5 Tips to Meet Your Writing Goals

Have you made a resolution to write more in 2015?  We are five days in, how are you doing? Every year I set wonderful goals for myself and then when I sit down to accomplish them, I find myself stumped. Okay, I wrote down the goal of writing a thousand words a day, why am I not doing it?

That got me to thinking how I might do things differently this year. 

Every year I also keep a chart to check my daily word count. I started that because I liked looking back at how much I was accomplishing during NaNoWriMo (National November Writing Month).  I liked watching the word count go up every day so I started doing it on my own outside the month. I’d just write down my daily count and then my monthly count and then add it all up at the end of the year to see who well I’d done.  It also helped me see which months were better than others, and if there were times I was more prolific.  As  a result of keeping those daily records I found I was writing more every week, and subsequently I was also writing more every month.

But I needed daily tools too, to keep me going. Here are some ideas I’ve come up with for meeting my goals that might also help you  meet daily writing goals.

1.      Start with a realistic daily goal.  I was very envious of a woman who said she had to write 1500 words a day, and then I heard someone else say she wrote a thousand words a day. Both sounded good but what I found was that I struggled to meet that 1500 word goal so as a result I would give up. Writing a thousand words is more realistic for me. But then I heard best selling mystery author John Sandford say he aims at 750 words. That is the length of a normal newspaper piece, and as a former newspaper reporter he had to do that every day, so he knew he could do it.

 I decided to try a smaller number too. The point was to write every single day so I lowered my daily goal to 500. I’ve discovered that goal is very possible for me. Knowing I don’t need to fight to get to that thousand words has freed me up and I know I can do at least 500. The result, of course, is that I now normally hit that thousand, but knowing I get to count the day as productive by hitting 500 has made a big difference.

Start with 300 if that helps. Or 200. Try writing just a page a day. The idea is to get something on the written page.

2.      Keep a record. As I’ve mentioned that daily record shows me problem times, but it also showed me the days of the week when I could really take off and write.  I also noticed that when I got on a roll for several days, I might write more than my normal goal. It showed me days of the week when I was more prolific so that I could concentrate on getting my word count up then. And it showed me those down stretches when I was letting other things get in the way. That made me work on other ideas for picking up the word count.

3.      Try writing sprints. This is a wonderful tip I got from Candace Havens, a prolific romance writer. At a conference I heard her say she would keep an egg timer on her desk and when she was looking to get her writing jump started, she would set a timer for five or ten minutes and then sit and write until it went off. Sometimes she might set it for 20. As a result she would not only get some writing done, but it would get her going on those days she just didn’t feel like working.

4.      Write dialogue.  If I’m faced with a scene I don’t want to write I sometimes write it from two characters talking things out. I don’t put in anything but their conversation. Letting the characters speak not only helps me get a better understanding of them, but it seems to free up my mind to just get the words out. Let them describe the events to each other. Let them react to what happened. If you don’t like the conversation you can always change it.

5.      Write a scene you want to write. This is a great way to get started when you don’t feel like writing. Yes, it means writing out of order and some people find it hard to do, but think of it this way – now you have a scene done and you can build toward it. If you are one of those people who likes to outline, then consider it part of your outline. Best selling author Suzanne Brockman says her outlines are often so involved she can sometimes just  write in the dialogue or expand on it and the story is done. 

The big key to keeping up your word count and reaching those daily writing goals is to come to the keyboard every day ready to write. As Nora Roberts says about how she continues to complete book after book: “It’s your job. Would you call in sick for no reason? Would you ignore it for days on end? It’s your job. You do it.”

John Sandford says the same thing. When I got a chance to talk with him in November, I asked about the advantages of being a journalist and how it helped in his fiction writing. What he told me made perfect sense. “When I got to work every day, I knew I was going to have to write a story. I couldn’t just say I didn’t want to or didn’t feel like writing today. I had to write a story or I wouldn’t get paid.” I knew what he meant. With 30 years spent in TV newsrooms, I showed up every day ready to write. There was no way around it and no room for excuses.

And that is the bottom line in setting your goals. Like Nora Roberts said, writing fiction is a job. If you’re doing it for fun, then those goals don’t matter. But if you want it to pay, then you have to put in the time like John Sandford said.  My overall goal for this year is to set realistic goals and then look at how to make them work.

