Success!

50,124 words!

Addy and Mac have sailed into the sunset...

Focus

This was my preferred writing view for a few days in November. Yeah, its a rough life....I know.

I got to join the Pilot Guy in Phoenix for a litte extra fall sun. Part of the time I was there, he was flying so I had the hotel all to myself. Wow, what a way to write. I see why writers love retreats. For three full days I had the advantage of a hotel buffet breakfast and a manager's social hour every evening. No cooking or kitchen clean up. The only food I had to rustle up was a salad each day for lunch. Not hard.

I'd write a couple of thousand words in a morning session in my room -- with the windows open to fresh air. Then an afternoon session out beside the pool for another couple thousand words. After a workout or a walk, I'd have supper downstairs and come back to relax with a movie and or get in a few hundred more words on my manuscript. In the six days I was in Phoenix, I doubled my word count, writing four and five thousand words a day. What a huge difference not to have the distractions of daily life interfering with the creative process. No phone calls, no laundry, no pets or offspring to deal with. No grocery shopping, no cooking, no clean up.

The only thing I had to think about was my story.

What an indulgent, wonderful way to write! Just the small taste of this life has me hooked. I so want to create enough income from the writing to have this kind of creative flexibility on a regular basis.

Big goal. Big.

Living the Fantasy

I got a taste of the dream the other day. I hopped on board a commercial jet to join the Pilot Guy in Phoenix. Needing to keep my NaNo word count rolling, I pulled out my laptop at 40,000 feet and started typing.



This is part of the fantasy of being a best selling author, right? An author so busy flying to book signings, so in demand as a speaker, and so wealthy she can hop a jet any time to research a gorgeous island retreat that she has to write in any bits and pieces of time.

Yes, for a few minutes I was Jodi Thomas and Nora Roberts happily typing away on my next bestseller.

To get to the fantasy part of any career, you got to do the work. I've spent some time with Jodi Thomas. She treats writing like a job...she gets her work done even if it means writing late into the night in a hotel room after speaking at a writer's conference. Rumor has it that Nora Roberts can be seen typing away at poolside during conferences.

Deadlines and doing the work. There is no substitute.

Words, Words, and More Words

NaNoWriMo has not completely taken over my life, but, boy, howdy, it certainly directs big hunks of my day.

I'm loving it!

Here's a couple of observations....

1. Writing is best done in as big a time chunks as I can manage. I find it easier to hold on to the thread and tone of the story if I concentrate on it for a couple of thousand words at a time. One afternoon, I managed 3,300 words while nursing a mocha at Starbucks. Fun. On the other hand, I'm also content to drop a quick 500 words into the mix if I don't have time to do more.

2. Writing can be accomplished any where and any time of day. So far this month, I'm writing here at home in my two favorite writing spaces, out on the porch swing, in the lounge chair in the back yard, at Starbucks, in a parking lot, and in the car. I've written early in the morning, all afternoon, and just before bed. I still believe setting up a regular schedule is most productive, but I'm fitting writing into my life in amazing ways. No excuses.

3. Some of the choices I've made about this story cause me to scratch my head. After all, I've been to 16 different countries...what ever made me choose to set the majority of this romance in a country I've never visited? Or when I'm married to a pilot and have spent a lot of time in the air, did I house one of my main characters in a sailboat. It's not only write what you know, but write what you want to know.

4. Doing NaNo and Weight Watchers in the same month is counterproductive.

5. Long walks are productive.

6. Peach Pleasure Jamba Juice smoothies are good rewards for slaving over a hot laptop.

7. Happy support and a wee bit of competition from all my NaNoing friends is a very, very good thing.

8. Writing every day is important. Writing is a muscle that gets stronger as it is worked and used.

If all goes well, I'll be sitting on top of 20,000 words by tonight...and a stack of luggage for a trip tomorrow. Writing on the road is fun, too.

Happy Creating!

Ready, Set.....WRITE!

At the stroke of midnight last, NaNoWriMo began. I had sort of planned to be up then and get a few hundred words in, but when I crashed early (as usual for me.) Since the Pilot Guy needed to be at church early for Praise Team practice I ran over to Starbucks for a quick shot of caffeine and words. The rest of my words for the day came after lunch. Even though I had an opening scene in mind, it was exciting to finally get to lay it down on the page. It was much more detailed than when I doodled some notes about it the other day. I love how my mind keeps on working on a book even when I'm doing something else.

2,088 words for today. It was fun to meet Addy and Mac, my heroine and hero. From the start they have, I predict true love will not run smoothly. And I sincerely hope not. I need conflict and issues to get through the required 50,000 words and into the 60,000 words I want to write.

