Winning at Writing

Last month, I took part in the National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo, a writing challenge that encourages everyone with a book in them to write 50,000 words in the month of November.

And I won!

As it turns out, November was an incredibly busy month for me.  I was involved in several volunteer projects, which included attending meetings, leading to two whole days of zero writing. Some days, hitting the computer seemed like the hardest thing in the world.

I got off to a good start in the challenge by keeping pace with the 1,667 words I needed to write on a daily basis.  However, on Day 11, I hit a roadblock.  I wrote nothing for the next few days, then wrote a little, then again nothing for a while.

The thing about this challenge is that a month isn't enough time to procrastinate--at least, not to procrastinate well.

I realized that the worst move I could make was to fall behind in the first days of NaNoWriMo.  In the last few weeks, I had to write my butt off, putting in at least 2,000 words every day, whether I wanted to or not.  Without this last minute push, I would have never finished on time.

Tip: Have a viable story idea in your back pocket.  When I first ran out of writing juice, it was because my idea had run its course.  I didn't know where else to take my heroine.  That was the point at which having a story outline or even a few plot points jotted down would have come in really handy.

So, in reality, the days I spent not writing were spent trying to work out where I was going.  It was time well spent, but it was time I could have put aside in October, before I was faced with a crunch deadline.

In all, NaNoWriMo was a great experience.  I got to spend more time with my writing than ever before and I was happy producing so many pages, even if after 50,000 words, my novel is nowhere near finished.  Plus, winning was a real rush!

But, next year, I will definitely outline my novel in advance.

Save Your Inspiration For When You Need It

Like most people, I subscribe to a bunch of email newsletters and publications.  Many of these are writing-related.

And, also like most people, I don't usually have the time to read even a fraction of the emails I receive during that same day (or week, or month).  Usually, I just skim the subject line and sender field and decide if it needs my immediate attention (usually career or publisher-related) or sometime soon attention (friends) or if it can wait.  Indefinitely.

Lots of the writing emails I get are interesting and informative (or I wouldn't subscribe to them).  I get a bunch of different emails from Writer's Digest, literary journals like Kenyon Review, which has great suggestions on what books to put into my To Be Read pile, and blogs like the Quick Brown Fox.

I hate having more than a hundred emails in my Inbox so I am pretty obsessive about deleting old ones. I get happy when I have lots of "trash" to take out.

So what do I do with these emails that I don't have the time to read but eventually want to read?

I bookmark them and save them for when I need a shot of quick writing inspiration.

This usually means saving them in my Favourites tab under the heading of Writing (of course) and coming back to the first one on my list when I sit down to write but find that I can't get any words out.  Reading about writing usually gets my fingers moving and these articles I save usually have side notes about published authors and how they got their start.  What better inspiration is there than that?

So, try doing what I do and saving your writing inspiration for when you need it.  Rather than trolling the internet for a quick boost of motivation (and getting sidetracked by a new online game), go to your saved writing favourites and get into the mood.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Productivity in Art

Recently, I went to see the Picasso exhibit at my local art gallery.

This was my second time at the exhibit, which is in my city for the summer, and what struck me this time, aside from the sheer range of art created (and often pioneered) by this remarkable artist, was his prolific output.

The number of artworks Pablo Picasso was estimated to produce is fifty thousand.  Yes, fifty...thousand...works of art.  This ranges from paintings and drawings to sculpture and pottery.  He even made rugs (and wrote a play)!

Imagine a writer who creates fifty thousand poems.  Or short stories.  Or, impossible to imagine really, novels.  Well, Picasso would have been creating poems and short stories and novels.  Because that's just the kind of guy he was.  And he probably would have invented a new kind of poem while he was at it.

Picasso's dedication and talent, leaving aside what you might think of his artwork or his colourful personal life, is awe inspiring.

Seeing his work, which was really only the merest fraction of his total number of pieces, made me want to re-dedicate myself to my creative talent: writing.  Yes, very few are truly as naturally talented as a great artist like Picasso, but most of us who toil away at any creative art do it because we love it.  And can we ever do better in life than to do what we love?

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Breaking Out the Cycle

Recently, I've been combining a couple of my 2012 resolutions.  In between writing more, I've been taking mini-breaks during my writing sessions to get active -- even if it's only for a two minute stretch.

