Writer-In-Progress

Of all social media outlets, Twitter is my favorite. Where else can I converse with my favorite soap-opera star and discover the latest political argument all at the same time?

In case you didn’t know, Twitter is a mecca for writers and creative minds of all types. And the advice! Everything from plots to conflict to character and submissions…well, check out these tweets below for yourself, then stop by and and say hi at Twitter. You can find me at @Buckeye_BethM.

Tweet you soon!

Six types of antagonist. Which is yours? tinyurl.com/bxwm9le

— K.M. Weiland (@KMWeiland) November 6, 2012

Writer’s Roadmap – Using Excel Keep Your Novel Organized wp.me/pU4r9-1OZ

— Jenny Hansen (@JennyHansenCA) November 7, 2012

Writers, do you know how to create “moments” so you don’t bore your readers? awe.sm/5lWeg #amwriting #writetip #writers #authors

— Susanne Lakin (@CSLakin) November 7, 2012

It’s NANOWRIMO Time! What is it & 25 things you need to know about it ow.ly/f4ZQo #wip #writegoal #WritingTip

— K. P. Kollenborn (@KPKollenborn) November 7, 2012

5 ways to increase conflict: bit.ly/VHvZjC @eileenwriter

— Elizabeth S Craig(@elizabethscraig) November 7, 2012

Make Point of View Work for You: Writing the Male POV wp.me/p3Ak6-Ia #amwriting #nanowrimo

— Kaye Dacus (@kayedacus) November 7, 2012

Be Inspired By This Intimate Look At Ian Rankin’s Writing Process via @fuelyourwriting bit.ly/T2cxhF

— Joanna Penn (@thecreativepenn) November 13, 2012

• Comments Off
• Filed in NaNoWriMo, Twitter

I agree–it’s been a while since I’ve posted. I’ve even gone through the motions of declaring this blog defunct. But something in the water at NaNoWriMo.org has me itching to write a new blog post, and, after all, it is my blog!

I wasn’t planning to sign up for NaNo this year. Over the summer, I eked out my first contemporary romance manuscript in …let’s say 8…years, and put my nose to the grindstone for revisions. Problem was, those revisions were going nowhere. Fast. So after much cajoling from various writing Tweeps, I gave in at the eleventh hour and put my hat in the ring for NaNo. (I’m BuckeyeBeth if you want to join me and my crew at Nanowrimo.org).

While pounding out nearly 3k words on this inaugural day, I realized several things that will be key to me meeting my 50K word (and, with any luck, 2nd draft) goal by the end of the month–and I think you’ll agree they’re worth considering to help you, too.

In no particular order:

1. Get connected
Writers live in a vacuum and it ain’t always fun. Hook up with other word nerds attempting NaNo by creating (and adding details to) your own site at Nanawrimo.org. If you can’t find friends, hop on over to Twitter, where you can search one of several hashtags for like-minded writers. Try, obviously, #nano, #nanowrimo, #writegoal or #amwriting. Tweet up a couple folks, see if you can friend them and develop a real relationship with people who are facing the same challenges as you for the next thirty days.

2. Fire the Internal Editor
If you’re joining NaNo to write the next NYT best seller, you’re in the wrong place. This writing challenge isn’t about perfection, it’s about performance. It’s about endurance. It’s about caffeinating yourself to the point of working on autopilot–but it is NOT about creating a salable book on the first try. Several NaNoers have managed to sell manuscripts they created during NaNo, but not before editing and revision and gnashing of teeth. (You know the drill). Get your creativity and dedication in order–and leave the editor at home.

3. Prime the Pump With Longhand
I hear you complaining now–I can’t count my handwritten work (actually, you can. I did it one year. Filled up three notebooks. Find details on verification here). But when you get stuck (you know what I mean), switching modalities (i.e. changing your method of work) can have serious implications on keeping you moving. If you find you’re stuck for words, plot, character, setting–anything–try switching to handwriting for a bit. Not forever and no need to work til your hand cramps. Just enough to get things flowing again. I promise, it will happen. (If you’re really interested, this was part of my M.Ed work. I can talk about it forever. But right now, I must get back to the wordsmithing.)

4. Create a Challenge
This one should really come beneath the ‘Connect’ advice. If you’re in need of speed, challenge someone. On Twitter, tweet to see if anyone wants to do a sprint or two. Make it an hour, thirty minutes or ten minutes, and report back to each other. If no one takes you up, or you’d rather suffer alone, check out Write or Die (“putting the ‘prod’ in productivity is their tagline. Love it!). Download to your desktop, set a time and a severity of punishment and just GO. I guarantee when you’re stuck, someone else is as well. Use it to your advantage. Make friends and up the word count. What’s not to like?