 

  

Notes and More Notes

Recently I was cleaning out my office area and found a whole pile of notebooks. They had all been used and when I started going through them I realized each one had notes from various lectures, conferences and workshops I’d attended. There were others with a variety of stories I was either working on or wanted to start. A few others had notes where I was developing ideas into stories or plots. In looking them over, I got to thinking about notes in general and came up with what I considered a trio of suggestions when it comes to notes:

Take Notes

Make Notes

Bake Notes

Okay, very cute but what does it all mean?

1.  The first is self explanatory. It only makes sense that when you attend a workshop, you should take as many notes as possible on what you learn at conventions or talks or anytime you have the opportunity to hear a writer talk. Listen to how they got to working on their stories or books and make notes for yourself. You can pick up some good suggestions just from hearing how the process works.

2.  Making Notes might also be self explanatory but it doesn’t relate to the first idea. Make notes whenever you have an  idea, no matter where you are. Make notes on whatever piece of paper you have handy. You never know if that idea will come again.  I haven’t had many an idea disappear totally from  my brain when I tried to write it down later. As a result I now write down whatever idea I come up with as soon as possible.  I have bank withdrawal slips with ideas written on the back. I also carry a tiny notebook in my purse for those crazy ideas that might pop up when I might be out and about.

3. Baking notes has nothing to do with cooking. It has to do with what to do with those ideas or notes once you have them written down. Don't just let them sit there and gather dust like I did with my many notes. Take them to the next level. Think through all those notes you have made and then think about where you might want to take them.  Taking all those notes at a conference don't mean anything if you don't do something with them once you get home. Use them next time you sit down with a notepad or at the keyboard. As I went through those old notes, I found some great ideas I had forgotten about because I went to a conference, came home all fired up remembered what I had been told for a week and then let go of everything I had learned. But on the other hand, if you try using some of those ideas and putting them into practice even a few times then you’ll get more out of the notes you’ve made. Even if the ideas don’t work for you as presented, other things might stick and it might improve your output, your outlook or your overall  writing.

Don’t just write it down those ideas either, use them.  Don’ t just keep making notes on ideas. Try them out somehow. Play with them and make use of them. Perhaps they will send your current story into a new direction. Perhaps they will help you figure out what you want to do with a future story. But if you put them into action or expand them, you’ll be better off in the future.

At least you won’t just be stuck with a bunch of notes in a notebook that you can’t remember , either where you got them or what you intended to do with them. So if you are going to make notes, or take notes, that be sure to bake those notes!

This week on Wednesday, in My Writing Corner I will be giving ideas I received at the recent Tony Hillerman Conference in Santa Fe where I got to spend some time hearing from mega best selling authors David Morell and John Sandford.

 

 

 

Words and More Words

Several years ago while reading a favorite author I found him using the same phrase in a dialogue tag. I can't even remember what it was now, but it kept popping up, enough to be distracting. By the end of the book I found myself wondering why he or an editor had not caught that. It was so obvious and he was a best selling author too.


It didn't keep me from buying his next book, but it did bother me when I remembered what I had noticed in the last book and here it was again -- the same word. Surely he would have found something else to use. Or not use anything at all. Yes, we all use "said," but that is natural and it is one of those words we don't notice.  If we say a character "grinned" on the other hand every time a character says something we are probably going to notice. Again, it is time to have the character do something else or don't write it at all.


As writers we probably all have crutch words we find ourselves using over and over. I have to watch out for things like "just" or "nearly." I'm not sure why but I keep throwing them in. I even put in "sure" more often than I should. I've learned now to go through and look for my crutch words and remove them or rewrite the sentence.


This is a long way around getting to the point that we need to pay attention to the words we use. I am teaching a class on short story writing and one of the points I keep trying to make is that when a writer is involved in short story writing you must be more precise with your words. Last year at the Tony Hillerman Conference in Santa Fe, a friend and I had a chance to chat with best selling author David Morrell about writing short stories. He told us he like writing short stories because they made him learn to be more precise in his words. They made him look for different, simpler ways to say things. And most importantly they made him look for just the right word to use to make a point.


This weekend my sister and I played a game with our ten year old niece, where we have to say a word that starts with the letter of the last word given. It's a simple game, of course, but when you have to come up with a bunch of words starting with "e" or "k" or "h," it makes you start thinking.  And just as when I'm writing, I found myself coming up with the same words (and getting shouted down -- "you already used that") so I had to be creative. 


And I will remember that exercise next time I sit down to write. Look for different words, remember different words, celebrate new words and look up things you don't know or search for just the right word, as David Morrell suggested.