Try it.

When you get stuck for a plot idea or a line of dialogue, instead of staring at the screen trying to beat your muse into submission, try getting up out of your chair.  Do a few jumping jacks, crunches, stretches or other physical activity.  You could even do a little frustration dance.

Taking a break out of your writing day will burn a few calories, which is also one of my resolutions this year (and every year).  It will get your blood flowing and minimize the risk of 'pins and needles' or even something more serious.  Better still, that blood will flow to your brain, maybe even resulting in a new idea.  Hey, I often think better when I'm doing something totally mindless.

So break out of your writing cycle and jump on a real cycle.  Or just jump around for a few minutes. You will both feel and think better.

The Great White Whale: Going Back to an Old Writing Project

I mentioned yesterday that I finished up my first erotic romance story and sent it off to a publisher for a themed call for submissions.  It was a great feeling to have completed a new story in a challenging subgenre and I allowed myself to relax for the rest of the day, resting on my laurels.

But, at the same time, I had a plan for my next writing project.

Tell me if this sounds familiar: an old story lingers in the back of your head.  You've maybe written a page or two of it, often the same few pages several times in different reiterations but were never satisfied with the result.  Maybe you've actually written a big hunk of the manuscript but aren't happy with how it feels to you.  Yet you keep returning to this story over and over, trying, striving to make it workable.

It's the Great White Whale story.

I have one.  Every now and then I return to the computer file with fresh heart and new hopes.  Every time, I leave it unsatisfied.  Perhaps because this story is more ambitious than others I have written.  Perhaps its themes are too complicated or its characters too complex.  Whatever it is, it stops me in my tracks every time.  Sometimes I get a page in.  Sometimes several chapters.  Then I stop.  Often for a very long time -- over a year.

But I keep coming back.  It's like a bad romance.  Is he good for me?  Is he going to ruin my life?  All I know is that I'm obsessed and I need my fix, good or bad.

My "Whale" is a non-romance novel for which I got the idea over a decade ago from a news story.  I wrote pieces of it for the better part of that decade.  During that time, I took more than a dozen hiatuses, often as long as a year.  I'm still writing it and it's still not even halfway completed.  It is agonizing work.

So why do I keep writing my "Whale"?  Because, in the end, I think it's a story that needs to be told.  And I've been chosen by the powers that be to write it.  So I plug away.  I take breaks.  I pull my hair out.  It grows back.  At least, it always grows back.

So, if you have a project that keeps calling out to you, return to it and see if the spark is still there.  It may be a doomed romance or it may be a case of 'my boyfriend's back'.  Chances are, if you started that story years ago and you still haven't seen anyone else publishing something remarkably similar, it may just be worthwhile to take a second look and try again.

Photo courtesy of winnond at freedigitalphotos.net

Romance IRL – Find Your Family’s Romantic Roots

Last weekend was Father’s Day and occasions like that one always get me thinking about my relationships with my family members.

One thing that I’ve realized as I’ve gotten older is that family is about connections. It’s based on continuity. As a kid, I loved hearing about my parents as children. Every story—about the big scar they still sport, their escapades with their siblings and friends, about the community they enjoyed which has since vanished—was repeated over and over for my young ears until I knew each by heart.

Why did I love these stories so much?

Well, a part of it was because my parents had moved far from their family members and we only visited once in a while so they were maintaining a link to their respective families by recreating those childhood memories.

Part of it was also to relate back to my own contemporary antics. Many of the stories became about me as I grew up and, by these stories entering into the family’s oral history, I was enfolded into the family. Recently at a wedding, an uncle I hadn’t seen in years reminded me of an old incident that brought a smile to everyone’s faces, reconnecting us in an instant through the shorthand of a story only we could relate to.

So what does this have to do with romance and writing romance novels?

My contribution to romance IRL (in real life) is this suggestion: write down your family’s oral history. Make those stories you hear every so often at weddings and reunions into a written record of births, loves, and marriages, which future generations can enjoy.

Ask questions that you’ve been too lazy or busy to ask. Ask about first loves. Maybe your grandmother’s first love wasn’t actually your grandfather! There could be a great story there. Filling in these interesting blanks could give you a whole new perspective on your loved ones.

