Wednesday Check-in
Posted: March 31, 2010 Filed under: Goals, Wednesday Check-in, Writers Write | Tags: Donald Maass Workshop, writers, writing, Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook Leave a comment »Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook: 32 tasks completed out of 591 possible, 8 tasks completed since 3/25
Miles walked: 9 since 3/25
Three days this week, I woke up at 5:45 a.m. I was writing by 6:00. I’ve never been a morning person, but I think there is something to starting before I’m completely awake. The creative mind engages before the censor says, no.
My worst day, Sunday, I didn’t write or walk. I was in a bad mood all day. I won’t do that again.
All in all, I had a good week.
Stupid Writer Tricks or Stuff That’s Working For Me
Posted: March 28, 2010 Filed under: Aha!, Writers Write | Tags: perception, time wasters, writers, writing Leave a comment »- Single space the manuscript. I learned this at David Hewson’s blog. I thought it would make me crazy or at least blind, but I’m able to see repetitive words. David says, “If you write double spaced on-screen the number of words you will see will be greatly reduced. That means it’s harder to spot when you repeat yourself, harder to follow what’s gone before. Change your line spacing from double to single or 1.5 and you get greater control over your work. Control is one of the biggest challenges there is.” And speaking of repetitive words . . .
- I’ve written about Wordle before, but recently I revisited the website, pasting in with the current manuscript. I use like, back, know, and just too often. When an insignificant word looms large in the word cloud, it’s time to cut.
- I was reading Betsy Lerner’s book, The Forest for the Trees when I had an Aha! moment. If I can’t quit web surfing and start writing, it’s because I’m feeling isolated. The solution is to go to Las Palapas or to the bookstore or Starbucks. Parked in a booth or at the counter on a stool, I swill coffee and write to the sound human voices until the scene is finished.
- Like the summer I spent painting houses after college, a mind numbingly boring exercise reminds me to get back to writing. Lately, I have two tasks: peeling wallpaper off the master bath wall–score, spray, peel, repeat; and pulling weeds out of my flower bed–place a hula hoop on the ground and pull all the weeds in the circle. After a few minutes, I’m ready to write.
- Eat a live frog every morning. Seriously. Watch this.
Wednesday Check-in
Posted: March 24, 2010 Filed under: Goals, Wednesday Check-in, Writers Write | Tags: Donald Maass Workshop, walking, writers, writing, Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook 2 Comments »
A few weeks ago, I posted a graph in the left sidebar. The widget came from tickerfactory.com While I like the idea of showing forward progress, the ticker doesn’t really work for me. It doesn’t really fit in the narrow sidebar or show the comparison of tasks accomplished from one week to the next. I randomly chose to show the number of chapters completed in The Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook instead of the number of tasks completed from the Follow-up Work Checklist. Some chapters have one item to complete, others upwards of thirty.
To remedy this, once a week on Wednesdays, I’ll post the amount work accomplished (or not) for the previous week. I confess that in the dates between March 12 and March 22, I completed zero items. Granted, one child had surgery, both children were on spring break, and my husband started a new job. I know. Excuses. Excuses. I’ve got to do better.
Also, I’m walking every day. I think it might keep me honest if I post the my miles for the week. So, here’s my progress, charted manually.
Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook: 24 completed out of 591 possible, 2 completed since 3/22
Miles walked: 3 since 3/22
