For Writers - Setting Priorities

Happy hump day! Half-way to the weekend! Any cool plans? I'm off to the Missouri Writer's Guild conference to talk about mysteries and writing for teens and tweens. I just found out Claire Cook will be riding from the airport with me. Have you read her books? She's super adorable.

Anyway, this conference leaves me with a whole lot to get done before I leave, and not a lot of time to do it... which leads me to this week's tip: setting priorities.

Imagine you have a big bowl on your counter. Next to it are five oranges, a bag of peanuts, and two cups of popcorn kernels. You need to fit everything into the bowl. You can try this if you want to, but believe me when I tell you, if you dump the popcorn in first, toss in the peanuts, and then try to fit in the oranges, it's not going to fit. The little things took up too much space.

So imagine you put the oranges in first. They fit perfectly. And all the open spaces between the oranges? You can tuck the peanuts into those spaces. Now, carefully pour the popcorn kernels over the entire thing. They will find the even smaller spaces and sift into the bowl so that most everything fits.

Now imagine that the bowl is your writing time. The oranges represent you at the keyboard (or notepad), putting the story on the page. The peanuts represent fact-checking, revising, line-editing. That leaves us with the popcorn kernels. These represent all the other fun things we do to boost our creativity while writing the story... this can include creating character collages, maps of the setting, connecting with our writing friends on twitter and facebook for encouragement and commiseration. Note that if we've first put in the writing time (oranges), some of the popcorn kernels (online playground) slip in quite easily. Not all of them will fit - but the payoff is that we have words on the page... because we put them first.

Having said that, um... here's this week's list of links. Prioritize as you see fit. : )

The Tube-Fed Bride (Ginger Calem - Writer's Butt)

Writing Advice from Cory Doctorow (advicetowriters) Interview

Writing Advice from Lauren Oliver (LaurenOliver)

E.B. White on the Role and Responsibility of the Writer (Brain Pickings)

On Voice: Grit, Style, and Credence (Beyond the Margins)

Writing and the Art of Taking Criticism (Children's Publishing)

The Terrible Beauty of Understatement (Beyond the Margins)

The Good Seed (Writer Unboxed) On germinating great ideas by Donald Maass

How to write a 1-Page Synopsis (Publishing Crawl)

Advice to Aspiring Authors (Megan Crewe)

The Role of Reversal in Fiction (Beyond the Margins)

10 Misconceptions on Writing for Children (Writer's Digest)

Who is Your Target Reader? (Writer's Digest)

The Power of Words (Beyond the Margins)

On Word Choice (Gail Carson Levine)

Why Writing Through Resistance is Essential (Writability)

On Pushing Yourself to be Better (Writer Unboxed)

How to Balance Dialog and Description (Write it Sideways)

Ways to be a More Productive Writer (The Other Side of the Story - pt 1) (TOSOTS - pt 2)

The Power of What If (Romance University)

The True Essence of Character (Live, Write, Thrive)

6 Essential Elements for Riveting Novels (Paul Anthony Shortt)

Crafting that First Scene (How to Write a Novel)

When Not to Tell Your Character's Backstory (Wordplay)

Plotting and the Premise (Writing Fiction Right)

Writing that First Line (The Writer's Alley)

Writing Truthfully in Imaginary Circumstances (Writers in the Storm)

Discipline can be a Good Thing (A Writer's Life)

4 Key Elements Every Pitch Needs (Romance University)

Gotcha Blurbs - Easy and Fun to Write (Writers in the Storm)

Making Readers Turn the Page (Novel Rocket)

Character Connection (Seeing Creative)

The Good Seed - How's Your Premise? (Writer Unboxed)

Shape Up Flabby Writing (Write it Sideways)

Goals: Does Every Character Need the Same One? (The Other Side of the Story)

Now go manage your time well, and write!

