Here is the unofficial unveiling of my official cover for my 2014 NaNoWriMo project. Special thanks to Nick Briggs for the hours of work on multiple cover concepts, and the polishes and tweaks I pestered him with. "Yesterday's Future" is due out in 2015.

Why we write

Before I get into the meat of the post, I want to give a shout out to my Google+ Community "The Wordsmith Inkwell" I formed this group a couple of months ago and I have found some amazing people there, special shout out to Ray, Vex, and Elesha, for making it something I look forward to everyday. Vex, an author hailing from South Africa, posted a question about why we write, and then used the discussion to form her latest blog post. It is one of my favorite blog posts I've seen this year, check it out http://vexvaudlain.blogspot.com/2014/11/is-it-love-or-insanity-why-writers-write.html.

There are two things I want you everyone to learn from this. One: Being a part of a writing community where you can share and learn is a huge leg up on conquering your writing goals. Two: There are times where someone else can spurn something deep inside of you, and that is exactly what her post did. What usually is a short response to a discussion on my community, turned into a post I am proud of because it is my truth to why I write. I have posted here before on why I write, and its importance to me, but here it is again, raw, and honest. I challenge you to do the same, revisit the reason you write, you may think you have the answer, but you may surprise yourself. Below is my post taken straight from my Google+ Community.




I must write to stay sane. Since I was a kid I have had stories, characters, what-ifs, things that seemed so real to me I had trouble separating my thoughts between life and imagination. I would spend hours, each day thinking about being an astronaut, soldier, scientist, teacher, serial killer, detective, doctor, time traveler, and so forth.

I escaped in my head to places from King Arthur's Court, to walking on the moon, to winning the World Series, to traveling to the future and meeting the first aliens. I survived in these places, to help ignore the disasters of growing up in different homes, group housing, and many days not knowing where I would go to sleep or what I would be able to eat.

I made homes in these imaginary places, I made friends with these characters, I grew up in these stories. And now I learn to write them. I learn everyday by writing, and reading, and thinking, and talking about writing. I endeavor to master my story telling, my style, my voice and my technique. I was and continue to be deeply inspired by story tellers, the great writers,  and the worlds they build, and it is my hope that I can give my readers the same wonder, the same emotion, and the same escape that was given to me when I needed it most.

I must write to tell the stories of the people and places that saved me from my darkest moments. I feel their stories are as important as any others I have read, they have always spoken to me, in my heart where stories belong. I can only hope that my stories will find the readers that need them most, and maybe, just maybe, after reading something I have written, they too will be inspired to take the journey and to share their stories with others, and most of all I hope, in the darkness, there is a little bit of sanity.

                                                                  *   *   *

I am reluctant to share what's above in some ways, and maybe that is the reason I didn't post it quite like that in a previous post. Don't let me misguide you to think I had the worst childhood, because I didn't, in fact I'd say I had better than most. I post it because it is deeply personal for me, and I hope it brings the same out for you. I believe that if you can truly peel back the layers inside of you, and get down to why you write, then you will get a step closer to finding the permission to write that every writer searches for.

A look at the future of indepedent publishing

Our world of writing and publishing is going through the largest change since the printing press replaced the necessity to hand write every story. We are only beginning to understand all of those changes, how they have impacted our business, and unless you were blessed with a crystal ball we can only guess where we are headed. It may feel like things are starting to calm down, but I believe we are a long way from things being settled.

The world belongs to the independent author and self-publishing your own work. We have already seen this dynamic shift from the Big 6 publishers, small presses, and literary agents to doing it all yourself. Indie authors have proven they can edit and format their books like pros, present seamless covers, and execute marketing plans that would make any one of the Big 6 glow with envy.

The advent of the e-book and the technology of the e-reader have given virtually unlimited power and scope to the individual so as long as they are willing to do what authors have done from the beginning, write great stories and amaze the reader. And a handful of cunning, determined, and creative authors have proven year after year, book after book, that the independent author can win, and can remarkably outperform the giants of publishing.

We are only beginning to realize the independent author’s potential and the future of the readers who hunger for the next great story. Authors are beginning to work together, collaborate on projects, beta-read each other’s works, and offer advice to other authors through blogs, online courses, coaching, and a multitude of self-published books on every aspect of writing. This is only the beginning.

In the future, probably much closer than any of us think is possible, we will see another shift in the publishing world. The hordes of independent authors will form groups, teams, and take collaboration to another level. Instead of the majority of authors going alone, occasionally sounding off on other authors, they will begin to band together in a new way.

This idea may seem entirely counter to the independent author recipe, but I believe it will be the foundation of the future. Authors will soon work together in teams, sharing skills, knowledge, and experience with their small groups. Out of these collaborative efforts we will see rise to groups of three to maybe even dozens of authors, working together under their own collaborative brands.

These new brands will be the publishing houses of the future. Instead of being dominated by administrative cogs, literary agents, and executives looking to make the biggest dollar possible. These places will be used to bring authors together for the benefit of the whole. Authors will offer their skills such as editing, proofing, formatting, cover design, marketing, and using the contacts to strengthen their group, and ultimately improve their products for their readership.

These groups will form websites that will offer a one stop shop for readers to find their next great story, and to expand their horizons. Many of these groups will specialize in specific genres, while others will try to incorporate writers from every market to increase their site’s traffic. The writers may openly collaborate on a project together, or just simply stick to being a mastermind discussion group to hone their craft and polish their stories.

A day is coming where these groups will employ graphic designers for covers, trailers, and advertisements. Editors and proofreaders will be on staff to edit the stories churned out by these groups. This will offer a secure future for those people who have trades that rely on writers for product to work with, and in turn it will provide a more consistent quality for the reader.

Authors will work hand in hand with “in-house” editors, designers, and marketers. They will work independently and collaboratively on the individual products and properties, but this will be inextricably linked to the group and the strength derived from the whole.

While the writer will still have to work in a solitary environment between themselves and the paper, they will still have to find their own stories to tell, and figure out how to find their voice in which to tell them, this will only be the ticket for admission to a team to help push the writer to the next level.

This all may seem farfetched, impossible you may say, but there will be a select few authors at first who understand and are willing to challenge the notion that independent publishing isn’t a competition to see who can make the most bucks or has the biggest name, and that it isn’t me versus everyone else. In reality every author’s success means more success for the rest of us. Anytime any author is able to convert a non-reader or an occasional reader into someone who cannot get enough of books, much like most of us, we all win.

The days of my book versus your book, my dollar versus your dollar will fade, and we will work together, not in large publishing houses with thousands of employees, but with small teams working together to help everyone in the group succeed. Independent publishing will take on a whole new look on the inside, and while readers may never notice a difference, they will keep coming back for more of what will never change: enjoying the elegant beauty of a well told story.

How are you keeping your motivation up?

The first week of NaNo comes to a close today, which means today is a perfect day to do a "check in" and see how are you fairing. After today you should be at 11,669 words, but that isn't the most important piece of your "check in". A check in is where you take a few minutes and think about where you are in your novel, how you are feeling, what is going well, what sucks, and so forth. I think these check ins are critical because they can allow you the chance to avoid pitfalls as the word count gets higher. It is really easy to start writing yourself into a corner and when you start hitting the 20K word mark and more, you will feel lost and frustrated, and may end up quitting all together.

Here is my check in, condensed, to help show you some methods of checking in with your story:

What is going well? I really like the strength of my supporting characters, and how there are several story arcs occurring at the same time, and instead of it being focused on one person, the story is a mass of people moving toward circumstances out of all of their control, and I can't wait to see how they react.

