Writers in the Storm

by Charlotte Carter

Here we are looking 2012 right smack in the face. If you’re like millions of other people, you’re making resolutions about losing weight and exercising more. Chances are good that 90% of those resolutions will be broken or forgotten by the end of January.

If you are a writer, published or unpublished, you’re hoping this New Year will bring Fame and Fortune. Or more realistically, you’re hoping for a contract that will help to build your career.

I have some suggestions for your New Year’s Resolutions:

1. Make writing a priority. It’s way too easy to get off track if you don’t stick to your guns. Family and friends make demands on you. A good movie opens at the local theater, you promise yourself that you’ll get back to your writing schedule tomorrow. Don’t count on it!

2. Spend time with other writers. No one understands a writer’s fears, failures and successes like another writer. Not even your mother.

3. Don’t let the business get you down. Nora Roberts says, and I believe her, that it was hard to get published when she started writing. Getting published in the traditional way is still hard. Get used to it.

4. Develop a presence on the Internet. Editors do check authors’ blogs and websites. But remember Resolution #1 - don’t spend all of your writing time fussing with your Internet exposure and forget about your goal of being published.

5. Improve your craft. Attend workshops and conferences, take classes online, find a critique group that will encourage you and help you to grow. This is part of making your writing a priority.

6. Keep yourself mentally and physically healthy. Yep, you do have to exercise, spend time with friends and family, and find ways to fill your creative well.

7. Read. A lot. Both in and out of the genre you’re writing. I guarantee that won’t be a burden.

Happy writing in 2012! Here’s to making all your dreams come true.

What are your writing resolutions for the New Year?

Charlotte Carter

Books that leave you smiling -
Big Sky Family, Love Inspired, 10/19/2011
Montana Love Letter, Love Inspired, 10/2012

Secrets of Mary's Bookshop, Guideposts Books, 2012
2011 Book Buyers Best Finalist
www.CharlotteCarter.com

Jenny Hansen here, giving you another little dose of New Year's writing pep. This is the time of year when many of us writers get overwhelmed. You've been hearing from all of us at WITS on the topic:

• Louisa Bacio's post last Friday described how the holidays crowd her writing time.
• Laura Drake encourages writers to savor the moment and break large goals (like your novel) down into small, manageable goals.
• I talked about the most important writing lesson I ever learned.

Today we're talking about setting realistic writing goals as you enter a shiny new year. It's Wednesday, which usually means a ROW80 Update for me over at More Cowbell.

What? You've never heard of A Round of Words In 80 Days?? But it's the writing challenge that knows you have a life! And it starts again in less than a WEEK...January 2nd, to be exact.

None of that is enough for you to click the link above? Fine. I see you're gonna make me pull out the BIG GUNS.

I'm sponsoring the next round.

That means I get to slap around cheer on all the ROW80 participants. (Yeah, I'm looking at YOU...) Encourage them with their goals. Visit their blogs and drag them kicking and screaming away from their Boo-Hoo Chair when the writing week has them cowering in the corner behind the couch.

I know you're enticed NOW. I've been part of ROW80 for two rounds now and I'm hooked for life. Why?

• We to like to party...Seriously, we have Rock The ROW parties and contests, etc.
• We engage in writing sprints at the ROW80 hashtag on Twitter and weekly blog hops at the ROW80 blog.
• I promise you will make new writer friends who are worth their weight in gold. Many writers have said they didn't feel comfortable on social media until they joined the ROW80 community.

How do I join?

Direct from the ROW80 website, here's The Rules:

• There are 4 rounds a year, each running 80 days. (You don't have to do all four.)
• Your goal can be anything you like as long as it is measurable (e.g. number of words/pages, specified amount of time to spend on writing per day/week, number of pages edited, etc.).
• Once you have settled on a goal, you write it up on your blog (yes, you must have one) and link to it on the Goals Linky (this is a blog hopping tool - i.e. traffic for your site). The linky will be posted on the ROW80 Blog on check-in days.
• If your goal changes before the end of the 80 days,simply write up a new goals post and link to it on the latest check-in day.
• There are check-ins twice a week on Wednesday and Sundayswhere you will update us the same way (you don't have to check in both days if you're busy).
• On Twitter we use a hashtag of #ROW80 if you wanna come hang out
• And if you happen to find us after a round has begun, just write up your goals post and hop on in whenever. We’re a friendly bunch.
• Be sure to grab the ROW80 badge from the sidebar on the ROW80 Blog. I've placed it at the bottom of this post so you can see how cute it is.