NaNoing is fun!!!!!!!!!

NaNoWriMo Preparations Part 2

My preparations for National Novel Writing Month continue...

4. Chocolate, Snacks and Food. Many of you have reminded me that I didn't list chocolate on my last post. LOL! We always have chocolate around here. In fact, I have a fairly big stash of the good stuff--Belgian chocolate--courtesy of the Baseball Guy who lived in Belgium last summer. We was a good boy and brought his mama a lot of chocolate.

I'm also laying in a supply of healthy stuff, too. Apples, pears, granola, almonds, walnuts, carrots, peppers. Green tea. Ravenous is the only word to describe me after a lengthy writing session. Last year I gobbled too many Oreos.

5. Jamba Juice cash. Just like last year, for every 10,000 words I write I get my favorite Jamba--Peach Pleasure. Ahhhhhh....

6. Walking shoes ready. Do you realize how many authors use long walking sessions as a time to work out character and plot? Stephen King and Julia Cameron are two well known ones. No iPods allowed--just you and the breeze in your hair. Fresh oxygen to the brain, endorphins, and stronger muscles. Good stuff.

7. Crock Pot. The other people in my house expect some sort of hot meal at least once a day. Every day. Imagine that. I'm digging out my trusty supply of crock pot/one dish meals/easy fix recipes to use. I'm assembling a menu list to post on the fridge. With encouragement those other souls in my house can pick up some of the slack. They'll have to--mom's gonna be writing!

8. I've joined my NaNo buddies online. At the NaNoWriMo website, for sure. The pep talk emails from them are terrific pick me ups. There's a group of local real life NaNo buddies who'll communicate by email each day. My favorite homeschool group of writers has an online meeting place. Plus, I gathered a few email addresses from the NaNo kick off party. I'll be emailing those folks from time to time. Having a wealth of support is only one of the fabulous benefits of playing the NaNo game. I didn't blog about NaNo last year. I want to this year, so stay tuned!

9. Lastly, I've found a fossil. If you've read Stephen King's 'On Writing' you know he calls a story idea a fossil. When he finds a fossil laying on the ground, he knows there's a story to be excavated nearby. It's his job as the author to extract as much out of the ground as possible. As a gardener I think of story ideas more as a seed that needs to germinate and be nurtured until it is full grown. Either way, I've got an idea in my head....NaNo always calls for something completely new so I'm not so emotionally involved with it that I can't take creative risks. I'm beginning to take notes and form characters. From the characters shall come the plot. I can't wait to see where they will take me.

10. Okay, one more...the good folks who hosted the official kick off party for my region last Sunday gave out some fun goodie bags. Included in it: Chocolate, of course, Marbles (for when I've lost mine), a paper clip (because you never, never, never staple a completed manuscript going to a publisher), a yellow balloon (who doesn't like a yellow balloon?), a small plastic policeman to keep me from wandering, a pen, a word count calendar, colorful star stickers for decorating my calendar after a good writing session. Best of all, there was a trusty NaNoWriMo decal/sticker straight from the writing folks at the Office of Light and Letters.

I'm set. Are you ready to write with abandon?

NaNoWriMo Preparations Part 1

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm on the verge of giddy in anticipation of National Novel Writing Month this year. A little apprehensive as well. NaNoWriMo was such an exhilarating experience in 2008. I want to have the same fun, freeing, and fantastic experience this season.

To that end, I'm doing a few things to prepare. Take a look at my list and see if any of them strikes you as helpful.

1. Reading. I've done some market research by diving into a half dozen current books in my selected genre. Stephen King's 'On Writing' is being savored once more. In a few days, I'll pick up my copy of "No Plot, No Problem" to amp up to November 1st. If you are a writer and haven't read either of these books, remedy that by clicking on the link to the right and getting your own copy. Every writer should have a copy of "On Writing." It is simply the best. R-rated for language, but you knew that about Stephen King anyway, right?

2. Cleaning house. I hate cleaning house, but I love living and working in a tidy, clutter-free, and well decorated space. I'm doing some clutter busting, especially in the kitchen and my writing spaces. If I clean well now, I can ignore vacuuming, dusting, and mopping until December 1, don't you think?

A corollary to this is cleaning out my computer. My poor Traveller (my laptop's name) is packed to the gills with photos, writing, forms, brochures, good stuff and junk. The Pilot Guy and I think my hard drive in on it's last legs. If I get myself in gear, I can transfer my data and get the new drive installed. If not, I'll tidy up in here and defrag so I get the best performance possible.

