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A Writer’s Work…

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…how does yours get done?

We all have different work habits. Especially as writers. Are you a hammock writer? A couch potato writer? a Pelleton writer?

Do you write in frenzied binges and spend your other time roaming the beach or the neighborhood looking for inspiration?

How many projects can you (or do you) work on at once? How’s that workin’ out for you?

While working on at least two novels, I also managed to contribute a story to each of these anthologies– one at a time, of course.

I may have felt a little swamped.

I seem to have 2 modes of writing–or doing any major task. In Mode 1 I am keenly focused and dedicated to finishing said task . I won’t do anything else, day after day, until the job is done.

~ OR ~

In Mode 2 I work for a spell on each of my projects, raising them up together level by level until they are all completed.

It seems to be one or the other. I keep at it until the mode of the moment just breaks down; then I switch. Somehow I manage to get things done.

Participating in National Novel Writing Month taught me how to write at top speed and meet word count targets. Putting out a rough draft became a downhill, no brakes, free-wheeling bicycle run where the objective was to land at the bottom without crashing.

Writing for local newspapers and magazines taught me to write well while still meeting deadlines, an even more useful skill. It paid better, too.

As a freelancer writing fiction, I’ve had to learn to create deadlines for myself. It’s the only way I try hard enough to write within any kind of time frame. Alas, these deadlines remain soft, because, as we all know–life intervenes with the best of plans and it does no one any good to bemoan the interference of an emergency with our personally assigned “FINISHED!” line. Still, it is the setting of a deadline that reinforces our determination.

Another skill I am still cultivating has to do with revisions. When someone critiques part of a manuscript I’ve written, I try to implement the changes that work as soon as possible. I create a sub-folder in the folder that holds my manuscript file and deposit the critiqued, marked-up manuscript copy there. I go through and make the changes, then replace the old version with the new in the wip manuscript file. In effect, this marks off a mini-deadline, a benchmark by which I can track my progress and encourage myself to keep moving.

The current deadline for my primary wip is the end of the year. There are deadlines on other projects due between now and then, but that one is calling my name, alternately daring and begging me to meet it.

TIME FOR YOU ALL TO SHARE

1) How do you keep yourself motivated to produce? What are your tricks? How well Do they work?

2) What other quirky writing habit/method/process do you use?

Please share your response in the comments below.

Okay, I plead Guilty. Guilty, guilty, guilty.

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I’d like to think we’ve all done it. You know. Procrastinate. Put things off. Lost track of time and/or what we were doing. C’mon, you’ve done it, right? Let something slide because you got busy with other things?

Yes? No?

Okay, so maybe a year is a little much, but, yes, it’s been a year since my last post. I apologize.

To my credit, I’ve re-organized my way(s) of reaching my readers. Well, I’ve organized it. For the first time, really. It wasn’t easy. It took a lot of mulling and musing and shaking my head. And a couple of consultations with one of my sons, who also acts as my editor and sounding board for all things writing-related. To be fair, he’s one of three of my kids who can edit for me, but he’s the handiest, and maybe the easiest to talk to, because he understands how I think. He can guide me through my thoughts step-by-step better than I can myself.

I had always tried to link my communications together, re-posting and cross-posting where it wasn’t a problem, then having something unique to each platform.  But the lines would get blurred, and I’d be unsure, hesitant to post, because I wasn’t sure if I was making unnecessary duplicates or if I wasn’t offering the right posts. I thought about it a lot, but all my ideas were a little fuzzy. I couldn’t get a complete picture of what I was trying to do, let alone the best way to do it.

Finally I sat myself down at the computer and made up a table. I headed the columns with the different media sites I used, as well as a couple of sites that were primarily resources but that required as much monitoring as the others. Beneath each heading I wrote down the purpose the site served and the types of posts I wrote for it. Just doing that helped me sort out which posts needed to go where, and when and what material needed to be cross-posted. My excellent son guided me through figuring out which site would take the most effort to support – he was very much aware of my tendency to run out of steam, although he hadn’t realized how much of that was because I hadn’t nailed down what went where. Then I prioritized them by how important I felt it was to keep them current. Just writing it down clarified things and enabled me to set up a rough schedule for when and what kinds of posts to make on each site.

So, I’m starting up again. This site will have top priority, with posts going up 1-4 times a month. The format will remain the same: My books will all be displayed here, and there will be my reviews of other books. The blog will focus on varying aspects of the noveling process, and I will complete the collection of INKAS. Keep an eye out for the next one!

Here are links to the INKAS: what they are and the ones I've already covered:

What are INKAS   .....    TIP   ~ INKAS~  #1

Short Story   ....   TIP ~ INKAS ~ #1.1

Children's Story & Children's Story with Illustrations   .....    TIP ~ INKAS ~ #2

Poetry   .....    TIP ~ INKAS ~ #3

INKA #4 will be up soon: S O N G    L Y R I C S!