But at the same time, I must issue a warning to be careful of the words you chose.  I remember a book once where an author used the word "thrummed." Wow, I thought the first time I saw it. What a unique way to say what a woman is feeling inside. Then I found it again, a little later in the book. By the third time I found it, I was no longer thinking, wow, I was thinking lazy or confused. The word was no longer unique. It wasn't a normal word and while I might skip over "said" and maybe even one too many grins, I was going to remember something as different as "thrummed."


Words can be your friends or they can be your worse enemies when they aren't coming. But keep looking for the best ones. They are out there!

Making Your Setting Work

Setting is one of those elements that all writers know they need to include in a book, but often it gets either overplayed or totally ignored. I am a big believer in making a setting unique and making it come alive for the reader but doing it in a way that places the reader in the story along with your characters. It isn’t necessarily easy to do, but I always try to make that happen as I write.

Rigid rules for writing can be boring, but here are a few suggestions to keep in mind as you deal with setting.

1. Bring in all the senses.
2. Don’t overwhelm with setting
3. Keep it consistent
4. Be true to your time period and place
5. Don’t do a detailed description in the first paragraph but get it in there

Okay, so how do we do all those things?

 Bringing in all the senses has to be the first thing to consider because those senses are what places the reader into that certain location.  Not long ago I was travelling through New Mexico and stopped in a small town and stayed overnight. In the cold October morning I got up to continue my long drive across the state and when I came outside I smelled wood burning. It hit me that was something you never smelled in a big city like Denver, and it took me back to days in my small Colorado hometown. People burned wood regularly and especially in the morning. It’s something you might smell in a mountain town in the winter too, but this was unique in the morning and it was a product of this small town where there were no worries about air pollution. The other thing that hit me was the quiet. There was no sound of a freeway or hum of traffic. I used that in my heroine’s point of view when she realizes how quiet it is – something she wasn’t used to.

 

The worst way to bring in setting is to overwhelm the reader with long paragraphs that over describe a location or to write it as a laundry list, as though that is what is needed. Instead I like to bring the setting in by letting the character feel where he or she is. Mystery writer John Sandford does a wonderful job of showing cold Minnesota days and nights through his characters and how they are dealing with the frigid temperatures. Consider that as you write your setting. Is she wearing a heavy parka to ward off the morning cold when she goes outside to warm up the car?  Is she sweating in her thin blouse in the steaming Florida afternoon?  How does the setting affect the character? Is her skirt dragging in the mud as she navigates a muddy drive? That all shows setting as part of the action.

 

Once you have placed your reader in the location you should work to keep it consistent. That doesn’t mean you aren’t going to have a cool day in the middle of summer. Even that could affect your characters and make them either complain about the weather or get out their winter sweater. But don’t wander away from the time period with slang that is years away from becoming common. I know some of the rules for writing historical romances have loosened when it comes to speech patterns for today’s reader but that doesn’t mean the women of those long ago days said things like, “Shuuut up!” 

 

That caution also speaks to being true to your time period.  I recently had a student who named a female character a very current and popular name. It sounded great but it was a male name and it had its origins in a certain profession back in the middle ages.  No female would have been named that back then. If you are writing in a certain time period, you should research it and know it well enough to know when you might be making that sort of mistake. Such a misstep can pull a knowledgeable reader out of the story. I’m not that knowledgeable about the Regency period, but I  knew immediately that the name was a mistake.

 

The final problem goes back to what I mentioned earlier. No one these days wants to begin a book with big long paragraphs of description. Today’s reader is looking for action and you can still combine action with the setting without bringing in long paragraphs that set the scene.  

If he is on the run, where is he running? Through a swampy bog where he the fetid smell threatens to overcome him and he can feel the damp air soaking his shirt? Where reeds are smashing him in the face, or mosquitos are buzzing around him while he listens for the sound of his getaway launch?

Is she waiting to pick up her daughter at school and running the heater in her car while watching for her child’s familiar red coat? And when she sees it, someone else is wearing it. Now she has to zip up her coat as she gets out of the car to go find her child.

Both of those scenarios can use the location and setting as part of the action and you can do that too.  Make it come alive as you would your characters. Take your readers there and let them battle the elements or enjoy the luxuries of your setting.     

Teaching is Learning

by Becky Martinez

For years I never considered myself much of a teacher, though I now teach writing classes on a
regular basis at places such as Savvy Authors or I present workshops at conferences, such as the recent RomCon14. I did spend years as a newsroom manager and it always made me feel good when a reporter or producer would come up to me –after having started as an intern under my guidance—and tell me how much they learned from working with me. I felt proud—proud for them because you don’t succeed without hard work.

