What are your days filled with?

I've had some technical difficulties with my blog, but hopefully I've figured them out. And I've been spending more time working on my novels than blogging. I do hope to improve my blogging schedule.

To do that, I'm starting with the goal to do mostly book reviews, some author interviews, and doing some links to things I find interesting when it comes to writing.

First off, I'm going for my 3rd time to LDStorymakers writers conference in May. I've already signed up. I even signed up to do a pitch to a real agent. Just thinking about it makes me nervous, but it's still exciting.
 If you want to know more about LDStorymakers conference go HERE  I've loved it the other times I've gone. It's during mother's day weekend, but it's gonna be my gift to myself and from my husband (who will be staying home with 5 kids to experience "Mommyhood" himself. He'll do great.)


Also, I won NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month. So basically, I wrote 50,000 new words on a new project in the month of November. I also got a certificate, and a cool little button.

 

I've got 2 projects in the work right now. 2 completed MS. One is ready to send out to agents and publishers by query. The second will be reviewed again to see what needs to happen to get it ready to send out into the world.

 

So, my days are filled with writing things: Facebook to socialize with people outside my imagination, imaginary friends, magic, betrayal, love, kissing, research, laptop, reading, daydreaming...

 as well as my motherly things: diapers, dinner, lunch, dishes, breakfast, dishes, laundry, diapers, homework, kisses, love, joy, diapers, tantrums, reading board books, and so on...

but I love it all .

 

What are your days filled with?

We can learn from our mistakes. (I mean experiences)

I have been writing furiously on a few different projects lately and have come to discover that sometimes I don't like what I'm writing. I'm not saying that my story is junk, I'm just saying I'm not feeling the love for it right now.

I've been forcing myself to finish a story thinking the only way I could get better at writing was to finish it and learn from the experience. While I believe that is true, it is also true if you don't write what you love and love what you're writing then no one else will.

I had a partial request that just came back as a "no thank you". And while it was dissapointing that they didn't want it, I also discovered that I feel relief knowing the next project I work on doesn't have to be the follow up that would go with that story. This is the thing I've been working on recently and what I did my NaNoWriMo project on.

So in my last post I made myself a challenge to do a mini writing month and get 30,000 words written. I am still going to do that, but as a writer/creator I can decide what project it will be on. I have another story that's been percolating in the back of my mind that I'll be jumping into. I'm excited to see where it goes.

There are also a few blogs and things I've read recently that I thought I'd share so you can benefit too. I hope they are as helpful to you as they've been for me.

Reading this blog post from Natalie Whipple gave me some much needed reminders and lessons I can learn through her experience. Check it out HERE

Betsy Love, a friend of mine online, though I feel like I know her in real life though I've never met her had this on her blog.It's some great information about what agents and editors really care about. Check it out HERE

Also a couple of agents or blogs or podcasts about writing I think are great

Writing Excuses

Nathan Bransford

Rachelle Gardner

Please share in the comments some blogs or websites I should look into. Thanks

Laura

Another month filled with words.

I enjoyed the writing abandon of NaNoWriMo so much that I'm going to do my own month of writing here in March.
I managed to churn out the 50,000 words in November, though some of them were repeats and do overs, and begin agains, I was able to keep at least 30,000 of those after doing an edit to get the story straight in my mind again. So my goal for this month is to write 30,000 new words.

I plan to write them on the same story I did in November, which happens to be a follow up story of my most recent completed novel. I figure doing 30K is a realistic goal and I have a group on FB I'll be reporting to so I'll have incentive to keep going. Plus, getting this story closer to completion is always a reward in itself.

So you fun readers who see my blog. What other kind of reward should I give myself if I accomplish my goal. (Can't cost more than $10, but free or low-low cost would be even better) And what should be my consequence if I don't complete it? I need your suggestions.

Laura

NaNoWriMo!

What is that you ask?

NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. For the month of November, thousands of writers sit before their laptop, or desktop or whatever and write write write. The goal is to reach 50,000 words starting on November 1st at 12 am and make it to the goal by Nov 30 by 11:59. To do this, they are supposed to write at least 1,667 words per day.

I got an email since I signed up for them through the NaNoWriMo website and this is some advice given.

1. Don't edit.
2. Do everything you absolutely can to make the minimum words, 1,667, for each day. Falling behind makes this task seem so much more daunting when you realize you're 5,000 words behind.
3. Don't try to force your imagination to bend (completely) to your will. Sometimes your story will go off in a completely different direction; don't worry about it. The entire thing will come together in the end.
4. Don't edit.
5. If you're halfway through and realize you just killed your main character don't panic. Pick minor character that you've grown attached to and run with them.
6. Don't edit.
7. Even if you decide to start over don't delete the words you already have. Add a few enter spaces and just keep going.
8. There is no such thing as the perfect novel and it definitely won't be what you wrote in 30 days. It's called a 'rough draft' for a reason. Just remember you can't edit the draft that doesn't exist.
9. Don't edit.
10. Seriously, don't edit.

I've just gotten off a long edit of my most recent manuscript, and so it has been a little difficult to not go back through and edit what I just wrote. I know the whole goal of writing that many words a day will mean alot of those words are just ready to be cut and are really embarrassing showing that I don't have any writing skills at all. But that is what a rough draft is for.

Once you get the story out onto the screen you can go back and fix it all later.
So here is to a fun and enjoyable month of writing, (or as my husband might say... "here's to a month where nothing else gets done")

But I sure am having fun already. I've only been at it for one day and I already have 3,724 words. With many more to come.

Hope you all have a great month, and if you are nano-ing, let me know how you like it.

Laura