What is not going well? My speed, and because of that, my flow is suffering. I know that I can routinely hit 2,500 words an hour and often a good bunch above that rate. Last year I hit more than one 3,000+ word hour. This year my best hour has barely exceeded 2,000... I find that is is impacting my rhythm if nothing else, and I am behind my 100K word goal. I know that the primary reason for this is because I am using a narrative style and POV I have never used. I will go into that more in another post, but I am using an Episodic Third Person Cinematic POV focus which isn't something I am truly comfortable with yet, but is is fun, and quite challenging.

What is the biggest surprise? I spent a good deal of time working on an outline, character sheets, and plotting this story before November, and now I have moved off script after my 10th scene. I have a strong idea on how this story is going to move, at least for now, which as a writer keeps it fresh and interesting for me since I am not following my blueprint. The blueprint helped me get to where I am, which means it wasn't a waste, but now I am in uncharted territory.

How do I feel about the novel? I feel nervous about my choice of POV. I like my characters, I think the plot is engaging and keeps me moving through it, but the POV zaps a lot of energy. Once I get into the rhythm I really get some momentum, but it can be hard to get into a groove.

What is the biggest challenge in the near future? It will be a major transition where the protagonist is separated from the rest of the immediate cast that has been in the book so far. So how will I keep up with their story lines when they don't interact with the MC, and how will my introduction of the second MC coming into play a few chapters away. I will only know when I get there.

What will I do differently from here? Going forward, since I am completely off my plot outline, that I will take some time every 8-10K word to create a mini outline. Kind of like taking a road trip and asking for directions somewhere along the way for clarification. I will let you all know how this goes.

You can use some of these questions, or some of your own. And if you feel like sharing some of them, please do in the comment section, I'd love to hear it, and who knows it may help someone else out who is suffering through the same thing.

Now, we'd all better get back to the word grind, it is a long way before we get home. 

How's your novel?

Did you make it out to your NaNoWriMo kick-off party this weekend? How are the first two days of the challenging treating you? Are you making the word goal of 1,667 a day? Comment and let the group know!

As for me, it has been a good start to things. I did make it out to my kick-off party on Friday night. There must have been 100 people there, most of them dressed in costumes, and the conversations were great. The two MLs, Wave Cloud and the Innovation Pavilion all did a great job to put on an awesome event, and let's not forget all of the great food the members brought, nice job everyone!

My word count has been steady over the two days. Not where I wanted it by my standard, though well ahead of the Nano goal, but I also didn't anticipate being down with a head cold, which is actually a bonus because I would have put money on having strep when I got up on Saturday morning. My daughter dodged the strep, but my son had it all week. And somehow Mom, like usual, dodged both the head cold my daughter and I have and the strep bug. Go moms!

I finished the day just shy of 10,000 words, and I have written 7 scenes in the book. There have already been some surprises along the way from my characters acting on their own, and some neat plot wrinkles have shown up. In fact an entire scene and a half showed up to really add to the action and character development that didn't make the outline, or even occurred to me until I was writing it, I love novel writing surprises. I put in some solid hours into the project, and I would be closer to probably 15-18K with the time put in, but things have been a lot slower this project. I am using a POV system that I have never played with before, and have only read a couple of authors ever use before. It is a experimental project for sure, but it has yielded some surprising results. I will try and post some material during the week from the book in progress.

We also enjoyed a power outage at home after hen someone was pulling a u-turn down our busy street and hit a power line pole hard enough to knock it over. The whole situation was bizarre, my daughter didn't fall asleep for her nap because her nightlight shut off, and our apartment complex made a mass exodus, Walking Dead style, out to the curb to watch. Granted they didn't have much else to do when the Broncos game was cut short in the second quarter, though it may have turned out to be more of a blessing for the Bronco fans.

Tomorrow I am back to work, but there is a write-in about three minutes from my store at the time I get off from work, so I may find myself at the Atlanta Bread Company typing my fingers off while my wife enjoys a PTA meeting, I think I win that one for sure. I am also going to try and jam out a few words at lunch.

How is your word challenge going after just two days? Are you getting your word grind on? Don't forget to post your word count in the comments below, and make sure you update your word count on nanowrimo.org along the way. Denver alone is at 1.8 million words from the last time I checked, which has to be a region record!

Grind those words until your hands hurt! You can always rest in December.!

NaNoWriMo will change your life

It's time to share your mantras Grinders, post them in the comments below. "There is room for one more!"

NaNoWriMo is 29 hours away, most of you are fretting about outlines, character biographies, scheduling writing time, and just trying to psych yourself up for the adventure ahead, I know I am!. You already know it won't be easy, in fact it is damned hard, but I am going to tell you how NaNoWriMo will change your life.

Last year when I sat down last year to write my NaNo I was boasting a strong record of 0 wins and 3 losses, good start right? I didn't know what the answer was, and I had every idea how to write a novel, but no clue how to finish one. One year I sat down halfway through the first week and started writing, about a scene in my head and 15K words later it died. Another year I wrote down six different plot ideas on slips of paper and drew them out of a hat, funny right? What's funny is I drew the first one, didn't like it, and kept drawing until I ended up starting three of the novels and gave up on all of them. Another year I wrote 30K, feeling good, and then my apartment was broken into and I had my computer, laptop, flash drive and back up hard drive stolen. I gave up that project and started to hand write an autobiography, (I felt very introspective after losing years and years of writing, dozens and dozens of short stories, poems, novellas etc. I never got them back...), that failed around the 20K mark.So how did all of this change my life?

In 2013 I sat down to try again at NaNo, I wrote and wrote, and kept on writing. I hit 50K in 14 days, and nearly hit 100K in the full 30 days. I couldn't tell you what changed, and what was different, other than I kept writing, I never let myself give up. That was the key piece for me, I didn't give up, I kept at it. The lessons I learned from digging in and holding my own against the challenge taught me something I am only now starting to realize. I can do what I set my mind to. Not in that public service announcement kind of way, or in the your parents will tell you anything to get you out of the house kinda way. I learned it for myself by doing. I WROTE A DAMN NOVEL! It wasn't great, it wasn't awful, it was simply mine, it was something I made and only I could have done.

Like many things I only learned how to do it after it was done. Not what you wanted to hear? Just hang with me for a minute. I learned that we all already know how to write a novel. What? I heard that sound of disbelief. You heard me right, you all know how. The same determination you used to learn to play an instrument, play a sport, raise a child, care for a parent, lose weight, fix up your house, finish school, heck even getting out of bed and so forth. None of those were easy, you thought about quitting and doing something else. You may have walked away, but came back. But you did it, and now that you are on this side of having learned whatever lesson that was, you know how to do it, but you didn't then, just like writing a novel.

Use that determination to help drive your writing each word in NaNo, because all of those things I listed aren't accomplished in a day, or even weeks, it takes trial and error, try and try again, and going when the going gets tough. It takes grit, courage, spirit, and some moxie. And if you think about all of the tough things you have accomplished, you will realize suddenly a novel isn't so hard.

I'm going to let you in on a secret, once that novel is done (and I know it will be, this year is your year), you will feel a sense of accomplishment and empowerment you never imagined possible. And it will stay with you long after that novel is done, believe me.

Last year I sat down on November 1st to write a novel, and I thought it would be hard, but it would be fun. And in the end I learned more from writing that novel than just building characters, developing a world, or making something fun, I learned I can do what I set my mind to.