For Writers - Lemonade! with Jen McAndrews

Remember how we were talking last week about things out of an author's control, and making the best of what we can control? Thanks to my friend and crit/workshop* partner Jen McAndrews, we've got a prime example this week.

Jen's book, DEADLY FARCE, was to make its debut yesterday. At least, that's what she was told. Celebrations were planned, calendars were cleared. (She took the day off work. I fully intended to spend the afternoon curled up with DEADLY FARCE, as Amazon projected yesterday would be the delivery day for my anxiously-awaited copy. Who knows the extended world impact?) Alas, launch day came and went with no books. Distribution was delayed.

As you can imagine, the road to publication is long, so for an author, the wait for her baby to hit the shelves can be agonizing. Now imagine being told your wait will be even longer. It's enough to turn a Writers' Butt devotee to sugar!

But check out Jen's new blog, explaining the incubation of her bouncing baby book. The publishers gave her lemons, and not only did she make lemonade, she's having fun with it. (And for the record, this is the kind of wit and humor you'll find in DEADLY FARCE. Seriously, you want to read this book.) You can preorder on Amazon or B&N.


This week's tip is: Have fun! Be creative! And don't let the lemons get you down!

Here's the official blurb for DEADLY FARCE:

When Hollywood heavyweight Shepard Brown fears someone is trying to kill him, he asks newly licensed private investigator Lorraine Keys to keep him safe. Friends with Shepard since elementary school, Lorraine knows he can be more than a little melodramatic. Though she agrees to meet him on location in Atlantic City, New Jersey, to review the situation, the last thing she expects is to find truth in his claims. After all, a poisoned pizza? But after getting caught in the center of yet another attempt on Shepard’s life, Lorraine is forced to admit he’s right about the danger—and determined to find a way to protect him while searching for the culprit.

With her meddling friend Barb along for the ride and her boss anxiously tracking her every move, Lorraine must juggle the chaos of a film set, the lure of the casinos, the mutual attraction of a hunky co-star, and a minefield of Shepard’s ex-girlfriends all while keeping Shepard safe and uncovering the identity of the killer … before she becomes the next target.

You can find Jen online on her blog, on facebook, and by following her on twitter.

*We will be presenting the following workshops this spring/summer if you'd like to join us!
April: The Hero's Journey in YA RWA YA chapter
May: How to Really Make a Scene Carolina Romance Writers
July: The Hero's Journey in YA RWA National Conference


This week's links:

25 Things You Should Know About Story Structure (Not Enough Words) Excellent

20 Questions to Ask to Know if Your Manuscript is Done (Blood Red Pencil) Checklist

7 Things I Learned from Stephen King (Victoria Mixon) Stephen King is the master.

6 Important Tips for Opening Chapters (The Kill Zone)

5 Questions You Should Ask Your Characters (Time to Write)

5 Attitudes About Publishing You Should Avoid (Writer Unboxed) Timely

4 Steps to Writing Meaningful Metaphors (Write it Sideways) Think backwards

4 Writing Routines You Can Live With (Write it Sideways)

Expanding the World of your Novel (Nathan Bransford) Ideas about extras

A New Approach to the Traditional Group (Kristin Lamb) The Concept Critique

Don't Even Think About Using First Person Unless... (Wordplay) POV

Writing Lessons from The Hunger Games (Children's Publishing) Stakes and Characterization

Avoiding The End (YA Muses) Juxtapose your first and last chapters.

Teen Roundtable (YA Confidential) What have adults forgotten?

Character Trait Entry: Disorganized (Bookshelf Muse) Look! They're describing me!

We All Get Them: Sagging Middles (YA Highway) Trimming the flab.

Game Changer: Inner Dialog w/ Hero and Villain (Story Fix)

DNA of a Beginning (YA Muses) What makes great beginnings great?

Fundamental Check: Scenes (The Other Side of the Story) Do they have what they need?

Outlining Your Novel (Magical Words) One Writer's Method

Now go make some lemonade and WRITE!