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Planning Your Writing Time

April 12th 2010 12:29
In an attempt to help balance life, school, and writing, I've tried many times-and failed many times-to plan structured writing time. This includes scheduling which hours to write in, what to write in those hours, which days to do how much writing, and a constant debate in my head-does reading blogs count as writing time?

If you've been following my blog for a long time, you've probably seen my attempts to schedule my time. If you haven't, then you might have missed them. Long story short, in the last six months I've tried several times to schedule my writing, but I've never fully succeeded. I'll always reach one or two sessions, but other than that, my writing time just happens when it happens.

This month (and next month, and the month after that) I'm going to try something different. In the past I've tried to schedule hours based on when I thought I would be getting home and when I thought I would be waking up. My sleeping patterns are so erratic, as are my day to day patterns, that this didn't work out too well.

Instead of planning out specific times, this time around I'm going to try to plan out days. I'm going to decide what is going to get done each day, and a general idea of when I'm going to do it, but other than that, I'll leave it up to the flow.

You can see the beginnings of my 'schedule' here. As time goes by, I'll let you know how well I'm managing to follow it.

Do you schedule your writing time? Why or why not?
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The Last Day

March 31st 2010 13:17
Today is the last day of Nanoedmo and of March. It's also the last day of this editing workshop.

To those of you who have finished or will finish by the end of today-congratulations. You've come a long way this month and done a lot of hard work. Give yourself a reward.

To those of you who haven't finished your second draft and who probably won't have finished your second draft by the end of the day, don't beat yourself up. Just keep working at it, give yourself a pat on the back for what you've done, set a new completion date, and work at it bit by bit, day by day. Don't give up on your novel if it's a complete mess-as long as you still love your story, it's worth rewriting until you've done it justice.

I'll be continuing my own editing, hoping to finish my second draft by April fifteenth. The workshop is over, but you can expect to see updates here throughout the coming month on how my novel's coming along, and you're welcome to comment here and let me know how yours is doing.

Thanks for reading.
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Final March Prompt

March 30th 2010 12:11
Today I want you to write to the following prompt:

Falling out of a tree.

Go crazy with it, and if you end up with something awesome, I'd love to read it.
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Almost Closing Time

March 29th 2010 12:06
NanoEdmo, and the month of March, is almost over. With any luck, and minimal interference, you should be finishing off your second draft, almost ready to write 'the end' once again. During these final days, you're going to be concerned with how your novel will end, reaching an ending that will give both you and your readers satisfaction.

If you're writing a stand alone book, read through your rewritten chapters and make sure there aren't any plot threads that have been dropped. If there are, pick them up again and finish them off. Write a satisfying end to the story you've been writing, but don't end your book on a static note. Just because the evil overlord has been defeated or the two characters have been married doesn't mean that your world and your characters won't face future challenges. It's not 'happily ever after'. Your characters are living, breathing people and they will continue to be so after the book is done


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Simple Editing Exercise and Update

March 25th 2010 12:04
Sorry I didn't post yesterday. I've been really tired this week. My editing is coming along slowly but nicely, my words for the year are 84K plus change, far behind where I wanted to be but still better than last year at this time.

Today I've got a simple exercise for you to do


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Prompt Time!

March 23rd 2010 12:58
Sorry I didn't post yesterday; let's just say the weekend was eventful, shall we?

If you're terribly behind, I am too, but rather than dwell on how behind you are, use this prompt to get the words flowing and then go on to start your editing for the day


[ Click here to read more ]
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Three Great Editing Links

March 19th 2010 12:35
Some more great links for you:

~He said, she said: thoughts on dialogue is a post on Magical Words talking about dialogue. It's got several interesting points to consider when editing your own dialogue scenes


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Editing Exercise Two: Dialogue Tags

March 18th 2010 12:06
Today's exercise is about dialogue tags.

You want dialogue to stand on its own. Dialogue tags shouldn't have to explain how your character said it. A reader should be able to tell who's speaking fairly easily without any dialogue tags at all, but you also don't want to go too long in a scene without dialogue tags


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When Everything Is Just Too Much

October 4th 2008 23:28
So let me tell you something. School is stressing me out; I'm trying to force myself to go but it isn't working very well. Things at home aren't pleasant either. I'm stressed; so stressed that I've been sick on and off for two weeks now. Nanowrimo is on the horizon.

It's times like these when anybody-writer or otherwise-starts to wonder about all their obligations and if they're worth it. It's times like these when normally I would abandon the blog for weeks at a time; I'm trying not to. It's sort of working. It's times like these when we just want to throw in the towel


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