It may sound silly, but because of that novel I gained the confidence in myself to do a lot of other things I never thought possible. I changed some habits, made new routines, and set bigger goals. I have been much more successful at my job, published stories, and even lost 80 pounds this year. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that writing a novel will help you lose weight, but it will help you accomplish the things most important to you. If you can write a novel, you can do anything.  

Time to get your grind on.

What is your writing fear?

Grinders, did you find your first write in you plan on attending? Where is your kick-off? Will you be going? How is the novel prep going?

I ask the last question because I have been hearing from several people that they are scared about November, and all of the writing pressure they will face. I know first hand that facing this fear can be tough, because you can only really face it alone, and learn to overcome it for yourself. There are tips, tricks, and shortcuts that people can offer, but there is no other solution than finding the way through with your own two legs, or in this case with your two hands.

The fears themselves can be all over the place such as a fear of: not finding the words when November starts, getting started and getting lost or feeling like giving up, not finding the time, not being good enough, fear of another year of failure. The list can go on and on if we let it.

Today is the perfect day to take a minute and look inward and look those fears in the eye. For me it is a wide, vast, and powerful list of fears. I am scared of not finding the right words when the time comes, I worry that my characters will be boring and I won't care for them after a dozen pages, I fear that I won't finish. I am scared that I will let others down, let myself down, and let the project down by not being equal to the task. My greatest fear changes everyday, and it does for most of us.

Tonight, I worry the most about all of the changes in the publishing world, and that I won't be equal to that challenge. I fear that there isn't any room for another author, that I won't be smart enough to overcome the challenges ahead of me, and that I will let everyone down. And it is damned hard to try and move my mind away from these fears.

I don't have a fix for these fears. I'm sorry. But I am telling myself one simply mantra until I believe it. I say it knowing that the publishing world is going through a transformation, and it won't be done for years to come. There are a lot of smarter, more talented, and stronger people out there trying to get published who are impossibly ahead of me. There is no denying that for any of us really. So I say this when the going gets tough and I feel like giving up, "There is room for one more."

There is no logic in trying to be smarter, better, faster and anything else I worry about it. I just need to never give up. No matter how long it will take and the challenges that I will face, it doesn't matter. Because I know deep down that there is really is room for one more, and that is my spot, and I need to invest my time in earning it for myself.

My challenge for you isn't going to be to name, write, or point to your fears, you already know exactly what they are. I am challenging you to come up with a similar mantra. Make it simple. Make it stupid. Make it silly. But make it and do it right now. Now I want you to write it down on a piece of scrap paper and post it somewhere you will see through out your writing in November. It is going to be your personal ethos, your individual slogan, your single tagline to get you through the darkest times in November, and push you to the other side.

Grind out that mantra and get back to the words that matter most.

The secret of winning NaNoWriMo

Happy weekend Grinders, how are the preparations for National Novel Writing Month going? Share your progress or your worst fears in the comments below.

All of us, at some point, will experience some fear and anxiety when we look at the goal of writing 50K words in 30 days. Today I am going to share with you a secret that will save you from yourself, and the fear of quitting before you finish. The answer? Go to a kick-off meeting and/or a write in.

To answer your next question, a write-in is a group setting where multiple NaNoers go to write. They are mostly commonly at a restaurant, library, coffeehouse, or lobby somewhere sympathetic to trying to write a novel in a month. Groups, usually a small handful to more than 100s can go to these organized events where you will sit and write for an extended period of time.

Some of the most common advantages are having word wars where everyone will try to write more words than anyone else, or just your neighbor on that comfy chair, in a predetermined amount of time. For example it may be a word sprint of trying to get 2K words done in an hour. It is amazing how a communal cause can motivate the masses to write their tails off.

Many of these events have food, give aways, and the best benefit is your ability to network with similarly minded people. Some of the best relationships can be forged over a a common cause, even if that cause is one you have to do alone. Spotter buddy anyone?

Most regions have dozens and dozens of write ins and you can find them on the nanowrimo.org site, simply go to the forums and join the forum for your region and find the write ins. They will have times, locations, rules, expectations etc posted on the forum post.

The best write-in of all is the kick-off party. For example this year's kick off party for my region is being hosted at a hotel by two local writers. The turn out in previous years has been several dozen people where most of them bring home cooked food for a potluck. There are some gift bags, give aways and the promise for networking opportunities.

I highly recommend going to the website now, nanowrimo.org, and finding your local kick-off party. Most of them are on the evening of Halloween (most encourage costumes and even have contests). You will have to do some planning to juggle trick-or-treat missions with your quest of writing a novel, but hey sugar never hurt a writer, at least not much.

I will going to my region's kick-off party. My challenge to you is to do the same, just make sure you bring your writing supplies for the midnight kick off of writing your book.

Get your grind on.

What does editing actually look like?

Hey Grinders. I wanted to share something with you that I don't see enough of in the writing world and it looks like this:

I'm sure you recognize it and it's probably from your dreaded days in high school or college. The reason I post this is because as writers we are at a huge learning disadvantage when we work. We only see the most polished work of our favorite authors and almost never do we see the first version. I wish writers would share more first drafts and more edited copies to help us learn. 

My edits aren't perfect and I am no great writer or editor but I am a writer and editor who is willing to take the risk and post a work in progress. 

This exercise may help you and it might not but it's important to remind ourselves that we need to edit before we can share our work. It's one thing to wing a Twitter update or rush through a blog post but your primary writing should have the first round of polish done by the author. 

It will help friends who read your work and it will helps editors who look at your work to not waste time fixing simple errors you can find for them. In turn it will save you money and time when you publish. 

I also want to say that this edit you see is four of the twenty one pages of the story that I had edited before and I still found errors. No one writes a perfect first draft and if they say they do I promise they're lying. 

My challenge for you is to take a piece you wrote recently but haven't looked at in atleast a few weeks and run through it and see what you come up with. Let me know how it goes. 

Please know that grinding your words means to take time to edit too. You will get better from doing it. 

Keep up the grind.  

Who is your writing support system?

Happy Sunday Grinders. How did your exercise editing some older work go? Find any insights? What was most important to you? Tell me about it in the comments.

With just over two weeks left before NaNo begins I thought it was the perfect chance to talk about our writing support system and why it is important. While some writers live the single hermit lifestyle and can set whatever schedule they want, which sounds nice to the majority of us who struggle to carve out writing time between jobs, spouses, kids, natural disasters and a sleep schedule, I will tell you why you need a writing support system and how you can build it if you have never had it before.

NaNo can be an especially challenging time for writers who battle the time challenges of family, work and friends. Trying to write 50K words in a month is going to mean for 99% of us mortals something we don't want to hear or have a hard time dealing with: SACRIFICE. But I am not talking about sacrifice that you will have to make, you already have a good idea what that is, for many it will mean less sleep, falling behind on your book reading schedule, ordering in or fast food instead of cooking, or maybe just going hungry. I am sorry to say that those are the easy sacrifices that will be made in November.

The truly difficult sacrifices that will be made to support your novel writing won't be done by you. They are the sacrifices that those around you will make. The time you won't spend with your best friend, the dinners at the table as a family(yes those still exist for some), the long talks on the phone that your long distance family rely on to keep in touch, and don't forget the holidays it will be the month of Turkey Day after all. And if your family is anything like mine there isn't just a turkey on the fourth Thursday, it is about six Thanksgivings, eight birthdays, two new children being born and a list of a dozen family traditions that can't be missed. Okay, now what does this all mean?