  

Do you like writing challenges (or hate 'em)? Have you tried ROW80 yet? If not, what has kept you from it? If you've participated, what did you like the most? Do you have goals for the New Year that you'd care to share?

Jenny

By Jenny Hansen

Based on the title of this post, you might think I’m going to talk about plotting or character arcs or 3-Act structure… That’s a big fat “Nope!” to all three. There’s a lesson that comes before all those things and it has taken me a long time to get it through my head.

Here it is: When it comes to writing, “Done” is better than “Good.”

Now, some of you might disagree with me, so let me share a conversation I had with one of my tweeps, Natalie Hartford, who’s just getting started on the writing road. Like me, she enrolled in Round 4 of ROW80 – the writing challenge that knows you have a life – and her goals were a flurry of planning, studying, reading…and not WRITING.

The other day, we had this chat on Facebook:

Me: Oh, one last thing…OF COURSE you’re going to write a great book. But you’re stalling with all this prep. Just start writing all willy-nilly and see what comes out. Pretty please? I KNOW you have an awesome book inside of you. But we all have to write like 3,000 lines of crap before our book comes out.

Natalie: I know eh?!?! What’s with the stalling?!?!? It’s getting a wee bit frustrating. So you say “just start writing” – but what?!?!?

Me: Start writing a conversation between your character and someone. Or start writing an interview with your character that includes YOUR voice interviewing and THEIR voice answering.

Natalie: LOVE THAT!!! That’s perfect!! I will….thank you for the push Jenny – I need it!!

I was up till nearly 1 am last night brainstorming. (I am driving MYSELF batty with all this brainstorming…) I will definitely just start playing around with my character…interview, background…I decided last night that maybe that’s the missing piece to the plot issues.

Me: No one has a masterpiece on the first run. The key is to start writing. Remember, done is better than good. You can make your “done” into “very good” MUCH easier than you can make a little bit of good stuff into a finished novel.

We went on a bit longer, but I’ll just sum things up and say this conversation was really about fear. Like all writers, Natalie was floundering out of the gate because she felt like she had to get some “BIG IDEA” to run with.

There’s only like six story ideas on the planet so we all need to chill and just write. And never, ever forget that “done is better than good.”

My favorite quote from Nora Roberts, Goddess of the Bestseller list is:

I can fix a bad page but I can’t fix a blank one.

Here are some other recommendations I gave Natalie for getting started:

• Quit dinking around and just write some scenes.
• Describe your character’s office/bedroom/kitchen and figure out what they do there.
• Ask simple questions in the interview, like: Does your character have a dog? What kind? What is the dog’s name? Does the dog do any tricks?
• Enjoy yourself.

If you’re looking for more brainstorming ideas, you might also enjoy this post.

If you don’t believe me that it’s all about putting one word after another on the page, listen to the late great Stephen Cannell, creator of The Rockford Files, Baretta, The A-Team, and a myriad of other shows (plus you might recognize him from the poker table in Castle).If you look at his IMDb Bio, you’ll be amazed at how much this dyslexic man accomplished:

Do you agree that “done” is better than “good?” Which one is a bigger writing challenge for you?

About Jenny Hansen

Jenny fills her nights with humor: writing memoir, women’s fiction, chick lit, short stories (and chasing after the newly walking Baby Girl). By day, she provides training and social media marketing for an accounting firm. After 15 years as a corporate software trainer, she’s digging this sit down and write thing.

When she’s not at her blog, More Cowbell, Jenny can be found on Twitter at jhansenwrites and here at Writers In The Storm. Every Saturday, she writes the Risky Baby Business posts at More Cowbell, a series that focuses on babies, new parents and high-risk pregnancy.