Resources for Steady Writers

Resources to Motivate

Websites and Blogs

 Whenever life overtakes us or inspiration dries up, it is always handy to access little treats and outside motivation. Choose a cyber writing circle or a real life one in your region. But don't throw all your eggs into the basket or you may find they smash. Go cautiously to get the feel of the group. Are there writers working in your genre? 

No use choosing a highbrow literary circle whose authors have neither patience nor understanding to encourage a wannabe romance author. No use joining a website where sci-fi buffs spend their time discussing light years and g-forces when you want to know about police procedure in Alaska.


Some webcircles, like some writers' groups chat too much, others are hypercritical. Some websites over-promote their webwares without giving much helful advice in return. Shop around for one to motivate you. Let me know about your favourites and we'll list them here to help others.

e-freebies 

My  favourite Friday blog is C J Lyons' Marketing with Heart. She's wonderfully generous with her advice and help (look up the Mentoring Mondays) and the Friday freestuff always flags up something to make you smile and think. A great writer and a great lady.

Another author very generous with time, help and advice is Candy Havens. She is running a high powered writing workshop starting this weekend but also has incredible useful and thorough free writing workshops hosted by herself and guest authors throughout the year.


I'm a fan of Savvy Authors who have groups to cater for all genres and all writers from newbies to best sellers. Without their bootcamps, I'd probably get nothing at all written during the year. Even although I only managed half of this May's bootcamp, I still have 12,000 more words and some great ideas for novel two in my proposed series.


You get the chance here to pitch to publishers and more advice than you will ever be able to absorb. Good stuff.


And of course, there's everything that comes out of the Muse Online Writers' Conference. Remember to register in time for the 2011 free online conference. Invaluable for meeting like-minded writers, editors and publishers and attending workshops and live chats. 


Books and e-books

 This week  I downloaded Marg McAlister's Self Editing for Writers mini course while signing up on her new Writing4Success tipsheet link. The tipsheets are a source of intelligent recommendations on technical aspects of fiction writing and you can access them in her archives too.


 On the Evan Marshall site Write a Novel Fast    I found ten tips for writing  and publishing a romance novel and also under the Writing Resouces tab a free writing fiction ebook (My thanks to Cheryl Wright of Writer2Writer for the heads up on that one.)                                                      

 Writer2Writer   is a compendium of resources which finishes consistently in the Top Ten of Preditor and Editor's polls.



 Over To You

 So many websites, so little time. I have barely touched on the sites which have been so useful for me in the past. As the web grows exponentially year by year, catching up with everything useful becomes impossible. It's been a long time since the era when a Renaissance man could perhaps know everything.


I'd love to hear from you with your favourite and most useful writing resources and sites.


PS  How did I manage to forget Scrivener? How did I ever live without it LOL

New Year, New Start

Editing Deadlines

Editing by its very nature needs deadlines. Nothing is ever perfect, it can only be as perfect as we can make it. The temptation is to tinker with every manuscript for as long as possible in the hope of tracking down every error, every weakness.

Yesterday, when I said No Goals, I meant it. Today I realised the depth of my hypocrisy. Okay, I have not cheated and made goals. My goals have been made for me. I have two, maybe three books to be edited by the end of the month. I am part of a team. This is my job. I hardly think of this as a target.

But when it comes to editing my own novels, languishing unloved in folders, cupboards and under desks, I set goals and fail to keep them time after time.

Editpalooza

This month I am also very proud to be one of the guest editors at Savvy Authors, where almost one hundred authors have signed up for a month-long intensive editing session. 

Here I am promoting slow and steady writing, and I'm helping authors whoosh through their novel editing in four short weeks? Well,yes. Sometimes we can agonise for far too long when what we really need to do is step back, take a long hard look at what is there and see through the reader's rather than the writer's eye.

What is important is the book as a whole--nitpicking does nothing toward developing a  cohesive book with a strong theme.

Learn from Mistakes

Authors who do not take risks and make mistakes also miss the chance to learn and develop. Editors learn from their mistakes too.

Most writers have favourite words and phrases that soon become overworked. Weak verbs like feel, seem, be are useful but when overworked do not add to the narrative strength of a story.

Using then  as an adverb or conjunction in every paragraph starts to annoy a reader. Starting every sentence with he or she soon becomes boring. Beginning every sentence in a paragraph with an -ing word, as I have done here, is also a no-no.

It is hard for an outside editor to sort these structure faults in one pass. In my early days as an editor, I used to try. After one author changed 498 appearances of she sighed to she breathed deeply, I  

realised I needed to give clearer directions in my edits.

Celebrate Your Writing Achievement

Give Goals a Rest

The end of the year and throughout the land writers are loudly wailing, gnashing teeth and resolving."I must write more, I must write better."

Slow and steady writers look gloomily at blogposts charting resolutions and goals listed by superwriters with flying fingers and no need of sleep.

Whether you're making New Year Resolutions or SMART goals (Smart, Attainable, Realistic, Measurable, Time-based), just stop for a day and think. 

What is the point of beating yourself up about everything you failed to achieve and may well not achieve again, New Year or not?
 
Hope springs up like the phoenix on day one of the New Year. But remember the anguish and gradual slide into apathy, knowing that your word count per month hardly equals Wonder Writer's word count per hour.

That slot on the NY Times best seller lists is as far away as ever. No agent or publisher is clamouring for your brilliant novel.

Instead of racking your brains to list goals that don't look too trivial, take the day to list all your achievements for 2010.

List Your Achievements:

List all your achievements even if they're negative: I did not kill Uncle Arnie when he said the turkey was too dry.

Change your negatives to positives: I did not write 250 words a day becomes In November I wrote 1000 words or two blogposts or...


Now divide your achievements into writing successes and personal successes (In July I lost weight--no matter if like me you put it all back on again).


Now put your feet up, read through your list and stop bullying yourself to do better. It's bad for the character. 


Pat yourself on the back. Celebrate every achievement of 2010.

New Year Resolution

Enjoy every moment of 2011. Remember, everything that goes wrong will make a great story one day.

Happy New Writing Year