It means that it is time to recognize and thank the people who will go without for 30 days, and it is always better to do it now, it really helps your family not resent your dedication to your craft. I have a great support system myself, better than I deserve, I have a wife, parents, grand parents, siblings and friends who support and encourage my writing. I am blessed.

Make sure you take sometime to help do some extra laundry, dishes, organize a bookshelf, vacuum the carpet, take the car for a wash. Or better yet, take your kids to somewhere fun, your spouse on a date, and make an extra phone call this week to family. It is hard enough to find people to support you, don't you think that you should do a little extra when it counts the most to show them thank you? Start with your most important supporter and go from there.

For me it is my wife. She is beyond encouraging, supportive and helpful in my pursuit to make writing my career and my life's mission. She takes care of the kids while I write. She makes sure that someone cleans the house, pays the bills, makes the phone calls and keeps track of all of the birthdays. And she doesn't just do it for the 30 days of NaNoWriMo. She does it everyday and has for months and years now. I don't always say thank you, not because I am not grateful, but because it is hard to not feel the deepest guilt over banging the keys when I could be cooking dinner, doing chores or running errands with my wife and two kids. Writing is the hardest thing I have ever dedicated myself to. And it is impossibly more difficult when you have a family like mine that you never have enough time with. But to have a partner in life that understands the importance of what you are doing, and knows that there will be a long term benefit, and knows that maybe there won't be. But they do it for you out of love and friendship is truly amazing.

My challenge for you this time is to tell the person who is your biggest supporter how much you appreciate them. Do something nice for them, buy them a gift, help around the house, or simply sit down and have a meal with them, or just coffee. Let them know that they make all of the difference.

At the end of the day we cannot do this alone because we are all functioning writeaholics, and while for some that lasts only 30 days, I hope for you it lasts a whole lot longer, it has for me, and it couldn't without my family, I love you, and to my wife, you are my rock, my sunshine and my muse.

What is your writing Mission Statement? And why it's the most important page you will ever write...

Good afternoon Grinders. How did your exercise of making a simple outline and timing your writing efforts go? Did the outline help? If so how much faster did you write? Share it in the comments.

Today I am going to help you learn what a writing "Mission Statement"(M.S.)  is and why it can be the difference maker when it comes to your success or failure as a writer and a creative in general. Most people would equate the term M.S. with a business or company, because most of them have them. I think we can all agree that many, if not most, companies fail to follow their statement which in turn can only hurt them. So how can a person, especially a writer and creative have a stuffy sounding "Statement" to help guide them to creative and publishing success?

It all comes back to setting your sights on your goal, most of us know in an instant what that means to us and what we want, but rarely do we take the time to write them down. I think it comes from a natural mixture of being embarrassed and reluctant to put that much importance on something we actually want, especially something creative. We are often hardwired from the day we are born to think that being creative is a waste of time and energy, and we need to do real work. The other reason I believe comes from a mixture of fear of failure. Meaning that if we just chose not to write down our core goals then we cannot be held accountable to them, especially accountable to ourselves. It's time to stop the shenanigans and put our M.S. on paper.

Here is the challenge for you. Get out a piece of paper and write your M.S.. It doesn't have to be long, complicated, and certainly doesn't need big words. But it must be honest and it needs to have some detail to it. You can include whatever elements you want, but I would highly encourage you to ensure that you are including some type of deadline or timeline depending on how specific you are on your M.S.. Avoid making it too broad brush and writing something like "I want to write a novel". And remember you can always change it, add to it or remove a piece that you complete or that may not fit anymore. If you are having a hard time coming up with it, then I suggest focusing your M.S. on your plan for the next 90 days.

Here is my rough M.S. for the next 90 days.

I will spend the four weeks of October plotting/outlining my NaNo project and spending at least three days a week adding content to my new blog in support of NaNoWriMo. I will write 100,000 words on my novel in the month of November for NaNoWriMo, and I will post at least twice a week to the blog to help encourage my readers support their challenges and give them a place to speak their minds on their own projects. I will post blurbs of my project on the blog to help treat my readers and help hold myself accountable to creating more content. I will allow myself the first week of December off from the novel and finish reading my book on editing a manuscript by Don McNair. On December 8th I will pick up my novel and begin to make my first read through and structural edit. I will have this finished by New Year of 2015. I will then send my manuscript to no less than 6 beta readers. I will ask them if they can give me feedback by January 21st and which point I will spend 2 weeks reviewing their notes and comments. I will spend the first two weeks of February tweaking my draft. I will give it one final read through making final changes and then I will send it to an editor for a full shred edit. I will spend the rest of March after I receive the manuscript back making my final edits. On April 1st I will work on finalizing my formatting for the finished project and on April 6th (which so happens to be my birthday) I will independently publish my novel on Amazon, Kobo, B&N and all other desired platforms. I will spend April and May promoting my book. Then it's time to write another.

I know this M.S. is probably longer and more detailed than you had in mind. But I will challenge you to come up with something similar. I believe this is a particularly good time to write such a plan with NaNo on the horizon. After you finish writing/typing your statement, take a copy and hang it next your desk, refrigerator, front door or in your car. Whatever works best for you. And let it be a constant reminder to you that you have made a commitment to yourself and your creative project.

Most importantly know that after this exercise, you are one step closer than you were before in accomplishing your dreams and your creative goals.

Thanks for reading, let me know how this goes and if you feel like sharing your M.S. great! Post it in the comments. Until then it is time for us all to get back to the grind. 

Building an Outline: A short guide to writing faster with bullet points

Welcome back Grinders. How did your exercise on writing goals versus your writing ambitions help you? Did you find a way to become more specific with your goals and to clarify your ultimate ambition?

It has been a couple of posts since I have reminded everyone that NaNoWriMo is three weeks away. If you haven't taken advantage of this break before the fury of writing, then I strongly urge you to spend some time prepping your novel. It will save you hours and headaches later when it really counts and your 50K word goal is on the line. Today I am going to show you how a basic outline can be the difference maker in the middle of your project.

Many authors I talk to are strict about not outlining their stories, we've talked about it in a previous post, but it is worth bringing up again. I think this is especially important for people who are setting out to write their first novel. I can make all of the difference when you are trying to blaze through words between work and dinner, and dinner and bed. You will find it harder then you think to find time to write so it will be up to you to make the most if it. If you could why not just write faster?

The idea I want to introduce has many names, and some different approaches, but it is one of the best outlining systems I have found yet. I have heard it called: plot points, story beats, story bullets, headlines, summaries etc. Whatever name you have heard it called it remains a valuable tool to dramatically increasing your writing.

I want you to take out a piece of paper or open up a blank word document and start thinking about a scene, chapter or short story that you are thinking about writing. Now you are going to take that scene and make a list of bullet points or story beats that will give you a rough guide of your goals to writing this story. I am going to take an earlier version of my upcoming NaNo'14 story beats and show you my approach. It is a sci-fi novel set initially about 40 years from now where we meet a woman named Cora who is training in a program, the training regimen is brutal and she doesn't know what the goal of the program is. In the initial scene I have a lot I need to accomplish. I need to: create a story hook, introduce the MC Cora, give the reader detail that this story in the future, create some sense of action and suspense, and lead into the next chapter.

Please keep in mind a few keys to this abridged form of outlining: you can always change it, it doesn't need to be in an kind of real order, and it can be a few words to several paragraphs for each beat if that is what works for you. One of the best things about this approach is that you can tweak it to suit your needs, timeline, and your writing style. On to the example.