I still enjoy that sort of affirmation. Recently at a conference I had one of my former online students come up to me and introduce herself to me. She wanted to thank me personally for what she said was a great class that got her going in a totally new direction.

To me that is one of the high points of being a teacher—knowing that you’ve helped someone. And I think that is one of the reasons I enjoy teaching. I have another student I helped with mentoring and she still emails me every so often with writing questions. She signed a contract not long ago and her latest question was on marketing. I feel good that I can still answer her questions and assist her in her goal of becoming a published writer.

But I have to be bluntly honest about the main reason I enjoy teaching. I have decided I’m a born student. I love to learn new things. I love to take tests, I love to feel the joy of trying something new or learning to work in a new field. Some things I know I might never excel in – I was never a born scientist or mathematician, but I still love to study astronomy and the stars and visit science and space museums. I’ll never be much of an artist, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to learn about art, and trying to dab some paint on a canvas every once in a while.

So that brings me back to teaching. I love to teach because I also love to learn. And teaching helps me in that regard. When I have classes to write or teach, I find myself involved in plenty of research. If I’m going to teach about characters, I have to study them myself. I need to not only get to know my own characters, but study the works of others and see how they make their characters come alive on the page.

I have to study plotting to see what works and what doesn’t. Reading a book becomes more than just enjoyment. It also becomes an educational exercise to see how an author accomplished that successful story. I need to look at pacing and beginnings and endings. Again, I get to be a student in order to teach.

And as a teacher I always find that my students teach me things too. Someone always has a question or two that gets me thinking and makes me either learn something new or illustrates a different way of accomplishing their writing goals.

I’ve never been the sort of teacher who can force my ideas on someone or tell them to learn all the rules and then force them to follow them. I’ve always looked at others as unique individuals who had their own talents and I like to think that I teach by showing people how to take their special skills and apply them to their work. 

And that interaction is another reason I like to teach. There’s a big wide world out there and I think I’ll always be a student who wants to learn more, and then teach about it… and then learn some more. Part of being a good teacher is a being a good student too.


As a teacher and student, this month I will be presenting several lists of writing prompts to help writers on any level -- from beginners to intermediate to multi-published in this blog. If you have favorite ways to getting new story ideas or coming up with characters or plots, please email them to me at writethatnovel@gmail.com and I'll share them along with my own thoughts. 

This week I will begin teaching a class on Pacing your Novel at Savvy Authors and next week Sue Viders and I will teach a class for Savvy on taking your stories from Ideas to Plots.  I will also be teaching a class on Writing Short Stories for Colorado Romance Writers this month.

Getting the Right Idea -- A Savvy Blog

Writers are always being asked where they get their ideas for books, or how they come up with good characters or any characters for that matter. This week on Savvy Authors, I am attempting to give some of the ways I come up with ideas and how I fashion unique characters.

Do you make your stories personal, even if they come straight out of your head?  I know that no matter how much I can make up fictional characters, I still get some of my story ideas from things that are happening around me or stories I've read online or in a newspaper or even the true crime stories I see on cable.  They never turn out exactly the way their broadcast or written -- that's where the fiction comes in -- I get to personalize them with my own touch and made them turn out the way I want them to turn out. Here's more on getting story ideas, using them, and turning them into your own books:
http://savvyauthors.com/blog/index.php/getting-the-right-idea-by-becky-martinez/


And if you are wondering how to get started on writing your book or need help with your writing, I will be teaching a class at Savvy Authors starting next week called Let's Write.  It's part of the Savvy Core Series, but this one focuses on beginnings, writing dialogue and pacing.  It can be found at The Savvy Learning Center.

Thinking Like a Journalist

What do I do when I get writer's block?  I think back to my old days as a journalist when I couldn't afford to worry about what I had to write.  I just sat down at the typewriter (in the early days--later it was the keyboard) and as we used to say, "hack out the story."  The news didn't wait for the muse to strike with just the right words. Of course we weren't making up stories, but we couldn't wait for just the right word or just the right phrasing. I had to write and what I discovered was that the more I wrote, the easier those words came. But the key was getting started.


And now I still feel that way. Whether I am writing non-fiction or fiction, the best way to fight writer's block is to sit down and write something.


For more on my battles with writer's block, please check out my blog this week at Savvy Authors.