Category Archives: writing process

Experimental Writing

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I am FINALLY out of the revision cave! Book ‘C’ was a blast to write and revisions were much easier than my last two books.

Why? I made a schedule and stuck with it. I made myself accountable to someone on my goals. And – nerd alert –  for this book, I treated the whole process like an experiment.

Experiments during the first draft:

How many pages could I write a day? Could I add a page more per day? Result: Four pages is a good number for me to hit consistently, especially if I want to make my daily goal during my lunch hour. Try #1K1hr on twitter and give your brain breaks between those one hour sessions if you want to attempt more pages than the day before.

Would my story fall apart if I skipped a chapter and moved to a scene I know comes later in the story? Result: Scrivener kept this manageable, as long as I had notes on what happened before and after the scene.

Does my diet affect my writing? Result: I’ve found the things the docs tell us – fruits, veggies, lean proteins – DO affect my ability to stay focused longer without relying on coffee and sugar after 3. This doesn’t mean getting all tree-huggy with the diet, it’s as simple as having a humus and carrot stick snack around 2.

Butt in Chair or Walking Desk? Result: I’m working on the walking desk (a wish list and research items at this point) but I do have a standing desk. I’ve found standing works better for longer stretches of time…I didn’t need to take breaks to stretch or switch positions like I would if I’m sitting.

Sweet, Sour or Chocolate? Result: All, use not at the same time :)

How about you? Have you observed your best writing conditions? Do you have plans to shake up your writing routine?

Escaping the Net to Create

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My biggest writing fantasy doesn’t involve contracts or pre-empts, it involves a secluded cabin in the mountains and a desk.

Creating a story with the day to day life can be difficult, especially when we’re in the story, the words are flowing, the characters are whispering witty things and then the real world interrupts. It’s like swimming underwater, comfortable with the water’s weight and silence, only to be suddenly pulled up and out!

The appeal of ‘cabin in the woods’ novel writing is understandable. Who wouldn’t want to have uninterrupted time, quiet and nature while working on the WIP? And if day to day things weren’t enough, we now live in the Always On Age, where information is streamed to us constantly. Personalized information, such as what’s happening in the publishing world.

Authors today have more information at their disposal than ever before. We no longer live in times where the publishing world is the mystical entity behind the curtain. We have a concrete sense of which types of stories certain editors/agents prefer. We know what stories are on their wish-this-was-on-my-desk list. We know what they’re sick of reading, no matter how creative a twist.

This kind of information is an irreplaceable tool…after the WIP is finished.

Yes, after. Because during the creative process, it can become an invisible force guiding the creative process in less than productive directions. Think about it…all that information from websites, blogs, tweets,  podcasts, etc. is internalized and goes into the same place as our inner critic/editor/pain in the duff.

It’s hard enough creating and ignoring the inner critic. Too much publishing world information can paralyze a writer from taking a risk, exploring a new sub-genre, trying a new POV. It becomes the reason we play it safe in the WIP and choose a less quirky character because someone fires off a tweet about blind protags with a talent for lock-picking. It influences a choice not to write about a 2012ish event because it falls in the ‘sub-genre of the month’ and editors and agents are tweeting they’re seeing too many subs of that kind.

Some days it would be better if publishing industry remained mystical.

It can be hard to recognize the whys behind a stalled WIP or slow revisions. Sometimes it takes stepping way, way back and evaluating our pre-writing time routines. Are the things we fill our heads with before we empty them on the page encouraging? Do we take in information which will nurture the creative, risk taking side? If not, experiment with different sites and sources of information. Shake up the routine, escape the usual sources of information and see where that takes your WIP!