Blog Chain: Where and When

This round of the chain was started by Tere. She asked:

What conditions do you need to get your best writing done? Closed door, crowded coffee house? Computer or notebook? Can you just sit down to write, or do you need to wait for the time to be right?

This varies for me. If I'm on a roll, I can usually tune everything out (TV, video game noise, fighting children) and just write. Okay, that's not entirely true. My oldest daughter has recently developed the habit of listening to her current favorite song over and over and over. And over. This is VERY distracting and does stop me from making progress.

Any other time, if I'm stuck or I find that I'm easily distracted by email, Facebook, Twitter, and other internet things, it usually means the story isn't going in the right direction. Once I realize this is happening--I'm slow, so sometimes it takes me a while--I'll grab a notebook and move somewhere without immediate access to my computer. And in this situation, I need quiet, so I can think.

Now, I'm not saying I can't find ways to procrastinate with just a pen and paper. My notebooks are filled with doodles in the margins and in between paragraphs. But those are usually pretty mindless and help me think. And I don't know what it is about notebooks, but they have this magical way of getting me unstuck. One time, I was stuck on a scene for over a week. Every time I sat down and opened Word, I made no progress. But as soon as I turned to the notebook, it all worked itself out, and it only took me a couple of hours. Totally magical. ;)

As far as time of day or location, it doesn't matter. With kids, I've had to learn to be flexible.

What conditions do you need to get your best writing done?

Be sure to check out Jon's post from Wednesday and Amparo's post tomorrow. :)

Blog Chain: Greatest Accomplishment

This round was started by Michelle Hickman. She asked:

This is the month in creating writing goals and making big accomplishments. What is your greatest accomplishment -- in writing, your life or perhaps something incidental that had a big effect on you?

I'd like to say I've accomplished a lot over the years, but my life seems to be filled with many, many half-finished projects and ideas that probably could've gone somewhere if I hadn't gotten bored with them. At one point, I thought maybe my kids were an accomplishment, but truthfully, they're really only halfway to adulthood. Not that I'm giving up on them, not at all, but most of the time, I think the accomplishment belongs to them, for surviving another day with me as their nutso mother. ;)

Two years ago I probably would've said my greatest accomplishment was that I'd written a novel, start to finish. And I could've stopped there, patted myself on the back, and congratulated myself on actually finishing something. But now I know it wasn't really finished, and I think deep down I knew it then too. My subconscious just knew better than to make me aware of that fact because it probably would've stopped me from moving forward. I mean, a year to rewrite the entire thing from scratch and then another nine months to do it again? Talk about daunting.

So, at this point, I'll say my greatest writerly accomplishment is sticking with that story until it was as good as I could make it, despite HATING it at least 50% of the time I was working on it. Now I just have to muster the courage to query the thing. I know I said I sent a query out a couple of weeks ago (and I did), but that one doesn't really count since it came with a safety net. It's those this is your ONE chance to impress me queries that keep stalling me. Maybe that'll be my actual greatest accomplishment: hitting send on an email. ;)

What about you? What is your greatest accomplishment, writing or otherwise?

Be sure to check out Jon's post from Tuesday and Amparo's post tomorrow. :)

The Hunger Games!!!

Can't wait! :)

NaNo... Out... Mo?

I'm sure all of you are aware that NaNoWriMo starts today. I thought about participating, but I just can't write that fast. I'm too much of a perfectionist. Yes, I realize getting over perfectionism is a really good reason to do NaNoWriMo, but I think it would be counterproductive for me. I tried it once, for a week and a half, and I wrote a lot (around 18,000 words). But I got so burnt out, I couldn't write anything for like a month. So, yeah, not happening.

I'm a pantser through and through, but I think I might be able to outline successfully if I really dedicate myself. So that's what I'm gonna do. I've had a story bouncing around in my head for several months now as I've been wrapping up the last round of rewrites on Embrol. And now that I'm querying Embrol--first query goes out today (yikes!)--Descent can finally have my undivided attention. Poor Descent. So neglected. ;)

Armed with my shiny new copy of Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success by K. M. Weiland, my goal is to have my whole story completely mapped out by the end of November. And the number one rule is NO WRITING. This will be hard so for me. Every time I try to outline I only make it through three or four chapters before I just want to get going on it already and then it's bye-bye outline and hello 7000 rewrites. :(

So, who's with me? Any pantsers out there who want to join me? Maybe we can form a support group. ;)

Good luck to everyone doing NaNo!

Query Contest

To celebrate her move to Nancy Coffey Literary, Suzie Townsend is doing an awesome query contest. Submit your query to her between 9-10 am EDT tomorrow and she'll respond with complete honesty. Totally scary, but so awesome at the same time.

Plus, in the comments she said that if you query her for the contest and she rejects you, you can resubmit your revised query later as a regular query. And if you've queried her before and been rejected, you can still submit to the contest. So cool, right?

You can check out all the details, here. Don't wait. The entry window is really small. Good luck to all of you who enter! :)