So I set a goal to finish my revisions by May 25th.

Ha. Hahaaha. HA!

I set the goal because I was having a hard time getting motivated. But in this case, a deadline just made my problem worse. I wasn’t having a hard time focusing and working because I was lazy or distracted. I was shirking because I was on the verge of burning out.

Burn out, for me, happens when I push myself too hard just for the sake of being done. I find myself completely blocked. If I do may any progress at all, it’s just throwing something on the page so I can move on and be done with it, often not really improving the problems (or simply noting them and moving on).

I can work quickly, especially when I’m really excited about a story. But if I’m not excited about the story at the moment (or just overwhelmed by it), I need to allow myself to slow down. So I am. I might flirt with a story I shouldn’t be writing if something strikes me. I might just work on my crafts or play the piano, or explore another creative outlet.

But I still have good news for you: I’m going to do some website/blog critiques! Sign up in the comments before noon EST on Friday, and I’ll randomly draw three sites to critique. Website designer Ted Finch will also be on hand to critique the visual aspects of the lucky websites!

Don’t have a blog or website yet? Don’t worry! I’m also looking for one volunteer who doesn’t have a website or blog. We’ll be working together to get you set up, with the results posted as a tutorial! Again, this will be chosen at random from the comments left here before noon EST Friday.

The lucky winners will be announced on Friday. The critiques and tutorial will be posted starting June 6.

How do you avoid burnout? (Or just volunteer in the comments )

Photo by Patricia Espedal

When I’m writing first drafts, in general, my two favorite parts are the beginning and the end. Usually, I’ve envisioned both of these long before writing, and I’ve been looking forward to them for a long time.

The end is fun because I’ve anticipated it so much, because it’s so satisfying to be done (for now), because it’s the final show down and my chance to have true love conquer all and/or justice to triumph just when it seems impossible. It’s something I’ve imagined and re-imagined, crafting lines of dialogue or action sequences or prose, foreshadowing.

Beginnings are even better. Often I start them before I even intend to, so many ideas and characters and phrases are screaming to get out before I forget them. I’ll have been thinking about a story idea for a week or a month, and all of the sudden, I’m at the computer, just giving it a try. A day or two later, when I’m a chapter or two into it, sometimes I’m so in love with it I send it to a couple friends for an alpha read. (A day after that, I’m ready to tell my husband I’ve started another book—which basically means we’ll see each other again in a couple months .)

Now, there are of course lots of scenes in the middle that I look forward to, but it’s hard for me to pin down a pattern of which scenes or plot points are most exciting. It’s pretty consistent with beginnings and endings for me. Revising I’m less enthused about, but I do love the purpose and the result—getting better and better!

What do you think? Do you have favorite sections to write? How do you feel about revising?

Photo by The Shopping Sherpa

Remember the romance blogfest Monday!

All right, so remember how I promised I’d tell you how I’m doing at my goal of getting up early to write? Yeah, lousy on that, and lousy on the getting up early. I forgot about one very important thing when I set that goal: my now-8-month-old likes to get up before 7 anyway. So she’s really helped me get up early every morning. And I’m basically a vegetable after that.

Still, I apparently need some sort of impetus to get going on the WIP I really wanted to finish six weeks ago, but have only tinkered with since November. So (as soon as I finish what I really really really really really mean is my last, final, conclusive set of revisions and finally submit), I’m jumping on February’s Ninja Novel Writing Month!

Which makes me think of this:

I’m also enlisting in the crusades. The Writer Platform Building Crusades. Because, hey, I need more friends. Don’t you?

What’s coming up for you this month? Aside from a certain blogfest, of course.

Writing, obviously, is a creative outlet. Sometimes it’s the kind of outlet we plug into for more energy, and sometimes it’s the place we release all of our creative energy.

But for me, writing isn’t my only creative outlet. It’s probably my favorite, but I have a lot of other creative pursuits that sometimes vie for my time. After I finished the last major round of revisions, for example, I’ve been catching up on my knitting (two years of UFO—unfinished objects) and practicing the piano again. (Oh, yeah, and I’m a mom, so that’s pretty create-ive, right?)

Sometimes I need these other outlets—they can help me work past a block in my writing or search for new ideas. They can help reenergize me when I’ve poured all my energy into writing and feel burned out or just a little drained. (And some of them I can’t leave alone or something bad would happen.)

On the other hand, sometimes they’re just more demands on my time. And frankly, most of the time, I’d rather be writing. So they get neglected again.

What other creative outlets do you have? How do you use them? How do you balance them all?

Photo by Mark Sebastian

Accepting that first drafts aren’t final drafts is a big milestone at the beginning of the journey to becoming a writer. The first couple things we write, we think that we have to—and will—get it perfect on the first pass through. It’s devastating to receive the news that our draft isn’t perfect—or even that good. It’s disheartening to think that what we thought needed a minor word-level edit actually needs a major character-and-plot-level overhaul.

But finally, we accept that our first drafts are just that—first drafts—and our writing is found in the rewriting of it. And for most of us, that means we don’t put quite as much effort into our first drafts, focusing more on getting the broad strokes down than getting the phraseology perfect.

So when we’re drafting lazy, of necessity, we leave in some things that we know we’ll only end up taking out later—or we leave out some things that we know we can add later.

A few examples:

• Leave in:
  • clichés
  • scene summaries (of scenes you do intend to show in real time)
  • near-match words
  • scenes that may or may not turn out to be tangents
  • the boring bits
• Leave out:
  • descriptions
  • dialogue
  • punctuation
  • grammar check
  • spell check
  • voice (I think we may talk more about this later in the week)

What do you leave in or out of your first drafts?

Photo credit: Aaron Brown