5. Reward
My personal favorite. If you’re struggling to hit a self-imposed goal (or a suggested one), find some way to reward yourself to get you over the hump. We’re talking small here–no Amazon.com shopping sprees, but maybe a half-hour break to watch something on the DVR (maybe in the name of research if it’s along the lines of your genre), a fresh cup of coffee, a handful of chocolate, a ten-minute power nap. Whatever it is, make it completely off-limits until you reach your goal. There’s no reason to put off a reward until you hit that elusive 50K. A set of small goals can be just as, if not more, motivational in the long run.

And you’re in it for the long run, honey. It’s not a sprint.

Now that you’ve started up the writing engines, what other tricks would you share with NaNoers? Share them below–I’d love to hear what you come up with!

• 1 Comment
• Filed in NaNoWriMo

Original titles are overrated…lol.

I know the posts have been sparing over the last week or two. These two grad classes (dumb idea, two classes the same semester, even if one is online and the other real-life) are excellent for the thinking they inspire but not so excellent in terms of leaving me time to have a life. But one is drawing to a close soon–good news!

The last week, though, my mind hasn’t been on any of that class work. It’s been focused on a couple of discussions I’ve had with author colleagues about the nature of writing. Not the business/selling/publishing point of view, but the idea of what actually makes a writer a writer. These were separate conversations with two people who didn’t know each other but both got me on the tangent of thinking (again–if you read this blog at all you’ll know I harp on this often) about the process of writing BETWEEN the sales and publishing.

So many people get a bug in their brain that they want to be a writer because they see the fruition of our work: a new book sold, a booksigning with other authors, keynote speeches at a conference, an agent hawking our manuscript to New York publishers, our websites crowing our successes–but I was struck by how little these “wannabe” authors (not the colleagues but people they have met) have a true grip on the things we do BETWEEN these events to put ourselves in the position of selling, signing and speaking. There’s this notion of if I just sit down for a couple of weeks, all day every day, I will  write a best-seller, get the same treatment and have the same success as (my favorite authors)–and for those of us who’ve spent our lives writing, that’s about as true as believing you’ll become an NBA player if you start on your high school varsity team.

It’s the work in between those pinnacles that makes us the writer, not being able to shout to the masses from those pinnacles. I’m not belittling those grand moments in any way–I’m all for publishing (lol).

Which brings me, in my usual long-winded-thought fashion, to the point of my (slightly pilfered) post title. The common belief is that selling work makes a writer a writer, but I am under the belief that writing daily makes a writer a writer. Highly effective writers have one commonality despite genre, sales numbers, personal levels of fame and societal popularity: the one habit of highly effective writers is, quite simply, that they write daily (or at least almost daily.)

What do you think about this? Agree, disagree, think I fell out of a coconut tree and banged my head on the sand? I’m curious to know what you believe delineates a writer from an effective writer.Think about it, leave me a comment. Then get back to writing, not blog commenting

• 1 Comment
• Filed in BethWorld, Writer's Life

As promised, to follow up on that little gem of self-doubt I posted Wednesday about All the Reasons I Can’t Write, today’s post is dedicated to the opposite: all the reasons I can and should write.

I wasn’t in a bad mindset when I wrote the Can’t post. In fact, I was in a very good, very creative and receptive mindset, which is all the difference. When you bemoan your writing skills and abilities from a negative point of view, you’re only going to make them seem all the more real to you, and what your mind perceives as real it assumes as real–even when it isn’t. So why torture yourself when you’re feeling bad by telling yourself more reasons you need to feel bad about your writing?

It was enlightening, almost entertaining, to see all the excuses I gave for not writing memoir and essay. Some of those reasons were so ridiculous that I practically smiled as I typed them (I wrote the actual list back in August and just unearthed it). I want to dive into a little bit deeper analysis of those negative ideas at some point–but in the meantime, here’s my counterargument for all the reasons I can write.

All The Reasons I Can (And Should Be) Writing

• I see patterns in language most people do not.
• Every life event happens for a reason.
• People like my writing.
• I need to discipline myself to be more creative.
• Lemons.
• There are so many markets out there for my work.
• I am funny. My life is nowhere near normal.
• I think up great beginnings.
• I always feel an urge to tell a story about events.
• I want to honor those people in my life who make the most difference with stories.
• I am very good at writing shorter pieces.
• Not only am I a teacher, my life is a teacher.
• I have so many memories it would be a shame not to share them.
• Friends often ask when my next piece is coming out.
• I won the first memoir contest I entered so I must be good at it.

