine: When reading a novel and I come across a good description, I bookmark it with Post-it arrows. Next day I enter it into the computer. When I get a full page, print it out and put in notebook.
Prompt: When checking email, see if I have any descriptions to enter. This is one of those activities I can keep by the computer for when I’ve got 5 minutes here and there.

Taking more advice from Flylady.org (from whom we have gotten our inspiration for creating routines), I am doing baby steps. Get one routine down before adding another. If I go full out and create my whole notebook I might crash and burn.

The next section I’ve added is beginnings. Since our opening paragraphs are so important, I want to study them. This is an easy one to add to the notebook:

What: First Pages
Routine: Photocopy first page and put in binder. Remember to record the title and author’s name. Save space by copying two books at the same time.
Prompt: On library days.

Next baby steps? I’ll probably take on something that Margie Lawson has been talking about this month, like dialogue cues. She gives lots of examples so that will kick-start my next section when I’m ready for it!

Any other suggestions for organizing a writer’s notebook?

          We are talking about revision all this month. Some of you are in the midst of revising and editing the novel you wrote during the chaos of November’s NaNoWriMo. Some don’t even want to look at it again. Some never wrote one. Even so, we all need to be reminded of the need for revision. Kitty, Shonna and I are all thrilled to have Margie Lawson blogging with us all month. Judging from last week’s post, she will be offering us a lot of instruction. I’m not even going to try to compete with Margie in giving you more or better instruction (I’d only fail miserably). Instead, I’ll share some anecdotes that illustrate or reinforce her advice and maybe even inspire you.

          As Margie says, good critique partners are a wonderful thing. They see what you miss, they praise what you discount and they hold your feet to the fire when necessary. Kitty and Shonna are some of the best. Last week I wrote about feeling as though I’d lost my creativity. Kitty commented that she disagreed. She said that blog was the best I’d written in months. I’ve been mulling that over in my mind ever since. Why would she say that? What made it that much better than what I’d been writing?

          Revision. Yep. That’s right. Revision. Revision that results in what Margie called tight writing. Without revision, scenes, articles, novels might be okay, even good, but revision makes them better. Makes them sing. And revision takes time.

          I wrote the Boll Weevil blog several days before it was due. Even before that, I’d been thinking about the monument, sensing I could relate it to my writing, but not quite sure how. When I sat down to write, I wasn’t sure that what I wrote said what I wanted, but I saved it, trusting I would know how to edit it when I came back to it. And I did. As I reread what I’d written, the places needing polishing or changing or even deleted became obvious. The 2 days I let that sit untouched allowed me to realize, albeit unconsciously, that I needed to maintain the crop metaphor and nix all my other metaphors (I really like analogies and metaphors. They pop up in my writing all the time.)

          I’ve mentally reviewed the past 16 months of blog writing. Most weeks I write some initial thoughts one day and come back to it a few days later to polish it for posting. Occasionally, I’ll need two revision sessions. When I stick to that routine, I’m much more satisfied with what I write. (And I get more positive feedback.) On those occasions, more common these past two or three months, that I write the post too close to when it is due to be posted, I might have something good to say, but the end result isn’t nearly as clear or polished. And on the few occasions I wrote it late Sunday night or even Monday morning, it was obvious. (See typos? More than likely it’s because I didn’t have or take time to polish it.)

          Margie is right. A good critique partner or two are crucial to helping you tighten your writing. Their feedback, whether encouragement or rebuke or something in between, is invaluable. Equally important, I think, is the time a piece sits “resting” while someone else looks at it, (Or not.) So even if you don’t have a critique partner, use that time as an aid to tighten your writing.

          Kitty and Shonna, thanks for being great critique partners, even when you aren’t actively critiquing my work. May every writer who reads this blog find CPs like you!

Last week I told you how I start planning out my new year with a calendar. I figure out how many days I think I can write out of the 365, mark off the ones I don’t expect to write, and figure out how to meet my goals with the remaining days.

There are two ways to look at your goals – 1) how much can you get done at a nice easy pace, or 2) what do you really want to get done and what pace will you need to set to get there? The second option is the somewhat necessary way of looking at your next year if you already have deadlines you have to meet. It also happens to be the way I used to plan my year when I had no other ideas for planning. “I’m going to write and polish and send out a book this year!” Or “I’m going to write two books and twelve articles this year!”

That’s all well and good, but how are you going to accomplish that? (The question I never asked myself.) And for me, one of the more important questions – how are you going to feel if you don’t meet your goals?

For me, the answer is “awful!” So after hearing lots of other writers talk about their goals and their planning methods, I decided to start making goals I really could reach. (Duh! LOL!)

STEP 4 – Calculate how much you can write next year.

So after I finished the first three steps I mentioned last week, I took the number of days left times the number of words per day to get a total. When I did my calendar, I had 238 open days for writing. But I told you I want to offer myself 1 sick day per month, so that gives me 226 days. I decided I wanted to do some writing on a new book every day, and editing on the previous book every day to try to create a schedule that will continue to work after I start selling, so I’m setting 500 words a day as my goal. That’s a total of 113,000 words for the year.

STEP 5 – Figure out what to write.

