Monday Check In

This week...

Writing Related: I wrote 26 pages of Ivan's story. I also booked a few blog visits in September for myself on other blogs and guests on this blog. 

Motivational Quote: “The world will drag you by the hand, yelling ‘This is important!’ Each day it is up to you to yank your hand back, put it on your heart, and say, ‘No. This is what’s important.’” ~ Iain S. Thomas

What I'm Reading: I'm still reading When Stars Collide by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. I'm enjoying the book, but reading time has been scarce this past week. 

Random Things:  I stumbled on an episode of Martha's Vineyard Mysteries aired on the Hallmark Movie & Mystery channel. I liked it so much that now I'm trying to catch the other episodes as they're replayed.  

Random Photo:  

                       My blueberries and cream hydrangea is finally blossoming.

 

Monday Check In

Last week...

Writing Related: I wrote 25 more pages of Ivan's story. I also went back rewrote the beginning again. I finally feel like the story is starting in the right place.

Motivational Quote: "The only boundaries to what you can achieve are the ones you set for yourself." ~ Margaret Spellings

What I'm Reading: I'll be starting When Stars Collide by Susan Elizabeth Phillips tonight. This is the 9th book in the Chicago Stars series. I'm looking forward to reading it. 

Random Things: As I'm sure I've mentioned previously, I am not a fan of the winter season. Because of that, I usually get a little down when summer ends and fall begins. I don't mind the fall season. In fact there are some things I love about it - the reds and golds of the leaves as they change color, apples are back in season, mulled apple cider, and pumpkin pie. (I'm not really a fan of pumpkin flavored coffee though.) It's been unbearably hot and humid this summer so I'm actually looking forward to fall if only for the cooler weather. 

Random Photo:

                                           Somebody trying to find a cool spot.

Revision Dilemma

As many of you know I've been knee deep in revisions for far too long now. I revise on a paper copy of the work in progress then transcribe the changes to the manuscript on the laptop. One of the issues I've come up against is trying to keep track of what paper version has the latest round of edits if I need to refer back to them for some reason.

I came across Susan Elizabeth Phillips' method of revising a few months ago and thought "That's a good idea" and kept moving on with whatever else I needed to get done on the laptop that day. Well, after spending 45 minutes comparing two sets of revised pages to the version on the laptop, I've decided to incorporate her method into my revision/editing process.

She uses a different color paper for each draft. The first draft may be on regular white copy paper, the second draft on yellow paper, the third draft on light blue paper and so on. I just happen to have two reams of yellow paper and 1 1/2 reams of light pink paper. I also have a ream of white paper that has holes already punched in it so if you want to put it in a binder, you don't have to hole punch it yourself. I'm not sure where I got this from, but I'm sure it'll come in handy.

Having different colored paper for each draft will definitely make it easier to keep track of what hard copy version has the latest revisions.

What's Up Wednesday

This week...

My current WIP (work in progress): I went through the first 75 pages of Honor Bound and make a few minor changes. It feels good to be writing again.

Quote of the Week: "When you know what you want, and want it bad enough, you will find a way to get it." -Jim Rohn

What I'm reading: I just started First Star I See Tonight by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. I love her books.

Random Things: It really does make a difference if you make a plan for your week. I find that if I plan out my week on Saturday evenings or Sunday afternoons for the coming week, I accomplish so much more than if I just try to fit everything in when I can instead of having it scheduled for a specific day and time.

Random Photo of the Week:

                                Not a photo, but I love this and wanted to share it.
  

Draft Number What?

In most cases when a writer types "The End" on the last page of a manuscript, it's only the first draft of many. I have heard of writers who only do one draft of a book, but I've never actually met anyone who's able to do it. Not saying it doesn't happen, just that for most writers writing a book takes multiple drafts to get it to the point where the author feels it's publishable.

When I first started writing I would often get mixed up as to what draft I was working on. One time I somehow managed to get pages from a previous version mixed up with the current version I was working on. It was a mess. That made me decide I needed a better way to keep track of what number draft I was working on.

I started putting in the header of each page the title and "draft #" whatever version it was. While that worked most of the time, I would sometimes forget to update the header and end up with more than one version with the same draft number.

I decided there had to be a better way to tell by looking at the manuscript pages if I was working on the 2nd or 4th draft of a manuscript. Around that time, I came across an article / posting from Susan Elizabeth Phillips. (For those of you who aren't familiar with her work, Ms. Phillips is a best selling author who writes amazing contemporary romance novels. I highly recommend her books, especially Nobody's Baby But Mine which is one of my favorite all time books.) She mentioned that she prints out each draft of her manuscripts on different colored paper.

What a great idea. There'd be no way of mixing pages from one draft with another. Now I print the first draft on regular white paper, the second draft on yellow paper, the third on pink, and usually the final and fourth draft on green. I always use pastel colored paper. If you try to use the fluorescent pink, yellow, and so forth, the brightness will quickly give you a headache.

So if you also sometimes have an issue knowing what draft you're working on, try Ms. Phillips idea. It's worked for me. :o)

Never Say Never

I met a fellow writer yesterday for coffee and after bemoaning the current states of our works in progress we started talking about all the "rules" we were told had to be followed if we ever hoped to become published. The funny thing is nearly all of these rules have been broken and some of them by the best writers in the Romance industry.

Here are a few of the more prominent "Rules" we were told were never to be broken. These words were always delivered in an authoritative, "you're going to kill your writing career before it gets started if you even think about breaking these rules" tone of voice.

• Never use a hero that plays professional sports.  This goes hand in hand with the rule that your hero should never be a professional musician, artist, or actor.  (I guess no one ever told Susan Elizabeth Phillips (SEP) this rule. She writes some of the best sports playing heroes out there. One of my favorite books is Nobody's Baby But Mine written by SEP. The hero, Cal Bonner, is a professional football player.)

• Never write in sentence fragments.  My reaction to this statement was, "huh?" We all want to write realistic dialogue. If you listen to people when they speak, they don't always speak in complete sentences. I know I don't. 

• Never write using first-person point of view.  (I guess no one told Kristan Higgins or Janet Evanovich this rule. Kristan Higgins writes some of the best first person romance novels out there. And while Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series isn't technically romance, there is the romantic triangle between Stephanie, Joe, and Ranger in every one of her books.) I will admit I tried writing in the first-person. It was hard. I kept wanting to go into the hero's point of view.

• Never head hop or jump from one character's point of view (POV) to another's to another's and back again. I have to agree with this rule. It drives me crazy when I'm in the heroine's POV and then I'm in the hero's, then I'm in the villain's and then I'm back in the heroine's. I feel jumping POVs all the time creates distance between the reader and the hero/heroine. (Of course, Nora Roberts is well known for head hopping but if you can do it as well as she does, I say go for it.)

So in my experience, I've learned to never say the word never when asked about writing advice. If you need to break a rule to tell the best possible story you can tell, then make sure you do it well. I'd love to hear anyone else's rules they were told should never be broken.