-Meet Cora Preston (refer to character sheet) she is in a training facility with a dozen or so other people who are in the training program.

-Meet Jonathan Braddock (character sheet) who is the instructor of this group of trainees. He is a tough retired army colonel who immediately gets the action going.

-He chooses Tabias Engle (no character sheet) and Cora Preston to spar in the middle of the room in front of the group of trainees.

-Cora and Tabias have a fierce bout with each other, Cora is out matched in size and strength and has to find a creative and deceptive way to win the fight and avoid getting injured. This will show some of her character traits: toughness, resourcefulness, determination.

-After Cora pulls off an upset much to everyone's surprise. Braddock then challenges Cora himself and quickly thrashes her. In a moment where she thinks she may win even though she is on the ground, she kicks to try and trip Braddock who thinks he has made his point, she breaks her tibia on his leg not knowing that it is a bionic leg. Establishes the sci-fi element.

-Cora is in a great deal of pain and is taken to the infirmary for treatment. Where we will later meet her mother Helen.

-Braddock dismisses the class and leaves the training floor and speaks with Elliot Kimco (character sheet), where Kimco asks Braddock what he thinks of the recruits and their potential. Braddock says that he is the most impressed by Cora but Kimco is unconvinced after the most recent display.

-Kimco reinforces the hook that only 4 of the final 12 participants will move on after this week, a group that had once been 100s of trainees. He then tells Braddock that this group is too important to fail and that Braddock had better find the right group. Use this conversation to detail the wider scope of the story arc.

In my example I have spent time writing 8 bullet points of information, of varying length and detail, which will help me in writing my scene. This took less than 10 minutes worth of time, which may seem like a great deal of time spent not adding to your word count, but I guarantee it will save you time in writing the scene. This will help keep you focused on your goal of the scene, you will be less likely to forget introducing an important piece to the reader that will be needed in a later scene, and it will help keep you laser focused on getting the story moving and you will be less likely to get off topic and write yourself into a corner that will only cost you more time getting out of.

In the end it may save you 3 or 4 times the amount of time it took to write when you come to the editing in December and beyond. If you remember to save the story beats and attach them to the chapter as your write, it will be easy for you to use them later as a reference guide.

The challenge today Grinders is to see how much this benefits you. Try writing a scene without using the above outlining technique. It doesn't need to be long a few hundred to a couple thousand. And then write a different scene and start by coming up with 3 or 12 story beats, or more if needed, and then write the scene. Make sure you time both of these exercises just like I suggested in a previous post on gauging your writing efficiency.

Post your results in the comments for everyone to read. Did you find that the outline helped you speed up? Or did the extra time you spent detailing the outline have the opposite effect?

Let's get back to the grind.

Are you setting writing goals? Or just getting lost in the mist of ambition?

Good evening Grinders, how did your exercise of creating a name list go? Did you find some interesting name combinations? What was the biggest surprise of the exercise? Share in the comments and let me know. Now let's talk about a topic every writer can relate to.

What is your writing goal? It is a question I frequently ask writers who are just starting out, maybe they are just thinking about starting, and I will ask it of people who have been writing for a while, and the more people I ask, the more I realize most people have the same goals, yet they go unfulfilled but why?

First let's look at what the common answers are, and know that if your answer falls in line with some of my examples, don't think that your writing goal is bad. I simply want to show you a way to get what you want, instead of you beating your head against the writing wall. I most often hear: I want to write a book. Good ambition but it is a supremely lousy goal. Some say: I want to write a good book. Again a bigger ambition than just writing a book, but again an awful goal. I hear: I want to be a best selling author. Amazing ambition, horrendous goal. Are you scratching your head yet? Read on.

My personal ambition is to be a best selling author who is afforded the ability to make a living from his writing, while teaching writers to improve their own craft and reach their goals. My personal goal is to put my ass in the chair, today, and to not get up until I write at least 1,000 words. I know this sounds like an easy distinction once you hear it, but that is the whole point. I hear maybe 1 in a 100 writers who answers the question say anything about a word goal, or even settling on writing a single chapter or even tweaking their outline. All I manage to hear is something about writing a book or series. Do you know how many of them I have talked to who actually get there? So few that it isn't worth wasting a decimal point on the statistic.

But on the flip side, the writers I hear who say: my goal is to sit down and spend an hour writing or say I am going to squeeze sometime going over what I wrote yesterday. Those writers are the ones I see most commonly accomplishing their goals. Taking small, attainable steps is the absolute key to getting things done and making it to where you want to be. You can't sit down in an afternoon and write a book, you just can't. But you can decide to sit down today and put 250 words on a page and try and make them the best 250 words you have today.

Here is my challenge to you today. Take some time and really think about what your writing ambition is? Is it publishing your memoir? Write a comedy book? Write a book on history? Write it down. Then spend some time thinking about what your writing goal is. Is it writing 250 words? Editing 3 pages? Detailing a character outline for 30 minutes? Again be sure to write it down.

Making sure that you separate your writing goal and your writing ambition is the first step of aligning your goals to make your ambitions not only attainable but make them the reality you have always wanted.

Make sure you take some time and share what you found after this exercise and post it in the comments.

Now try to put two days of writing together in a row, you'd better get after it Grinder. 

How to avoid one of the most common speed bumps to writing faster

First I want to say "thank you Grinders", for showing your support and helping this blog hit an early milestone of being comfortably into the four figures of total views. It is humbling to have so many people taking time out of their busy day and read what I have to say. I really hope it is helping get you thinking about writing, helping you prepare for NaNo, but most of all I hope it keeps you focused on your writing goals. Your support and comments help me stay focused on mine. Thank you.

Today I am going to make this short, but powerful in how much this tip will help you. This tip is especially helpful for those of you who are wanting to write faster, especially you NaNoWriMo hopefuls. The best part is, this tip can help anyone writing in any form of fiction. Have I built this up enough yet? Good.

I call it building a name list. Yes it is just that simple, but I don't know of many people who do it. I thought it was so simple, so silly, that I didn't do it forever and I kept on banging my head against the same road block. I realized that over the course of a novel or long writing project it would cost me minutes that over the course of 60 or 70 thousand words probably cost me hours. It happens to us all when we stop to name a character.

We all do it, though we do it different ways. I am half OCD and half touchy-feely so when I name a character I want it to sound equal parts: cool, classy, significant, have a deeper meaning, and be something unique. For example, if I see the name Gideon one more time I might freak. It is one thing to name your character John, sure I know a lot of Johns, but I have never met one Gideon in the whole of my life, but I can think of a dozen books the name appears in. When I got to the point of naming a character, even a trivial character, and especially so when I named a main character. I would stop my writing dead cold in the scene and grab my stack of name books, break out Google, and search the dark corners of my mind for just the perfect name.

I hated the whole process. I hated the time it took. And most of all I can think of so many times I would stop the project for the day because the prefect name didn't materialize, which cost me countless hours of writing productivity. I knew I had to stop this black hole of wasting my writing time. And eventually I came up with the easiest solution. Instead of coming up with the character names during the writing of a scene, which for the longest time seemed ultimately logical, I decided to build a character list of first and last names, for both genders, and put them on a piece of paper BEFORE I began the project. And when I came to a scene where I needed to insert a name I would look to my list and find a good combo that seemed to fit and then I just inserted it and made a note on the paper to avoid using it again.