Now that I have an idea of what I can write if I stick to my routines and schedule, I can plan what to do with my time. For 2010, I am going to try to write two more first drafts of category romance books. At 50,000 to 60,000 words per book, that should be an achievable goal. If I change my mind part-way through the year, I can still re-evaluate at that time and figure out how much of a single title book I can write before the end of the year. So even though I’m giving myself some solid goals now, there is enough flexibility in the system to change my mind.

That means I can also make changes after grad school starts in March. If focusing on a single project every six months is too difficult, I can change my goals to write articles and one book, or whatever seems to work for me at the time. I do believe there is a certain amount of consistency that will be necessary to keep up the discipline, so I will continue with my current goal (two category romances) until something happens that really shows me my goals aren’t workable. Like anything else, I believe goals should be a balance of choosing not to quit and knowing when to make a change for the better. That being said…

STEP 6 – You’ve planned your work, now work your plan.

If you’ve taken the time to work this out, and if you have been honest with yourself about what you can really achieve without stressing out, the new year should be looking bright and shiny to you right now! Be sure to keep balance in mind where possible. Balance focusing on your work with regular time with other writers. Both will help you to succeed.

I hope this helps you figure out how you want to plan your writing for 2010. Tweak and change and ignore anything that isn’t working for you, and combine it with other things that do work for you. And let us know how it’s going!

NOTE: When I bought my 2010 laminated calendar, it came with sheets of little round stickers in 6 different colors. I really want to find a way to use the colors to stay organized, or to track progress, or… but I don’t know what would be a good way to use them. What do you think? What would you use them for?

Now that NaNoWriMo is over, I am thinking about the year ahead. I’ve gotten back into a routine, and now I need to keep up with it. An occasional polishing or revising of routines won’t hurt either. So how do I begin? Since NaNo is so close to January, post-NaNo usually begins my annual planning. I buy a new calendar (either paper or laminated) and start marking it up. (You can print monthly and annual calendars for any year, with or without holidays for various countries, here.) This is how I proceed.

STEP 1 – Cross off all the days I don’t expect to work.

I only work Monday through Friday, so I could X out the weekends, but it makes the calendar too messy, so I don’t. I cross off birthdays, our wedding anniversary, holidays, vacation time (as soon as I know it), etc. As soon as I make a doctor appointment or anything else that must be done during the work day, I write it on this calendar so I can plan around potentially fewer words that day.

If you only have Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, for instance, you might want to cross off all the other days so you are focusing on just those two columns. If you have children, you may be crossing off days with school events. Think about your own life and schedule and decide how you want to do this step.

Though you still may get a bit of writing done on days you originally crossed off, they will be “extra” days and the words will be in addition to your planned writing. This is better than having a goal and not meeting it or feeling guilty because you didn’t write in a corner at your daughter’s birthday party. (We need to have days we relax and have fun without guilt!) This also gives you a cushion for days that you didn’t hit your goal.

STEP 2 – Count how many days are left.

Now I go back through the year and count the number of days that are left, the days I plan to write. Say I have 224 days not crossed off. Then I give myself 1 mental health/sick day each month (I’m a generous employer!), so I subtract 12 days from the 224 – but since I don’t know when I’ll take my sick days, I don’t cross anything off on the calendar.

Think about your past year, or what you think to be your average month and see if there is any other number of days you should subtract. I will often subtract an additional 5-10 days (1 to 2 weeks) to make sure I have room for things I forgot. (In my initial planning for 2010, I forgot to subtract the days I’ll be at my RWA writers conference.) The reason I try to make the number as accurate as possible, but on the low/conservative side, is that I want to meet or exceed my goals!!

If you prefer, you can subtract fewer days and give yourself a high-reaching goal. Many people work better when pushed. I can be one of those people, but only if I’ve been meeting goals lately and need a push. Right now, I want to make some goals I believe I can achieve because I haven’t hit my goals for the last 2-3 years.

STEP 3 – Estimate how much you can write on an average day.

If you just finished NaNo, you may have an idea of how much you can write on average. I went through my chart and saw I had one day that I wrote 0 words, and the other days I wrote between 105 and 4104 words. I know I can write about 1000 words per day if I’m pushing myself a bit without neglecting the rest of my life.

However, after reading Jim’s blog yesterday, I decided to schedule my writing a little differently for 2010. I’m going to schedule 500 words a day on new work. Then I’m going to use the rest of the time to edit the previous book. This is closer to how many professional writers work. So I’ll work on a new book in the morning, then edit the book I just finished in the afternoon. I’m really excited about this because now I have my NaNo novel to begin editing! I hope 2010 becomes for me The Year of Writing Professionally!

If you don’t know what your average output is or can be, use December and January to figure it out. On a calendar or in your journal, write the number of words you wrote and the time it took you to write them on each day. In the next six weeks, you’ll have holidays, vacations, kids out of school, kids in school, “normal” days – by the end of January, you’ll know about what you can do in most any situation.

Work on these three steps this week, and next week I’ll tell you what I do next. In the next few days, think about what your goal is for 2010. Write a polished book and send it out? Or two books? Get all the way through a first draft and finish a book for the first time? Meet the deadlines for the contracts you have because in the past you’ve been late?

Nearly every morning I get myself out of bed by reciting a sentence from the Bible – “His mercy is new every morning.” It gives me energy because today is a new day, with new opportunities to accomplish great things. No matter how yesterday went, today I have a fresh start. I feel that way about new years, too, but to a greater degree. 

Get ready for a great new year!