The time to do it is now. Every year, precious family members are lost or incapacitated. Capture their memories in their own words.

You may just find out something new about that well-known commodity: your family. Best of all, you will be preserving those familiar family stories that you love for the future.

Photo courtesy of posterize at freedigitalphotos.net

Finding Your Inspiration – Take a Trip

“Had we but world enough, and time” – Andrew Marvell

Writing takes time. It takes time to think up of ideas, to mull them over in your head, to put them down on page, to revise and edit and revise.

We tend to look upon the first few steps in the creative process as time sinks. Unless I am actually sitting down in front of the computer, hammering away at the keyboard, I am not writing, right? Wrong.

An important part of the creative process is the concept, the inspirational spark, the kernel of an idea. But how are we to find ideas for our writing and the motivation to write when we clomp every day from home to work (or school) to grocery store or shopping mall and back again, with the occasional forays to the dentist’s office or the hair salon?

Yes, we need to find our creativity everywhere and anywhere. But how can that be easy when we stare at the same gray roads and beige walls day in and day out?

A change of scenery may be called for to get your creative juices flowing again. Aside from giving you the ideas you need to spin out another story or write another poem, a voyage may also offer you the quiet time you need (in the hotel, train, plane, what have you) to actually get down to the writing.

The benefits of taking a trip or vacation are obvious. You see somewhere new and perhaps experience a different culture, you get some sun (or snow, if that’s your preference), you’re more active or more relaxed, you minimize distractions from your job or other commitments, you have fun.

But try thinking about your trip from a creative standpoint. Even if you think or do nothing related to your writing while you’re away, you can come back feeling energized and motivated. Use that energy and motivation towards your writing.

That being said, it would be a sad trip if you haven’t seen or experienced something out of the ordinary, something you wouldn’t get to in the usual course of your home or work day. You can use your trip locale, the people you meet, the sights you see, the emotions you experience, in your next piece of writing to lend it authenticity.

Use your trip to stretch your creative muscles. You might even want to write a travel piece about the place you visited. Or a humourous story about an encounter with a fellow passenger on the plane. Try writing a piece you wouldn’t ordinarily write, in a different style or genre, using your trip as a backdrop.

A trip or vacation doesn’t have to be an all-inclusive romp on a beachfront resort. And it certainly doesn’t have to cost as much. An inspirational trip can be a cheap weekend at an off-season hotel in your area or a day trip to a quaint little village an hour out of the city.

Take a tour of your own backyard – a part of your town you’ve never explored before. Most larger cities have a Chinatown, a Little India and a Greektown. Find out what they have to offer. Stroll along the streets and have lunch in a hole-in-the-wall the locals frequent. Your writing will thank you for it.

Photo courtesy of Arvind Balaraman at freedigitalphotos.net

A Day on the Links: Writing Prompts Edition

Let's face it: everyone gets stuck sometimes with their writing.  Maybe you're having a bad day at work and the last thing you want to do when you get home (on top of the chores and family obligations) is sit down in front of a computer and work on your novel.  Because, at those times, it's work, just like anything you do at your day job.

Other times, you've got the time and the energy but you find yourself floundering for ideas or unsure of where to start with the idea you've been wanting to write.  You freeze.  You panic.  If you sit in front of the blank computer screen any longer, you'll go crazy.

Relax.

I subscribe to the belief that a little creative writing goes a long way.  Even if you've got a few minutes only or you're stuck in front of a blank page, you can write something.  Here are some writing prompt links that will get some words on that page.

Writing Prompts: Writer's Digest is the only writing magazine a subscribe to and I have been a subscriber for many years.  It has something for everyone, including writing prompts every month in their print magazine.  But if you're stuck for quick inspiration right now, check out their paragraph-long writing prompts which ask for a short response (750 words or less).  Not a ton of writing, by any means.  And it gets that stupid cursor to stop blinking at you. (From Writer's Digest website)

Prompt Generator: Who doesn't like pushing a button?  Especially when it says "random" on it.  This is a fun and easy prompt generator from an American school district that's aimed at school children but can work for anyone who is a child at heart.  Prompts can be as simple as asking you to write about a past event in your life to writing a story about taking a shortcut through a cemetery.  They may not add up to great literary writing but once you've created a paragraph or two, you may find it easy to switch to one of your manuscripts and add a page there as well.