I quickly found that I could breeze through a scene and feel like I could build on that character without all of the baggage that researching a name had caused before. Over time I refined this technique, such as when I write sci-fi I find a list of character names that sound like they belong to another world. And if I am writing a thriller set in recent times I will tailor a different list. I can tell at a glance what kind of themes or patterns I have with my name choices. I can then avoid having too many characters who have the same letter starting their name, or have too many last names that have a similar cadence. This make it far easier for your reader to not get confused as you introduce new characters to your story.

One last thing, you don't have to waste your time getting a naming book or using a baby name website. For example the most recent book I wrote, which was a sci-fi story set 200 years in the future, I knew I  needed a list of about 30 characters and I got about 26 of those first and last names from the current rosters of baseball and football teams. To be clear I didn't copy and paste their names, I would simply mix and match names and I came up with names like Miles Axford, Lana Drake, Layne Rayburn, Roland Sale. In fact the only character I didn't get either name from a roster was the main character Tabris Valen.

The challenge this time is to find a set of rosters for a favorite sport, or the names from the credit list at the end of a movie, or the first 20 names you find when you read a newspaper, copy them down, cut and paste the names and create a list of a dozen or so potential characters. Please don't forget to share some of your favorite discoveries in the comments.

I hope this tip helps you avoid the speed bumps that plagued my early writing. This tip can be the difference maker for those of your gearing up for NaNo in a couple of weeks.

Good luck, now get back to the grind.

Do you need help building a character? Have you ever thought of just asking them?

Good to see you again Grinders. How did your Google Earth project end up? Did you find a surprise in either exercise? What one do you think is better detailed? Share it in the comments.

We have 3.5 weeks until NaNo kicks off. Doesn't seem like enough time does it? I have spent a lot of my time outlining plot and characters, and as I do it I cannot help but think about how I have struggled with my character building in recent years. I really didn't understand it, I did everything I should have, I would answer every question imaginable about my main characters and even sub characters, I would detail their height, weight, zodiac sign, school back ground, phobias, parent's careers, all of the way down to their favorite flavor of ice cream. Yet when I put them to paper I found them just going flat from the first sentence. What was going wrong? I just didn't get it. I had detailed spreadsheets on everyone and it didn't seem to matter.

It took a while, but I stepped back and I took some time to think about what the root cause of my issues. I found that I really enjoyed writing dialogue and found that most of my story telling relied on dialogue between people. And I looked back at the dialogue of my characters and found that I wasn't enjoying reading it or writing it. I needed to make a change. But I couldn't figure out what to change. I realized slowly that there was a lot more to building a character then knowing their accent when they spoke or their education level to decide their word choices. I had to know them in a way only my characters could know. Sounds crazy right?

I decided to just do something different and see how it worked because everything I had done so far just wasn't working. I pulled out a piece of paper and imagined myself in the story with my character. I imagined that I was responsible for sitting down an interviewing them. I didn't worry about describing them, I imagined I was just sitting there looking at them, so there would be no need to go into that detail. Instead I spent time asking my character questions like: What was the hardest part about growing up? What do you like most about your best friend? If you could go back and change one thing in your life what would it be? What was your first kiss like? If you could learn anything what would it be?

These may seem like standard questions you would ask when you get to know someone in real life, and they will seem awkward at first when asking a character who is simply in your mind. I felt goofy myself when I did it, but it felt more natural with each question. Soon I got into the flow of the conversation and it felt like I was talking to an old friend. When I finished asking 20 or so questions I went back and read them and I found something very surprising. I found details about my characters that I had never considered. Instead of simply listing their parents careers, I asked what it was like growing up with a doctor or alcoholic or deadbeat or marine as a parent. I learned a lot more than I thought possible.

I find myself doing this exercise with most of my characters, especially my villains because I want to know why they do what they do. It makes for much more believable characters which is our ultimate goal anyway. I also use this technique if I get stuck in a story and I don't know what my character is supposed to be doing. I will put myself in the story again, in the moment that I am stuck, and I will ask the character how they feel, how they think it should turn out, what they are scared of and so forth. Often times I figure out exactly what my character should do next and how it will shape my story.

If all of this seems a little weird, I get it, I do, so here is a wrinkle that may just be the key for you. Instead of interviewing with a gentle back and forth. Try imaging yourself sitting across the table from your character in an interrogation room. And instead of asking soft questions, interrogate the crap out of them, ask them the tough questions, ask your villain why they committed the crime, ask your heroine why she is attracted to the bad boy who has just been arrested. This technique is great for those of you writing suspense, thriller, and mystery stories.

My challenge to you is to take the villain from your current project and interview them, and if that feels a little too touchy-feely. Then shove them into a chair in a small room and get in their face and ask the questions you don't have the answers to, the tough questions, and see how your character reacts. I think you will be surprised how much you learn about your character and what they are all about, deep down, where it counts the most.

Don't forget to share how it turned out in the comments and we will see you again next time.

What are you waiting for? Get back to grinding, November is almost here.

How can Google Earth change your writing process?

Hey Grinders, how did your work on "hooks" turn out? Did you find strong hooks in your story? Or did you find yourself rewriting your opening sentences? Share in the comments how this exercise helped you or what could be done to make it better for the next person?

Now I want to take a couple of minutes and teach you how Google Earth can make a huge positive impact in your writing. I bet you are probably scratching your head unless you have already learned this trick. I call it a trick because I have yet to ever get a whiff of this idea from anywhere I have read advice on writing. So for the time being I am going to pretend it is a new concept. Let's set up the barrier that we call face, which is accurately describing places that we have never been. This is a huge challenge for all writers, especially younger writers who are trying to get themselves published, but soon realize their shallow knowledge pool. So what can you do about it? It's simple. I am going to take a real example and then give you the challenge.

I have been working on a story that takes place in Washington D.C., a place I visited for a weekend when I was about 10. I distinctly remembering going to the Air and Space Museum with my father and grandmother, and I remember having a great time, and maybe vaguely remember some of the details of the place, but there is no doubt the place has changed a lot over the decades. But yet I find myself wanting to include this place in my story. It is easy enough to Google facts about the Museum and the Smithsonian in general. You can see pictures of the insides of the exhibits and take virtual tours. That's all well and good, but for most writers the story doesn't end there. How can one hope to capture all of the things that won't be on a business website or virtual tour. Such as what the scenery is like, what would one of your characters see on their drive from one place to another, for example what would it be like for my two main characters to be driving from Quantico in Virginia to the Smithsonian in D.C., what would they expect to see? and how would that impact their conversation and their perspective of the trip?

Here is where Google Earth comes into play. You can look it up online or download the mobile application and you can type in any address in the USA and quickly find a detailed satellite image, and many times get a street view taken from one of the Google vans so you can get a better idea of what a place looks like. When I looked at the Air and Space Museum I realized quickly that my mental image of the place was not even close. Which of course is exceedingly important because it is a well known place and many of my readers would quickly recognize a mistake if they read it.

But within a couple of minutes of searching, I could see what the structure looked like, what streets it was on which is important of course because the characters would know and would readily refer to the streets by their name. I learned what the area around it would look like, what the parking situation was, if a bus ran by it or if you could simply walk up to the front door, and what you might see along the way. I also quickly learned which highways my characters would take and that most of the drive would be three lane highways with a lot of dense wooded areas along the way.