Your turn. Why are you still writing? What keeps you going on the piece you’re working on when all other voices tell you to stop? What are your writing truths?

• Comments Off
• Filed in BethWorld, Writer's Life

I don’t know about all of my creative friends, but there are days I struggle with writing, creating, getting into the right mindset for writing and feeling my writing is more than just a pile of pig poop drawing flies in the hot summer sun.

Fortunately, at this moment, I’m not in that mindset. But I am sorta struggling with a direction to take in terms of my writing. I’ve got three large irons in the fire and at the moment, I’m grappling with the quality of my memoir and essay writing. Now, granted, this might have something to do with the contest rejection I received over the weekend, but rejections don’t normally send me spinning–I take rejection as a sign that my piece wasn’t meant to be wherever I sent it, and I send it out again.

But my memoir work seems to be what I’m questioning most now–for whatever reason. I thought that since I’m in a good, positive frame of mind right now, I’d investigate the reasons why I think I can’t write memoir. Now, kids, be sure you try this at home, but NOT (absolutely NOT) when you are in a negative frame of mind. It’s not the right perspective, and you will do serious damage to your creative soul if you explore your writing psyche while you’re already kicked to the curb. Save it for a time when things are going well, when you feel positive. It adds a certain amount of levity as well as perspective to the exercise–and really, you can get a better grip on why your excuses are really, quite lame

All The Reasons I Can’t (Or Shouldn’t) Write Memoir:

• I don’ t know how.
• Not enough memories or life experiences.
• Nothing interesting ever happens to me.
• My truth may hurt others.
• I can’t write for more than an hour at a time.
• I can’t finish essays/memoir pieces.
• I don’t know any publishers, agents or editors.
• I can’t always find the truth in the piece.
• I can’t always find the universality in the piece.
• It’s hard to tell the truth.
• All of my friends write romance; I don’t have any memoir friends.
• I’m never sure which piece to work on.
• I’m not published in full-length fiction.
• I can’t sustain a book of memoir.
• I don’t have enough memories for a full-length book.
• Teaching crunches my time for 180 days a year.
• I am so afraid of incompletion I may never start writing.
• I won the first memoir contest I entered so I’m a one-hit wonder.

Fascinating. I actually wrote this list back at the start of the school year–August–but the idea really resonated with me today as I whined about not knowing what to work on. As I typed some of these, the immediate untruth about them (“I can’t write more than an hour at a time”) struck me. I’m truthfully tempted to write a series of blog posts on each one of these to debunk their assumed power over my creative thought process.

I may do that. In the meantime, I think I will also write a list of all the reasons I can write. Let’s see where that takes me. What about you? What excuses are you giving yourself that limit your creativity?

• Comments Off
• Filed in Random Writing Stuff, Writer's Life

I’m in a unique time-burp right now: a place without deadlines. I’ve got freelance pieces on the calendar, but nothing pressing at the moment (I schedule lightly during the school year), I sent out my last due piece two weeks ago, and I just finished edits on a short piece this past weekend.

I’m living on no deadlines or obligations at this moment in time. What an odd feeling.

If I had to compare it, it’d be like being left alone in a candy store with a fifty burning a hole in my pocket–good and bad elements to this. On the good side, I can start something new. Those ideas that have been haunting me around every corner: the article on voice, the essay on cake, the memoir on Easter candy…they’re all there, ready to dive into. I can’t speak for all writers, but for myself, that moment of being able to begin a new piece, pen perched on the first line of a clean, blank page, is absolute bliss for me. I love most parts of the writing process for different reasons, but there’s a charge of electric adrenaline when I get to start something new. Also on the good side is that there’s no ‘dread’ of perfection that always seem to creep in near the end of deadlines.

On the flip side, there are TOO many choices. Do I work toward my freelance, my nonfiction or my book-writing goal? Do I start something with the potential to be published soon or that will factor into a bigger piece, a possible book down the road? There are so many questions in this candy store that I’ve just stood in the aisle for the better part of 30 minutes lost in the swirl of color and promise of sugary sweetness without making the first move toward anything in particular.

And that fifty bucks is still burning a hole in my pocket.