Random Logline Generator:  Stuck for an idea for your next story?  Try one of these pre-made taglines (or loglines, as the site calls them).  Write a short short story (under 250 words) for one of the topics suggested.  Just remember that if you get it published, the website's author requests that you give him a shout out.  Some are just plain funny while others have some real potential.  So click away.

Bonus link:

Random Romance Novel Title Generator: Okay, so romance novel titles are pretty funny.  This site will give you a bunch of titles to play around with.  Try writing the hook to the story suggested by the title, or just a few opening lines.  Let your imagination run wild!  If nothing else, the titles suggested will give you a giggle.

Finding Your Inspiration – Read a Book…Any Book!

I didn’t decide to write fiction one day, right out of the blue. I fell in love with reading first. As with almost any creative profession, I was a fan before I became an aspiring player.

As a child, no one taught me to read. I learned to read by being read to and recognizing words, and later letters, on my own. I was fortunate. My parents read all of the time and they read to me as well, so my love affair began very young.

How do books inspire me?

Well, as I discussed before, they can lead you down a particular path that wasn’t where you expected to go. Sometimes, they leave you wanting more (or just something different). It took me some time to realize that I could right that “something more”. In this, I don’t mean writing the next sequel to Gone with the Wind, but a new and original story that goes in the direction you wanted the book you just read to go.

Maybe you wanted the saucy heroine in the book you just read to end up with the rogue rather than the gentleman. So why not create your own romance novel with that ending? The heroine might be rebellious rather than pert and the hero might be a highwayman rather than a pirate, but you take my point.

A good book can be a jumping off point for your own writing. Go on, take the plunge.

A book might not need you to “improve” on it. It might be a wholly satisfying read in every way. So why not try to write your own satisfying read? You might want to emulate (but NOT copy) the writer’s style, use of language, or imagery. You might not want to do any of that. You might just want to evoke the same satisfaction in your own work as you just experience. Whatever the motivation, a good book will stimulate you, even by just showing you how it can be done and what it looks like when it’s done right.

So, what about bad books? What about those books that you want to hurl across the room in a fit of disgust? How do you possibly find inspiration from those books?

Like my tip about good books, a bad book can provide a starting point for your own inspiration – in this case, to write the book how you think it should have been written.

Maybe the book you read dealt with a terminally ill family member who just couldn’t inspire sympathy, even though you know the writer wanted the character to do just that. Why don’t you write about a heroine whose parent went through a noble struggle with illness and who finally succumbed with dignity? The experience may have forever touched the heroine yet also lead to her insecurity about losing a loved one.

Sometimes, a piece misses the mark so widely that you just ache to correct it. Don’t rewrite the piece yourself (or else you might be facing a plagiarism allegation) but use the story to inspire your own work.

Good or bad, reading leads to writing. It’s a natural progression.

Photo courtesy of Felixco, Inc. at freedigitalphotos.net

A Thousand First Pages, or How to Concentrate on One Piece of Writing at a Time

I'll be the first to admit it...I have a hard time concentrating on one story idea at a time.  Often, I am barely at the beginning of a novel or short story when I have a new direction to take it in (which completely changes the storyline I've already started following) or a brand new idea emerges which I want to write instead.

Don't get me wrong, I've finished more than a dozen romance manuscripts so I know it can be done and, more importantly, I know I can do it.  But I am constantly battling the desire to discard the known commodity -- my current creation -- to follow a novel idea.

So, how do I limit myself to a single piece of fiction at a time?  I did it by identifying the enemies of concentration.  Here they are, in no particular order.

Stress/ Anxiety

Often, I skip between various beginnings of stories because I am unable to relax enough to follow through on one train of thought at a time.  In other words, I haven't really put myself in the mindset to write and I end up getting my attention snagged on some other project than the one I sat down to tackle.  But, more than that, I'm not producing my best writing on either piece.

Last month, I posted some suggestions related to balancing your writing with your day job.  Part of that series included ideas for simplifying your life.  Stress and anxiety are an inevitable part of every modern life and managing it is a skill we all need to work on.

