December 2008

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The Process: Drafting

December 31, 2008 in On Writing | View Comments

: Image by starfire via Flickr

After pre-writing, I'm ready for drafting! Drafting And I'm off. I open the laptop... and I freeze. I stare at that blinking cursor for long minutes, or hours... or days, if I'm being honest. When I finally begin chapter one, it's out of frustration. "God, I have to start somewhere, and if it sucks, I'll delete it later." I usually delete it later. Once I get started, I try to write fast. I find that if it takes more than a couple months for me to write a novel, it either doesn't get done, or the last few chapters are like torture to finish because I've figured out the ending and I've lost interest in writing it down. So I write as fast as I can for about 4 or 5 weeks. When the novel is done, I cry, I congratulate myself, I drink some wine, and I put the damn thing away. If I have a lot of time, I put it away for a month or so. Only then do I edit.

The Process: Pre-Writing

December 30, 2008 in On Writing | View Comments

: Image via Wikipedia

I just began the process of writing a new book! This will be the fourth full-length I've written, but I've also written countless unfinished drafts and several short stories. So after all that experience, I feel like I'm finally learning my process. I realized I've never really blogged about my process, so I thought I'd share it with you. This post got to be like 800 words, so I'm breaking it down into smaller ones. We'll start with pre-writing, which is the stage I'm still in at the moment. Pre-Writing First, I write out the idea in my Magic Notebook. The Magic Notebook holds ever story idea I've ever had since I started writing. It also holds notes on hooks and enneagrams, which I use to plot and create characters. I begin by just writing out the idea, however vague it may be. Sometimes it's just a word, sometimes it's an almost fleshed out plot. Other times, it's just a character. After that, there's some simmer time, which ranges from a day to years, depending on how excited I am about the idea (or how desperate I am to start something new). Then, still long-hand in the Magic Notebook, I write out about a page worth of plot summary. You could think of it as the shortest synopsis in the entire world. Then I write out the enneagrams and dominant wings for the two main characters (the heroine and the hero). By now, I'm starting to see how the characters and the plot mesh, and I'm beginning to get really excited. I want to turn on my laptop and go go go, but I make myself wait. The tension builds as I force myself to plot out at least the first two chapters before I begin. Tomorrow, I'll tell you about the drafting piece of the process.

Book Review: Snowy Night with a Stranger by Jane Feather et al

December 29, 2008 in Books | View Comments

My favorite story by far in the Snowy Night with a Stranger anthology is Sabrina Jeffries' light and funny story, which features Charles Dickens as a little boy! The other stories in the anthology were a bit dark for me, especially for the holiday season.

Book Review: The Vampire Who Loved Me by Teresa Medeiros

December 28, 2008 in Books | View Comments

Loved The Vampire Who Loved Me by Teresa Medeiros. It's one of the books I wish I'd written. It's hard to write heroes and heroines who are both funny and lovable, and still believable, but these are done well. Made me laugh a lot, and cry a little, and those are my favorite kinds of books to read. If you're looking for a really Regency style story, this isn't it, as it has more of a modern, Buffy the Vampire Slayer feel to it than a Regency feel. Still, I really enjoyed it.

Helpful Stuff: Home Grown Keep In Touch Program

December 16, 2008 in Helpful Stuff | View Comments

A few weeks ago, I read a book that detailed a Keep In Touch program for your clients and contacts. It was meant as a relational marketing tool, to keep your name in front of clients and potential clients.

I don't really have clients, per se, but I do have people that I want to stay in touch with: family, friends, folks from school I haven't been really good about speaking to... So I decided to implement a personal Keep In Touch program.

I first searched the web for some free software because, hey, I'm really lazy, and if there's already a system in place, I'll use it. Apparently there's not. So I created my own system, and I'll detail it here for you.

Image representing Plaxo as depicted in CrunchBase

Image via CrunchBase, source unknownFirst, I got all my contacts in one place. I'm using Plaxo, synced with Address Book on my Mac. This also syncs with my iPhone, so I have a complete and updated address book on my laptop, my iPhone and on the internet at Plaxo.com in case my phone dies and I don't have my laptop with me. So far, this system has worked really well and I've never been without my contacts' info when I needed it.

I've gathered all the info I can from all my sites with contact info, namely LinkedIn and Facebook. This takes a really long time, people. Really long. LinkedIn has an export feature, but it really doesn't give you much valuable info. And, it is actually against Facebook's privacy policy to have an export feature, so if you want the contact info from Facebook, you have to go through every contact and get it manually. Now, whenever I add a new friend/contact on Facebook or LinkedIn, I go ahead and put their info in my address book, so I won't have to do a big Facebook trawl for info ever, ever again. It sucked big time.

Now, of course, this only really works if you're using LinkedIn and Facebook as intended, and your friends and contacts are people you actually know.

Ok, now on to the categorizing. Plaxo (and Address Book on Mac) has a way to categorize your contacts. If you have a way to add a category, a group, or a new field in whatever address book you're using, it's cool. You don't have to be using Plaxo and Address Book on Mac. I went through every contact (and I have almost 400) and categorized them into the following groups:

N- I never really feel the need to speak with this person, but I want to save their contact info anyway, or I see this person daily (at work, for example) and don't need to have a Keep In Touch plan for him/her.
1y- I will get in touch with this person at least once a year.
6m- I will get in touch with this person at least once every 6 months.
1m- I will get in touch with this person at least once a month.
2w- I will get in touch with this person at least once every 2 weeks.

Most of my contacts ended up in N. I know a lot of people that I either don't need to stay in touch with, don't want to stay in touch with, or don't really know that well.

Once I had everyone categorized, I took all the categories except N and began putting them in my task list. I use RememberTheMilk, but you can use whatever task management program you like, as long as you can set it to repeat tasks at specified intervals. I put everyone on my list. If I knew their birthday, I went ahead and used that as the starting point, since I'm obviously not going to get in touch with everyone, like, this week. For the people whose birthdays I didn't know, I staggered them throughout the year. For each one, I set up a repeating task based on how often I'd like to contact that person.

Et voila!

Honestly, it took a really long time to do all that, but I'm so glad I have it in place now. Maintaining it will be a comparitive piece of cake, and the biggest benefit is that I have a system in place to keep in touch with everyone I need to keep in touch with, and I won't forget, and I won't be sending notes saying stuff like, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry I haven't spoken to you in THREE YEARS! Can we still be friends?" And that's worth a lot.