What about you? What do you do in those unusually rare moments between deadlines, when you’ve got a day or two to breathe before launching into something new, expected or promised? I’d like to hear that you’re as overwhelmed and paralyzed into inaction as me…LOL…. So ‘fess up: what do you do in your special place of no deadlines?

• Comments Off
• Filed in BethWorld, Writer's Life

Last week, I mentioned my goals as set with the Serious Writers for the month of March:

• finish an essay on the topic of anger to submit to a contest by March 16th
• submit 5 new query letters for freelance articles
• submit one other essay (I have several choices) for publication
• propose my freelance workshop to three potential online venues

Today’s update:

• anger essay has been finished but still needs work
• submitted one query, received a rejection a few days later with a request to resubmit the idea in six months (I’m taking that as a positive).
• have not submitted another essay yet
• have not submitted the workshop idea yet

On a different note, I decided to apply to the Kenyon Review Writer’s Workshop in June. Kenyon is near and dear to my heart–I grew up in the next town over and rode my bike to campus frequently growing up. I knew I could never afford college there and I didn’t have the grades for admission, but I loved it anyway. This summer, I want to expand myself outside of my usual writer workshop/conference comfort zone and thought Kenyon would do the trick.

And they accepted me! I got my letter yesterday before going out with friends, so I’m really thrilled to be participating in that at the end of June. Definitely put a boost in my creative step with that news.

How about you? How are your goals coming along? Feel free to post what you’d like to accomplish this week. For me, I’m going to center on sending out four queries and approaching one workshop venue. I’ll let you know how it goes…

• Comments Off
• Filed in Writer's Life

I wanted to start setting my writing goals on Sunday but yesterday proved too much to do for that. Ok, maybe not too much, considering that after my grandma’s 81st birthday party, I basically sat around with the boy watching hoops all afternoon. He monopolized the computer–that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Thursday I met with the Serious Writers–who are now down to three (me included) and we set our tri-weekly goal for our next coffee and cookie gab session. My 3 week goal is as follows:

• finish an essay on the topic of anger to submit to a contest by March 16th
• submit 5 new query letters for freelance articles
• submit one other essay (I have several choices) for publication
• propose my freelance workshop to three potential online venues

So far, so good. Saturday I managed to finish most of the second draft of the anger essay but as always, I’m tearing out my hair over the conclusion. I submitted a query letter Saturday too, to a new market I’ve not yet written for but that I’d like to break into. I’ve not approached the second essay yet–want to get done with the anger one first, and I finalized my freelance workshop proposal (I’ve taught this several times online , just needed to refresh the proposal) and am seeking out venues.

Not too bad. I’ve also got a couple of additional goals I didn’t mention on Thursday that have something to do with a secret little writing project I’ve got going–worked on that Saturday as well. All in all, the muse is cooperating. Gotta remember to get her more chocolate today–she’s far more compliant with chocolate.

How about you? What are your weekly, bi-weekly, tri-weekly or monthly writing goals? More importantly, do you have enough chocolate (and whatever other vice(s) your muse requires) to get you there?

• Comments Off
• Filed in Writer's Life

This contest is near and dear to my heart because I spent a year of my life being the coordinator for it.

Ignite the Flame, the annual contest of the Central Ohio Fiction Writers (the RWA group of Columbus, OH) is now open for submissions. If you’ve got a manuscript ready, enter the hero & heroine’s first meet in these sub-genres:

Young Adult Erotic Romance
Suspense Romance Historical Romance
Single Title Paranormal Romance
Category-Length Contemporary

Laura Bradford: Young Adult (Agent at Bradford Literary Agency)
Deb Werksman: Historical Romance (Editor at Sourcebooks)
Charles Griesman: Category-Length Contemporary (Editor at Harlequin)
Marlene Stringer: Suspense Romance (Agent at Stringer Literary Agency LLC)
Susannah Taylor: Single Title (Agent at Richard Henshaw Group)
Leis Penderson: Paranormal Romance (Editor at Berkley Publishing Group)
Lindsey Farber: Erotic Romance (Editor at Samhain Publishing)

• Comments Off
• Filed in Markets, Writing Contests

Published author? Click on the “For Authors” tab above and request one of the author interviews for WIP readers. We’ll send you the questions and schedule your responses as an upcoming post. Feel free to pass us along to your other published friends. Everyone loves an author interview!

Unpublished author? Click on the “For Authors” tab above and in the request box, send me your most pressing writing questions. Craft, business, creativity, markets…hit me with your best shot! I’ll use your questions as upcoming posts and give you all the credit

• 1 Comment
• Filed in Guest Bloggers, Writer's Life