Grabbing any supplies is a good idea, too. Paper, pens, pencils, white board markers, file folders and disks for backing up every day...lay in your supply now.

More to come in my next post.....

will you be NaNoing this year?

How are you prepping?

NaNoWriMo Prelude

It's almost time!

November is National Novel Writing Month...

thirty insanely fun days of writing with

passion,

abandon,

fervor

and not much skill.

NaNo is one of the creative highlights of my year.

If you've ever thought even for a minute you might like to write a book someday, head for the National Novel Writing Month Website to join in the fun.

Stay tuned to the next few posts here to see how I'm prepping for NaNo

50,124

I DID IT!

Yesterday, I crossed the finish line in the NaNoWriMo challenge!

50,124 words written in 25 days.

The novel has a decent beginning and a reasonable end. The middle....well, let's just say that Indiana Jones with a map, a native guide, and a GPS couldn't find his way through there. That's okay, it is fixable. Nora Roberts says you can't fix a blank page. My pages are NOT blank. How cool is that?

I told someone else that this is a bit like having a baby. The little critter is here, but the work is not at an end. The book still needs lots of nurturing and raising.

But it's there. A story. That's the coolest part of this.

I have created.

I'm feeling a bit Wonder Womanish these days! Can you tell?

Wild, reckless, rough, rustic...the journey was often stressful, insane, and very exhilarating. I learned things about my creative abilities I don't know I could have learned any other way....and I've been a professional creative soul most of my adult life. That's saying a lot.

Whatever you create with, how ever you create....take a challenge...do it with ABANDON and JOY!

The Wild Ride

Things I've learned from a week of NaNo writing.

1. Deadlines and goals are good things.

2. I can set aside time to write. The key is DOING it.

3. First drafts can be wonky. In fact, they should be.

4. Having friends along for the journey is the best part.

5. I'm ravenous after a writing session. Having healthy snacks available is imperative. Leftover Halloween candy is dangerous.

6. Two thousand words a day no longer seems like a lot.

I don't know how these lessons will translate into my other creative pursuits, but I'm anxious to find out.

NaNoWriMo

It's contagious. A rampant virus is sweeping the world causing glazed eyes, aching wrists, numb posteriors, and exploding brains. And I've come down with it.

What's it called?

NaNoWriMo

Or for those who don't speak abbreviations ~ The National Novel Writing Month.

For the month of November, participates go more than a little nuts with their writing. The goal is 50,000 words in 30 days. In other words, its all about quantity, not quality.

It's all about locking up your internal editor and writing with glee, ignoring bad grammar, ignoring all those icky writing 'rules' and even ignoring glaring plot holes. Writing, writing, writing. Dumping a tangle of nouns, verbs, and adjectives on the pages and sorting them out not at all.

As an exercise in pure creativity, NaNo excels. Writers push past the editorial guards at the gates of our minds and into the rare air of sheer fun creativity.

I read recently about studies done on patients with frontal lobe damage to their brains. That's the part of your brain that shuts down your stupid factor. As in 'no, you do not want to jump off the house, on to the trampoline, and into the pool'--kinda thing. It seems this part of the brain also judges your creative efforts as you do them. And it's a harsh critic. We learn too young to tone down our impulses in order to fit in to society.

Strikingly enough, studies showed that if the frontal lobe is damaged, often the person shows vast leaps in creative endeavors. Painting, music, art of all kinds. They lose many of their inhibitions, too. Dancing in the streets, anyone?

The NaNo project is designed to totally circumvent your frontal lobe. Writers are invited to send their internal editor to the NaNo kennels for the duration. Writers are urged to wear silly hats while they write. To follow wordly rabbit trails. To eat outrageous amounts of chocolate and consume gallons of coffee. To skip showering, housekeeping, and all social engagements. All in the name of writing.

The madness continues for a month.

How can you kick your own creativity in gear if you are not a NaNowriter?

Be a NaNo...whatever. Potter, quilter, gardener......

I saw a lovely photo of a "NaNo" style garden last spring. The gardener had opened one of those cans of wildflower garden seeds you see at the garden center. She had cast them with abandon in a vacant side yard and watered a bit.

The photo she showed was i n c r e d i b l e. Riotous blooms in all sizes, shapes, and colors. The garden broke every rule of gardening, and it was awesome.

So...for the month of November....

Send your internal editor to the kennel to keep mine company.

Work fast.

Break some rules.

Do exactly what pleases your heart.

Join me this month in creating with ABANDON. Let loose the reins and have a blast!

My word count today....3,078. Yay!