Hello, Wipsters!
Here, it is, the last Monday in August already. Really! For those of us who have kids, or are still students ourselves, or work for schools, there’s a clear demarcation between summer and fall. The school year offers the steady hum of routine, getting back to habits we may’ve let slide during hectic travel or leisurely days with the kids at the park. (Okay, maybe not leisurely, but not related to writing.)
I like routine, crave it in fact. But sometimes even a routine isn’t enough when you have to get a lot of words out in a small amount of time. I’ve calculated that in the next two months I need to draft at least 40,000 new words, and then revise them along with whatever I’m able to salvage from the first version of my manuscript. The whole thing needs to be tidied up and wrapped in a bow by November 1st.
So I’m panicking. Just a little.
I’m not the fastest writer, yet I need to meet my obligations. What’s a writer to do? Well, here’s how I’ll attack it.
1) Carve out a schedule. This will mean saying no to things I don’t normally say no to this fall. It also means prioritizing and taking time where I can get it. Whatever it takes to fit in at least twenty hours of writing a week.
2) Plan before I write. I have a chapter map that consists of a brief description for each new scene. Knowing what I want to accomplish before I start pumping out words each day saves on a lot of frittering. Taking a little time at the end of each writing session, when the momentum is flowing, to jot down ideas of what I should write the next day helps too.
Full Steam Ahead!!!
3) Cut the distractions. For me, this is spelled: I.N.T.E.R.N.E.T. As much as I love being connected, I curse it. Back in the day when not all coffee shops were wired, I could choose places that DIDN’T have wifi when I really needed to get stuff done. This is now almost impossible. Two ways around this are: 1) Use tools that block out the Net, and 2) work off of hard copy whenever possible. Even though this latter technique adds the extra step of having to transcribe whatever I’ve scribbled onto pages, it’s still faster than working at a computer and constantly taking breaks to surf.
4) Whenever I feel overwhelmed, chant, “One page at a time; one page at a time…” It’s a mantra I trust, because it’s helped get me through tight deadlines before.
Will this be enough? It has to be. At any rate, you’ll see my progress on Twitter!
Any advice? I’d love to hear it.
For this week’s giveaway, I’m offering another book from my collection (minus whatever this week’s winner chooses. The full list can be found at the bottom of this previous post.
Happy Writing!
Jeanne
p.s. The winner of last week’s giveaway is Kim Baccellia! Please choose a book from the collection or let me know if you’d like a hoopdance DVD instead. Email your choice and mailing address to jamr88 at gmail dot com.
Yay, Kim!
We’ve already been in school for 2 weeks now, and I’ve been swamped. It used to be that school meant productive quiet time with the WIP. Now that I am working full time again, it means an onslaught of students and faculty needing my help and less time for my own writing. But it all comes in waves, so I will get that time eventually. (I hope)
I did manage to get chapter 12 put to bed and am smack in the middle of fixing chapter 13. Some big changes afoot.
I hear you on the other distractions, Jeanne. I need to discipline myself but still give myself a little wiggle room for relief every now and then.
Write on, Wipsters!
Wow, your school year starts so much earlier than ours. Hope the waves shift in favor of your writing soon!
I am thrilled about preschool starting next week for my girls! It’s only 9 hours a week, but I’m sure it’ll be as good for me as it will be for them.
I have a couple of self-imposed deadlines at the moment keeping me busy, but it’s nothing like the pressure of real deadlines, so I really feel for you, Jeanne. I agree that the internet is definitely the biggest time-suck of potential writing time for me, so I’m sure you’ll meet your deadline if you find more ways to turn it off. I think Helene Boudreau did a FB and twitter hiatus when she was working on her last draft, so maybe going to that length would work for you. Or maybe you can be good about checking in once or twice a day and then turning it right back off. I had great success at a writing retreat recently by just moving myself to the part of the house with spotty internet. Whatever works!
I have a few projects in the works at the moment, so I’m shooting to get my goals for September lined up so I can dash away with them next week. This week I’m finishing my bookmap for a plotting workshop with Cheryl Klein in October (so what am I doing online???). Off to work!
I’m so glad you’re going to that workshop. CK is a very smart editor! I loved it and am doing a book map for this ms.
Hmm, I’ve heard about these “book maps”…sounds like something I’d like to learn more about! And how awesome to do a workshop with CK!