Here is the challenge for the day. Take a mental image of a place you remember from many years ago, if you are younger it may be a place on a family vacation or what your grandparents neighborhood looked like. If you are older it could be a vacation from a years to a few decades ago, or where you grew up. Take 5-10 minutes and write a page or two about how you would describe the place, and use as much detail as you can. After you finish search the location in Google Maps and look at it from different angles, and don't forget the street view.

After you finish a few minutes of glancing at the area and using the neat feature where you can basically walk the sidewalk virtually. I want you to take the same place and now write a separate page or two of prose that describes what you saw in the pictures. Again use as much detail as possible, and if need be look at the the picture again to recapture the image.

Once you have finished compare the two pieces. What did you include accurately in both pieces? Was it completely different than you thought? What tiny nuances did you include in the second piece that you would never have remember on your own in the first? It is these details in which you can set your story apart and have the confidence of getting the facts right and add depth to your settings.

Let me know how you ended up. I would love to hear from you.

Now go, and grind on.

Hooks aren't just for fishing, but why are they important to a writer?

Good to see you back fellow Grinders. It is time to talk about story hooks and how to use them to keep the tension up and your readers flipping to the next page. This will be especially important for you as the writer and your potential readers as you begin to write your NaNo project in less than a month from now. Hooks can not only keep the reader going, but a lot of times they can keep the writer going in a project because there is a primal urge to figure out the answer to a question or the resolution to a conflict. Ultimately story hooks are just as much for the writer as they can be for the reader.

So what is a story hook? Everyone has read them, but they can be difficult to pull off as a writer. A hook is when a question is given to the reader and depending on the strength of that question will many times virtually force the reader to read on to figure out the answer. So how do you make a hook and when is it best to drop one for your reader to bite on?

Hooks should be used through out the story, you simply cannot get by having one hook at the beginning of the story and hope that it will be enough to get the reader to finish your book. You have to continue to drop hooks in each chapter and in each scene to keep them turning pages. You will of course have to resolve some of them along the way to give your reader some satisfaction for having read on through your story. I think it best to look at a couple of examples and see what works well and what doesn't. I will let you decide which one is best. I will share a couple of excerpts from current projects. They are both first or second draft efforts with obvious need for polishing but they will serve the purpose. Now lets break them down.

He woke in total darkness. There was no sound outside of his own heavy, labored breathing echoing in the small bathroom. The cold tile clung to the bare skin of his back. He sat there in the cold, dark silence for several minutes.Eventually, he lifted his hand up and grasp the edge of the vanity top. He used the counter to hoist himself from the floor and into a standing position. He didn't bother with the light, instead, he climbed into the shower and turned the cold water knob.The cold water slapped him in the face and he let out a sharp heave as he tried to take a breath in. The water ran down the length of his naked figure and as the water rinsed the night's sweat and bathroom floor from his body, it began to help loosen the fog inside his head. He leaned forward, pressing both hands against the wall, allowing the water to cascade down his muscular back, over his legs and down the drain. (Excerpt from "Letters to my Son" Chapter One)

That morning Alistair broke his habit. He still wore the same clothes, followed the same path as he always did, all except for a turn six blocks sooner than he would have on any other day of the week. He wore the same jacket to fight the same cold damp air, but most importantly he carried the same distressed leather bag, the same kind a doctor would have carried for a house call carrying an oil lamp, but today his bag was different, it was heavier, a lot heavier. He thought it was good that he was making a left six blocks before he was used to turning, he wasn’t sure he could have carried the bag much further. He was tall, trim and fit, fit in that kind of way people get from a hard life, the same people who never really put on weight, because people like Alistair rarely lived long enough to get fat or old. (Excerpt from "Bradbury Burns" Chapter One)

The first paragraph contains not a single solid hook outside of leaving out the name of the only character in the scene, a man who just woke up in a bathroom. I could argue that the potential hook here is why did this man wake up alone in a dark bathroom. But I know that my readers really wouldn't care to find out, why would they? It isn't very interesting. The truth is you can only care so much about a person taking a shower, especially opening up a novel with the scene. I would expect my readers to put this story down with utter disappointment.

The second paragraph contains a few hooks and even resolves some of them along the way. The first sentence is a hook right off the bat. What is Alistair's habit? We all have them and by definition they are often important to our daily existence. You learn with in a couple of lines that his habit is going to the same place each day, but I hold off saying what it is, which there lies the next hook. We are also told he is carrying a bag, the same bag he always carries, but this time it is different because it is heavier, and we often equate heavier packages with being more significant and important, just think about Christmas morning, everyone wants a heavy gift. We aren't told what is in the bag, at least not yet, and it is suggested that Alistair has an interesting life, one where people are often killed, but we aren't told what, which is another hook.

In just one paragraph where are given multiple hooks to pull the reader along in the first chapter because a reader will want answers to the following questions. What's Alistair's habit and why is it significant? What's in the bag and what is usually in it? Where is he going and where does he usually go each day? What does Alistair do for a living and what kind of life is so dangerous? This kind of opening will allow me a lot of room in which to maneuver. I can take the opening scene and do a lot with it. I won't share the entire first chapter but you do find out what is in the bag, but you don't figure out his usual destinations and why it is significant and you don't learn what he does for a living and you don't learn his habit, at least not yet.

Here comes the challenge. Look back at the start of some of your previous or current projects. Can you count the hooks in the opening sentence and first paragraph? How many are there? Are there enough? How soon do your answer them? What could you do differently to add more hooks to tempt the reader into moving forward?

Here is the challenge: In the comments I want to see some of your one line hooks. Something similar to, "That morning Alistair broke his habit." Who will have the best hook? Can you make two in one sentence. Show me what you've got.

Remember to keep grinding those words until next time.

Why is pacing important?

Welcome back Grinders! Flow is a great topic to discuss and I want to start the discussion by thanking Ray who posted the question about personal pacing on a project on Google+. I love to hear from fans of the blog, and Grinders if you have a question post it in the comments and I will answer it in a future post. Now onto the meat about pacing.

Ray's question has to do with speed of writing during a project. He suggested that he will have one pace at the beginning of the project and as he works into the novel he will speed up and end up writing more quantity as he gets deeper. This is a great thing Ray because from experience in talking to writers it can often be the opposite for people and that leads to people abandoning their project because their flow just fizzles out.This can happen to anyone at anytime so what can you do to keep the momentum in a project?

First I will agree with Ray in saying that most times when I hit a good rhythm which I tend to refer to as workflow or simply flow, my speed will pick up and I write for longer and more fruitful sessions. Sounds great sure, but how do you get to that point if you have a hard time when everything seems to fall apart in the middle?

Granted everyone will have to find their own solution but I think it will help everyone if I share my own approach to keeping it going when it gets hard. One of the things that has helped me the most to keep going at a furious flow in the middle of any project is to do two things: First, and this is rather counter to most logic, but I recommend don't putting in chapters or anything else into the text if you don't have to. That means avoid adding chapter numbers or names or even adding Part One or Book One to section off the first draft. There are a couple of reasons for this:

First it keeps you from putting up a self imposed wall inside the book which often forces the writer to introduce conflict, have the conflict and then add some form of resolution inside that scene or chapter. Sometimes you cannot worry about following the conventions of writing by ensuring that a problem is introduced, a conflict to solve it ensues and then you wrap it up whether that is a happy ending or cliffhanger. I have found that imposing these structures in my story will encourage me to hit a wall when I finish a critical chapter. This can be compared to reading any book, when you come to the end of a chapter you have a natural desire to stop and mark your spot. While some authors do such a great job of ending chapters with a cliffhanger or with a question which drives the reader to continue reading no matter how long they have been reading, those teasers are usually built in to the end of a project. It is difficult to have those built in during the first draft, at least not consistently.

