Finish-Up Friday: Articles, Market Research, and New Project

It's the end of the week, and time to finish up all the loose ends!

So far, I've written three of my ten articles for the month, and part of a fourth. If I can finish another article tonight and send in my next pitch, I'll be super happy!

I've gotten a bit stumped while looking for new markets to write for. I like writing for Weird Worm because I can pitch pretty much anything. Which means that I don't have to take a chance on writing an article that may or may not get accepted. I know I'm being a bit picky, but what can I say? Finding new markets is hard!

Luckily (?) I'll be starting a new fiction project soon, and that will take up enough of my time that I'll probably be happy not to have lots of article markets to write for!

And finally, here's a picture of flowers to make it seem like spring really isn't all that far off. Enjoy!

Grand Editing Goal #1 of the Year: Complete!

I just finished editing my very first novel-length piece. Granted, it was just for practice, but it was very good practice.

It's funny, when you're right in the middle of it, going over word after word and page after page, it seems like it will never end. Editing a manuscript is not my favorite part of the novel writing process. It's time consuming, thankless, and it forces you to question everything that you know is fact. In fact, you might find yourself starting to question the fundamental truths about spelling and grammar. Time and again, you laugh at the silly notions you held that this would be the best thing you've ever done, and it's hard to keep going when you can't know whether or not it will amount to anything.

But the thing is, just making sure you keep going keeps you going. It turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once you've gotten into it, it becomes worse to stop than to go on. You don't want to waste your effort, after all.

So to all those who are struggling to edit a novel, I say this: don't give up! You can do it! And here are a couple of tips that might help:

1. Give Yourself a Deadline. I'll admit, my deadline was set by my mentor, which gave me a little added responsibility; so you might want to share your deadline with a trusted friend or two who will keep you on your toes. I received two months to edit an 86,000 word rough draft. I won't say there aren't successful novels out there that have taken years to edit, but that kind of time span won't fly if you're writing fiction commercially.
2. Break It Into Small Steps. My FlyLady timer is my best friend. When I simply feel like I can't force myself to work, I set it for fifteen minutes during which I can't do anything except work. You'd be amazed at how much you get done when you have no other option.
3. Fill Your Life. This is one I still need to work on. I'm one of those people who 'quit her day job' to become a writer, which means I have plenty of time to stare at the computer screen. Too much time, in some cases. Writing is time consuming, but at least for me, it's not something you can do 10+ hours a day. You need to bring other things into your life or else you'll end up going crazy inside your own head.

Now I get a short break, and then it's back to writing a first draft!

Have thoughts or questions on editing manuscripts or writing in general? Share them here!

New Year, New Writing Goals

I suppose it's a little past the time for making New Year's resolutions, but these aren't exactly resolutions... they're goals. Things that I have solid plans in place for how to achieve them, that I'm reasonably certain I can stick to. Writing goals include:

1. Finishing my editing assignment. I'm working on editing an 86,000 word document as an assignment for my mentor/author friend. It's not something that's going to be published, but at least I'll know that I can edit a full length manuscript over the course of a couple of months. Deadline for this is in two weeks.
2. Writing the first draft of the first book in a series that my mentor and I are working out the details for. This will probably be done sometime in March.
3. Roughing out the plans for the rest of the books in the series, to be done by mid-April.
4. Editing the first book in the series, to be done by the end of June.
5. Submitting the book to editors and/or agents and working on sequels for the rest of the year.
6. Keeping up with writing articles for Weird Worm.
7. Possibly searching for new paying markets, depending on whether I decide to focus my free time on article writing.

At this time, I don't have plans to edit and submit Mechalarum. I'm happy that I wrote it, and I may come back to it someday, but right now I have bigger fish to fry!

Work Continues on My NaNoWriMo Novel Mechalarum

Phew! I've passed by goal of writing 50,000 words in 14 days, and thus officially won NaNoWriMo! However, I've been given a new goal: to finish my entire novel in 28 days! It's a little tricky: I'm not sure exactly how long the novel is going to be when I'm done with it, so it's harder to set a desired word count per day.

Because of this, I've had a few days of pretty low word count - just a couple hundred words per day! Still, I'm intent on meeting this goal, even if it means squeezing in a lot of high word-count days towards the end of November! So, here's to days of many words!

Hope that all of my fellow NaNoWriMos are doing well in their quests. Leave a note to let us all know what you think of the challenge!

For continued updated on my NaNoWriMo novel, check out Mechalarum: A NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) Novel.

NaNoWriMo 2010: Mechalarum Synopsis and More

The season is upon us! NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is here, and it's time to polish off your laptop, tablet, typewriter, or pad of paper, and get to writing 50,000 words in the month of November!

My novel for this NaNoWriMo is called Mechalarum. It's basically about a young woman struggling to save people who aren't entirely willing to accept her help, and trying to find her own identity at the same time. For more information and a full synopsis, check out Mechalarum: A NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) Novel.

Want to follow my progress, or be my NaNoWriMo writing buddy? You'll find all you need and more on my NaNoWriMo profile page.

Not ready to take on the challenge this month? Click on the link to learn about other novel writing months.