FIRST: Go HERE to enter a copy of THIRTEEN REASONS WHY by Jay Asher! And spread the word, 'cuz this is an amazing, amazing book. I'd give it to everybody if I could.
The WriteOnCon! It was fabuloso! With editors! And agents! And authors! And prizes! And armadillos!
One of my favorite posts was by Viking editor Kendra Levin, who posted on the writing/life balance. She talked about how, as writers, we need to do three things:
ONE: Set goals. Not just grand career goals, but smaller, achievable, weekly goals, as well.
TWO: Make sacrifices. In order to achieve our weekly goal, we must sacrifice something. You all know this by now.
THREE: Give ourselves a weekly gift. One that will feed us as people, and that will also make our writing life easier.
So, my three things for this week (before bedtime on Saturday) are:
ONE: Rewrite the first chapter of my chapter book. I thought it was done, but there was a problem that was nagging at me, and Tuesday morning I figured out how to fix it - unfortunately, the way to fix it is to throw out the first four chapters and do them over in a new way, with new scenes and a different beginning. I want to have the first chapter done by Saturday.
TWO: No internet. This post, a tweet to spread the word about this post, and that's it until I achieve my goal.
THREE: I initially chose a frap for my gift, but now I think a walk through the park would be a better idea. I can take my kids, and I always get good writing-thinking done on walks through the park.
How about you? What will your three things be this week? How about next week?
I liked that post too. This week I just need to get caught up and get some rest. It was crazy going to WriteOnCon, working, and getting my daughter to her high school swim practices. And I really haven't talked to my husband much these past few days.
ReplyDeleteOh I needed to read this. I'm really bad abut #3, always worrying that if I reward myself too soon, I'll shoot myself in the foot. That's silly, I know, so I'm changing it right now.
ReplyDeleteMy reward is to see a film at the end of each week. Huh? I'm excited already AND motivated to earn it.
I like the short goals as well. Heading off on vacation today, but I think I will implement this system. I tend to get bogged down in lists that are way too large.
ReplyDeleteI like this approach. I need to be better about sacrificing the internet instead of my sleep. Hah. Now, to think of a reward for myself... :)
ReplyDeletegood post! I need to figure out whether its important to post free samples of my work online. I'm not sure if it matters.
ReplyDeleteI like the short goals too - it's enough to keep me motivated, because I feel like it's do-able. If I think of my novel as a whole big chunk, I lose my drive.
ReplyDeleteTaylor, I think you can post small chunks of your writing online, as long as they're very small chunks of the greater whole. If you publish too much, you risk losing the ability to sell exclusive rights or first rights on that manuscript to a publisher.
What I do is post little snippets once in a while (bits of flash fiction, or poetry, or very short stories) that I'm not planning to sell the rights to. That way my writing is out there, but I still have something to submit. I plan to put little blurbs about what I'm working on and what I've completed, but I need a chunk of time to do that.