Month: November 2012

Writing Classes

I recently finished an online Mystery writing class that was very helpful. It helped me structure my wip and come up with a very workable outline. By chance, and I really don’t believe in chance, I am fairly sure I was meant to see a message from Candace Havens about a class she was offering. It is her Fast Draft and Revision Hell classes. It is meant to help you finish your wip by the end of the year. Now that I had an outline. This was exactly what I needed.

For a nominal fee she sends you the rules. Some of the rules are no editing, no going back, just go forward, have to post your results daily, aim for 20 pages a day for 14 days, and no whining. She said that if you whine, she will give you one warning. You do it again and you are out.

I have committed to writing for two hours a day. One hour in the morning, I now get up at 5:30 AM and another hour in the evening. I want to get to the point where I can write 10 pages in the AM and another 10 in the PM. Today was my first day and I didn’t quite make it. I wrote 9 pages. Candace said to give yourself some grace for the first few days because it is hard to produce that much but if you keep at it, it becomes easier. I trust her. She is a busy lady and this is how she does it.

So if you check my word meter you will see that I updated it today. I will update it each day. I will try to blog a couple times a week. One will be an update on my progress with this class the second will be my alphabet tips.

Please feel free to cheer me on. If this sounds like something you would be interested, google Candace Havens and check it out.

Gotta think about heading to bed. 5:30 comes awful fast.

Happy writing,

Virginia

U is for Unstuck

First, I have to apologize for not posting. I’ve had a couple family members pass within a week of each other and  I have been battling bronchitis. It has been a month and I still don’t have my voice back yet. I am sure it doesn’t help that I work in a call center and have to talk all day. I am on my second round of antibiotics and hope this will take care of it.

I attended a workshop in September in Minneapolis by Debra Dixon. She is connected with Belle Bridge Books as an editor and is also an author. If you are a writer, you should have heard of her book ‘Goal, Motivation, and Conflict’. If you haven’t heard of it, you need to check it out. That happened to be the workshop for that weekend.

One of the golden nuggets of advice I picked up that weekend was what to do when I got stuck. I hope you find this as useful as I did.

How to get Unstuck – Using your POV character – ask these questions.

1. What is it I see before me?

2. What do I feel?

3. What do I hear?

4. What do I smell?

5. What do I taste?

6. What is the light like?

7. What is it that I want?

8. What do I think?

9. What happens next?

Hope you have a great week writing.

Virginia

 

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