I remember those preschool years and those precious few hours of writing time. Here’s to making them count!
Everything I’ve heard about CK’s workshops is phenomenal. And I loved her book. Lucky you!
It sounds to me like you have a good handle on what you need to do to get ‘er done, Jeanne.
I only have one suggestion. My barriers are often psychological, so I recommend a daily mantra of “I can do this. Yes, I can!”
You can do it!
I am aiming to finish the latest revision of my YA historical this week, then I’ll keep dinking around with my MG.
Has anyone thought about hosting in September? If no one raises their hand, I’ll do it, but perhaps someone else would welcome the opportunity. ^_^
Look forward to following your progress on Twitter, Jeanne!
Onward, Wipsters!
I seem to have some pretty solid psychological barriers these days. Ugh. I’ll have to try your mantra.
Angelina, you are always such a fantastic cheerleader for all the wipsters! I really appreciate your tweets.
Yes we can, yes we can, yes we can!!!
Yay! I’m excited I won! I’d love to have 101 Things I learned in Film School by Neil Landau with Matthew Frederick if it’s still available.
I really love your goal of November 1st. Can I join you? I’m going through a very painful but needed revision right now and really want to get this baby due in time for my critique buddies to read so I can start querying again. Even though I do have a small press publisher, I know in order to meet my writing goals I need an agent.
Right now I’ve been scheduling in writing time at my local libraries quiet room. When son starts satellite school next week, I plan to go to the library there and do the same thing. It’s really hard for me to write at home as husband works there four times a week. He seriously doesn’t get why I can’t write with him there. Add to that homeschooling. And Mother in law who calls ALL THE TIME.
Good luck with your own goal! And thanks again!
My DH is working at home full-time now for the next 6 months. We share an office. Will I be able to write…?? Time will tell, LOL. I may have to hang out at the library A LOT.
Great book choice, Kim! I bought it for an SCBWI writing retreat and thought it was packed with great tips. Just email your mailing address to me at jamr88 at gmail dot com so I can send it your way.
And I’d love some company for my Nov. 1 deadline. Let’s go for it!
Try an Alphasmart! Super low tech keyboard. It cannot use internet but its perfect for writing drafts. You can save up to eight projects and upload it w usb to your computer. Its hard to do widespread editing but I dont do that when I write.
Done a lot this month, close to 2000 followees on twitter, set up a guestblogger series
Wrote 65 pages and edited a lot too
I’ll check out the Alphasmart–thanks for the tip. You’ve certainly been productive this week!
Angelina if you host September, I’ll host October.
As you probably all know by now, I signed with Alexandra Machinist at Janklow & Nesbit last week. I’m so thrilled to have this tiger of a woman in my corner. She loves my manuscript and said truly beautiful things.
As for the WIP – I’m finally making slow but steady progress. I don’t know about y’all but I’m finding the more I improve at revisions, the harder first drafts seem to be. I have to turn off the inner editor in a big way.
I’m lucky in that I get crappy Internet reception in my writing studio so the two don’t mix. That would be a total time suck for me!
Good luck with your deadlines, Jeanne.
Oh that pesky internal editor. That’s why I shut mine up with WriteOrDie.
Do you know when your agent will start subbing? So excited for you!
I don’t have a lot of suggestions here, because the i word is a problem for me, too.
This week wasn’t very productive, and yet I’m over the moon. I figured out what the cost was for the magical designer drug that my main character is going to have to deal with. And I figured out a bit more about which character is going to be her love interest/partner in crime. So now I feel like I’m ready to get back to it. Taking a break was worth it.
Figuring out key plot points is worth many, many words! Yay!
I’ve been away all month, so I’m totally out of touch with the wipmadness crew! Looking forward to diving back into writing, and I promise to be a more-active wipster in September.
Also, Jeanne, do you do hooping? (Guess i need to scroll through some posts, but I saw the mention of a hoopdance DVD…) I just started hooping.
Welcome back, Shari!
Yes, I’m a hooper, and glad to meet another one! If you have any questions about tricks, videos, resources, etc.., please holler!
I’d love to hear about any beginner videos you’d recommend! There’s some stuff on youtube, but hard to sort through it all for the good teaching ones. I went to a great class tonight, but it was the last one for the season, so I’ll need to learn on my own for a while.