Second I find when I go back to revise that it is a great deal easier to keep my flow up because there are few natural pauses to the story until I add them in. For example I find a lot of times where I think a chapter or part may end, it doesn't because I have written something spontaneous in the middle of it that builds a much better spot to end a chapter and maintain a high level of tension for the reader to continue to read on.

The second thing I do to keep my flow speed up is to try my best to end a writing session during a scene or moment that isn't resolved, sometimes I even end mid sentence. This idea isn't new by any means but if you haven't explored it yet, please do, it can really help you pick up the story the next time you sit down to write because you will get back into the flow to resolve what you started from the previous session. This is very similar to ending a chapter for the reader with a cliffhanger that will force them to read on. If you can do this for yourself as the writer of the story you will be surprised how easy it is to get started with another strong flow of words.

Here is the challenge, (you thought I wasn't going to include one didn't you?) over the next couple of writing sessions you work through try to avoid adding in chapters as well as finishing a writing session leaving something unresolved. I have no doubt that this will feel awkward the first few times, and you will struggle to allow yourself to write this way, but I guarantee when you begin the next session it will be easier than it was before and you will find a surprise when you look back at your tracked writing sessions, you will see a faster flow of words and more productivity which will only benefit you in getting the words out. Don't forget to let me know how it goes in the comments.

Until next time Grinders, keep at those projects and grind them out.

How can you learn to write faster?

Hey Grinders, how did you do on your writing goal? Did you crush it? Maybe you need to raise the bar a little higher. Did you struggle and even miss some days? Don't crush yourself over it, lower your goal a bit and try again. There is no secret recipe or magic spell that gets you there, you have to write one word at a time, and do it today, tomorrow, and the day after and so on. I know that sounds logical, even stupid simple, but I am still learning how to get motivated, put my butt in the chair and write. Sometimes you have to celebrate the little wins, such as today, for me, I have written 335 days straight without missing a day.

My first challenge is to tell you that you need to celebrate and reward yourself. If you haven't written anything in a while, that's fine, but instead of feeling guilty about lost time, celebrate your first 7 days of writing straight, and if you miss a day, celebrate your 7th day anyway. It doesn't have to be a big treat, in fact it works better when it's something small like getting your favorite drink or eating a piece of chocolate or listening to your favorite music or tuning into your favorite show. Just do it and enjoy it because you worked hard to earn it. And then raise your goal a little and plan what you will do to reward yourself when you get there.

Done celebrating? Okay good. It's time to learn how to write faster, yes the holy grail of writing. I am going to give you two simple steps to start with just to show how simplicity can help you up your word count in a hurry. All you will need is your preferred writing tool (computer, pen and paper, typewriter etc.), a timer (cell phone, watch, baking time etc.) and a note taking tool (sticky note, scrap paper, wordpad on the pc etc.).

Now take your note taking method and set your timer for 5 minutes. I want you to think of a scene in your story, it can be one from your up coming NaNo project or anything else you are working on and I want you to write down as much as possible in the five minutes detailing everything you know about that scene. It can be everything from the names of characters in the scene, what happens, what you aren't sure about, describe the setting or detail a character and so forth. And write or type with a fury for that 5 minutes and stop. Now write.

When you are finished take those notes and read them over. You don't have to change or edit anything, just glance over everything you wrote and then put it away. Now take your preferred writing instruments and grab that timer again. Set the timer for 20 minutes, of course you can go longer, but set it for at least 20 and set the timer off to the side or turn it upside down so you cannot be tempted easily to glance at it. Now we're ready to push ourselves.

Now write, scribble, or type as fast as you can. The trick is not to slow up, but to try and push yourself to your absolute limit. Don't worry about spelling, grammar (yes even commas) or if it makes sense. Just write as fast as you can and don't stop moving your hands until the timer stops. And when the timer rings or buzzes, stop it and stop writing. Count your words and find your pace and then write it down.

How did you compare to your previous pace? Was it the same? Faster? How much faster? Tell me about it in the comments, be proud to share your fury of words. Let the community know what you were able to do today and save it, because you will need it later to see how much you improved after your 7th day celebration.

And never forget, keep grinding out your words.

How can you learn to lift 50,000 words?

Greetings fellow Grinders, did you find your writing pace? Do you have it broken down to an hourly average? Post it up, I want to hear about it. You need to know that finding your rate is going to play a huge role in several posts while we prepare for NaNo and will pay you big dividends the more you write. Learning your writing pace is a great exercise that will tie into our next topic, learning to lift 50,000 words. Wow, lifting 50K words, it sure sounds hard, and I will help you lift it so lets go.

You are probably wondering why I keep saying "lift" instead of "write" your 50K, well it isn't a typo, there is a reason for it so you'd better read on. It all boils down to one of the leading causes of people falling short of their 50K during NaNo, they all try to lift all 50K at once instead of working up to it. It is no different than someone who has finally decides to get in shape, which is a goal much like writing a novel because it will take maximum commitment, and yet they try and do 50 or 100 pushups or run 5 or 10 miles the first day of their new resolution. I bet you probably chuckled or rolled your eyes when you read that an imagined someone doing that their first time working out in well maybe forever. They are going to fail most of the time right?

Of course they are and not just because if it were that easy everyone would be doing it. The reason we fail when we try to go for broke on our new goal is because we need to build a habit, to work toward obtaining discipline and willpower to do something when all you want to do is anything else, even the dishes or those 100 pushups.

Writing is a lot like working out. I say that because all too often I hear of someone who writes casually, or worse hasn't written in a long time, who finally says, "I am going to write that novel" and then try and do it all in a day or two, what do you think happens next? Do they make it?

I bet you sighed, rolled your eyes and maybe even laughed again. Good. Understanding your limitations is the first key to building a habit. So how do you build a writing habit? How can you write your 50K words in just 30 days? The answer is simple, NaNo doesn't start on November 1st, NaNo begins right now -- today.

Here is my challenge to you. If you have a writing habit now, great, push yourself further, but for the vast majority of you who aren't satisfied with your habit, today is the first day of the rest of your writing life. Set a daily goal and hit it today before you go to bed. If you haven't written anything in a while, it doesn't matter how long, start with 100 words and if you feel adventurous aim for 300. And in a week or so bump it up 20% and try to hit 4-500 words. A week later try and hit 750 and the week after target 1,000 and when NaNo rolls up in 4 1/2 weeks you will be really close to 1,667.

It will be hard at first, and you will probably miss a day, it happens. Don't kick your ass about it, don't let the guilt break your progress, kick the feeling that you can't do it square in the balls and laugh. Because writing 50K words is hard to do, but the truth is you can't write 50K any faster than you can write 1K because you still have to write it one word at a time.

It doesn't matter if its one mile ran or one push up done, you have to start small and work your way up to writing to the pace you want. The key is to start now and condition yourself, learn your flow, time your pace, measure your progress. Because when November starts you will have the knowledge, experience and ultimately the confidence you need to tackle all 50K and then some.

So Grinders, what is your word goal today? This week? By the end of the month? Where would you like to finally end up someday with your daily writing goal? Tell me all about it in the comments or shoot me an email. And if you don't want to share it, that's fine, I respect it, but respect yourself and take that goal and write it down on paper, the back of your hand, in a phone or smear food on a wall, but write it down and stick to it.

Until next time, keep grinding out your words.