Sitting down to write when your mind isn't devoted to writing (you're thinking about work, the kids, the dirty dishes) can lead you to write little bits all over and never finish a thing.

Too Many Ideas

I am blessed/ cursed with a glut of ideas for future writing pieces.  So many of them are good ideas (I think) that I end up trying to write them all.  Hey, writing a first page for a novel or a part of a short story gets the idea monkey off of my back, right?  Wrong.

If you were meant to write a particular novel or story, it will persist.  It will keep coming back to the front of your thoughts, demanding attention, until you cannot resist any longer.  We should be spending our time writing these stories, the ones our minds and imaginations just cannot let go.

We do not have to write a story for every idea that pops into our brains.  That's what a writing journal is for: to park the idea until we do have time to give it the proper care and attention it deserves.  Until then, the book we are currently writing should grab all of our attention.  That is the only way I personally can ever finish a manuscript.

Lack of Time

It's funny, you would think a lack of time would require you to concentrate on one project at a time out of sheer necessity.  Not so.  Feeling that I lack time to write can sometimes cause me to skip between incomplete pieces -- the dreaded multitasking.  It doesn't work for my writing and I seriously doubt it works for many people.

Just because I'm crunched for time doesn't mean that I can get more out of my precious writing time by writing a page for five different stories instead of adding five pages to my most recent project.  Doing the math, you would realize that it takes five times longer to finish any one of the five simultaneous pieces than it would to expend all of your energy into completing one piece and then polishing it for submission.

Yes, there is often an inner desire to multitask to optimize my writing time.  I resist it by utilizing some simple strategies.

• I open only one writing file at a time.
• When I'm finished with a spurt of writing on that single project, I walk away from the computer while I take a break instead of sitting in front of it, where I may be tempted to open up another file just to say 'hi'.
• I keep my file at the tip of my fingers for when I sit back down.  Often, my cursor is hovering right on the filename so that I can open it up quickly.
• If I do want to check out my progress on another story or novel, I wait until the end of my writing session to do this.  That way, I am tired and less inclined to start writing again.

In our current world of multitasking, concentrating on a single writing project at a time can seem counterintuitive and worse, counterproductive.  However, I am convinced that my writing is better when I have one focus and one fictional vista opened up in my mind without switching between alternate worlds.

Photo courtesy of twobee at freedigitalphotos.net

Every Day I Write the Book - Before You Start Writing

This is the conceit of this series of posts, and I beg of you to bear with me: I write with a strong “I” (even the title of the series, Every Day I Write the Book includes an “I”) yet I am writing to “you” and titling my posts accordingly. Make no mistake about it, I am attempting, in my own poor way, to share how I write, and I am not trying to tell you how to write. I can only hope that, in sharing my tips and strategies, I can in some way provide a little worthwhile, useful or strictly entertaining information to you. Enjoy.

I am fortunate. Always, I feel as if I have a hundred more ideas floating around in my skull than I can possibly put down on paper (or screen). This means I don’t usually have to struggle to find ideas for stories or books but I do have to recognize which ideas are grand enough and worthy enough to spend time on trying to recreate outside of my head and which should simply be jotted down in my journal and laid to—perhaps permanent—rest.

In a perfect world, I would be able to find the time (and energy) to pursue all of my ideas. However, the limiting factors are many.

I have only a finite amount of time and enough ideas to keep me scribbling twenty-four hours a day without working at my day job, sleeping, eating or seeing my family and friends. Let’s even leave out the other activities that add depth and interest to my days, like reading, listening to music, surfing, exercising and watching TV. At the end of the day, I may have an hour or two to devote to writing, usually by giving up one of the last category of “lifestyle” activities. Even so, I end up writing several different stories and novels at the same time.

So why do I pick those one or two specific stories to write that day, out of a possible thousand?

The grand ideas are usually the most persistent. When I put them aside, they come back up to the surface of my mind with staggering persistence. I once left a story treading water for years before I put it down on paper. The wait was well worth it. The story had gained strength and agility by swimming around in my head for so long a time, until it emerged full formed and ready to take foot on land.

Rather than running with every idea that pops into my head, I wait for these stories. I know they will be worth it.

Photo courtesy of nuttakit at freedigitalphotos.net