December 3, 2009
One Word at a Time
The first book I ever wrote was terrible. I mean cringe-worthy, all-the-rewrites-in-the-world-couldn’t-save-it bad. After all, what kind of romance only has the hero and heroine interacting in the last three chapters? Goal, motivation, conflict, what’s that? I could go on, but I’ll spare you the long list of everything that was wrong with that story. The one good thing that came out of that horrible book was that I finished it. It was a little over 50K, not as long as what I write now (though to be fair, it’s hard to come up with 80-90K with no internal conflict *snort*) but I had written something from chapter one to the end. And if I managed to do it once, well then I could do it again. The next book I wrote was Living Lies.
Sitting down to write that first book, or second, or tenth, or thirtieth, (I should be so lucky) the blank page can seeming very intimidating. How will you ever be able to come up with all the words to fill one page let alone three hundred? You sit down and you write them.
I know, easier said than done, right? So this is what works for me. Schedule your writing time and set a word count goal. Writing time for my WIP is 10 a.m until noon. (The afternoons are for rewrites, blogs, promo, critiques, etc.) My daily goal 1k. If I hit 1,000 words before noon (those days are few, sadly), then I keep writing until it hits twelve. If I haven’t reached my goal, I stick with the WIP until I do. Notice how late my blog is going up today? That’s because I was still working on the WIP at two o’clock.
Over the years, I’ve had to adjust my writing time to work around day jobs and family. It’s tough, but it can be done. And I’m not going to lie to you, there are times when I do not stick to my own schedule, but I’m the most productive when I do.
Anyway, that’s what works for me.
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You’re not lying about that blank page. Starting a new project is always so intimidating for me. But I agree with you that finishing that first one, even when it’s awful–which the first effort usually is–it’s definitely rewarding.
December 3rd, 2009 at 2:45 amThat’s encouraging and inspiring to hear! Thanks for posting this, Dawn.
December 3rd, 2009 at 2:00 pmThe first book I wrote was 120,000 words and was a piece of crap but did I think that at the time–nope.
When I’m in writing mode I can easily write 1,000 words a day. Right now I’m struggling to get back into that mode. Big sigh!
December 3rd, 2009 at 7:55 pmDiddyman I don’t know if I’m even doing this right but I sure hope you PICK ME PICK ME PICK ME PLEEEEEEEEEEEZ. OXOXOXO
December 5th, 2009 at 12:13 am