Creating a Sustainable Writing Schedule

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

I love little enticing pathways into interior courtyards.

So, there’s this gal who did a workshop at a conference recently and then did a blog post – about how she’s developed a way to write ten-thousand words a day. A 10K Day. I don’t know her at all – I just glanced at her blog post because several of my writer friends were (understandably) really excited about her ideas.

I mean, who doesn’t want to write ten-thousand words a day?

I also saw a magazine cover at the gym proclaiming that Kim Kardashian (I have no idea how to spell that) lost ten pounds in one week, and I could do it, too!

I admit, that sounded pretty damn wonderful, also.

This is where I’m at right now, in the weeks leading up to the RWA National Conference at the end of July. I did some assessing on Saturday and figured out I needed to lose 10 pounds, so my cute outfits fit right, and write 80K words, so I can have a draft of RP2 finished. This works out to 1 pound every 8K words. So clearly I just need to not eat while writing.

Thus the temptation of the Big Leaps is ever-present.

Write 10K in one day? Yes, please! Lose 10 pounds in one week? Sign me up!

And yet, I also know that this leads to the Dark Side. The best weight loss is slow and steady – or the fat just comes right back and is harder to lose. I think we all know this. Which makes me wonder if similar isn’t true about the promise of the 10K Day.

So, here are my caveats. I don’t know this gal. I have absolutely nothing against her. I have nothing against writing fast. I know that there are writers who can and have turned out this much in a day.

What I think is this is not sustainable.

It’s binge writing.

I noticed, in her description of this method that she said she hired a babysitter so she could write 4 to 5 days a week (I forget which) and figured out a way to write that much. She also said this enabled her to write a novel in 3 months instead of 7. So,  a little math tells me that, at 10K per day, it would take 10 days to write a 100K novel (most novels are 85-120K, so that’s a reasonable round average.) If she’s writing 4 days/week, then she’d have the novel written in 2 1/2 weeks. Where did the other 8 weeks come from?

I’m presuming that’s revision time. (And maybe she covered this – I confess, that I skimmed.)

Some people like to work this way. Candy Havens does a Fast Draft class, where you draft a novel in two weeks and then do Revision Hell for two weeks. This works for her and for some others, which is great. I’m not sure if she feels the novel is ready to go after that, or if it takes more polishing after that.

But here’s another model.

If you take two months to draft a novel, that’s 60 days to write 100K, or about 1667 words/day. Most writers can do about 1,000 words/hour. (Your mileage may vary.) So, in two hours a day, you can draft a novel, spend a month revising it and still have a novel in three months.

Sure, it takes discipline and adherence to schedules, like we talked about yesterday, but so does healthy weight loss. And, to me, this is a healthy approach to a sustainable schedule.

Change your eating habits, work out every day, get plenty of sleep and water, and the weight will come off.

Develop good writing habits, write every day, get plenty of sleep and water, and you’ll have a novel.

It’s not great on a magazine cover, but it works.

 

Why the Last Thing You Need Is More Time to Write

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Very early on in my writing career–dare I say, before I’d written or published much of anything–I took a seminar with Ron Carlson.

Look, he has a Wikipedia page, but no website. What’s up with that, Ron?

Anyway, Ron is a very talented short-story writer, and a terrific speaker and teacher. There we were, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, eager wanna be writers with stars in our eyes over becoming full-time writers someday. He told us a story about his own life.

He’d started writing when he was teaching, so he grabbed writing time when he could. At lunchtime, in the 15 minutes between classes, waiting for students during office hours. We’ve all been there, where even a few minutes of writing time is precious and you snap up each opportunity. But you long for the paradise of unbroken writing time. It beckoned to him, too. How much more he could write, if he only had the time.

So, he and his wife reviewed their finances and decided they could afford for him to quit teaching and write full-time.

It was the worst thing that ever happened to him.

Also? The house had never been so clean.

He did dishes. He vacuumed. He dusted things that had never been dusted. He did not write. One day, a friend dropped by and found him washing the spiral cord on the wall telephone. (That’s a dated reference, huh?) She took one look at him and said, “Man, you are lost.”

One of the questions I get most often from new or wannabe writers is about finding the time to write. And my answer is always that they never will. You have to make the time, or it won’t happen. I also tell them that they don’t have to find much. 15 minutes here, 30 minutes there – it all adds up. And that bright and shining hope for unbroken writing time?

It’s a lie.

It’s very difficult to use time wisely when you have big chunks of it. Ask any retiree. They dally the days away. People who have to cram a great deal into their days, get a lot more done. Because they need to.

The more you do, the more you can do.

So, what was Ron Carlson’s solution? He got a part-time job. A couple of them. And when he was back to having a finite time to write in, he started producing again.

It’s a valuable lesson.

 

A Pat on the Back for All Writers

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

One of my favorite restaurants anywhere  – the courtyard at 82 Queen.

So, I wound up my travels last week with a visit Friday morning to my day job corporate headquarters in Boston. I only make it back to the mothership every couple of years, but it’s always fun when I do. I forget sometimes, working from home in New Mexico and interacting with my colleagues virtually, how great the people I work with are. They were excited to see me. They hug me, my big bosses kiss me on the cheek. They complained that I should have let them know I stayed at a nearby hotel the night before, so they could have taken me out to dinner.

I work with wonderful people.

Along with socializing, I had a few agenda items – just some people I wanted to touch base with on projects we’re working on. It’s fun to get to talk in person for a change. One gal is someone I’ve never worked with directly before. She’s a title-level above me, but she’s handling a task on one of my projects. I stopped by her office, but she was on the phone and waved that she’d catch up with me. I ended up in the office of another gal I’ve worked with for many years and we ended up gossiping – about her stepdaughter and my writing. I showed her the cover for Rogue’s Pawn on my phone and she was appropriately oohing and ahhing when the other gal found me. She wanted to see what we were looking at, so I showed her.

She looked at it, asked some questions and gave me an astounded look. She said, “Wait – you write NOVELS? Don’t you work full time like I do?”

It was a funny moment for me and a good reminder. What we do as writers is not an easy thing. Immersed in the community, we forget how many people out there are *not* writing books. Whether we’re sandwiching writing time around our day jobs or structuring our days around family obligations and other distractions, this is not a common thing to do. It’s not easy.

In truth, it can be pretty damn hard sometimes. As we all know.

That’s something to be proud of.

Ghost Romance Anyone?

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

My lovely friend and one of my favorite writers, Carolyn Crane, has a story out in this anthology tomorrow!

Her story, “Old Salt,” is about a snarky woman tour guide at a seaside tourist trap in North Carolina (‘the haunted pier’) who wishes that a certain strapping young sea captain who died in 1870 had a less pathetic haunting technique.

Sounds just fun and fab to me!

Rogue’s Pawn Available for Review!

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Charleston is famous for its pineapples, symbol of hospitality.

Now, I’m in Providence and, while it’s a pretty city, too, right now it’s cold (50 degrees F!) and rainy. No sunny pineapples for me right now.

The big news is that Rogue’s Pawn is available on Net Galley now! So, if you’d like a review copy, hie yourself on over there and make with the clicky clicky. I’d be ever so pleased if you did.

Now I need to start composing my ranty post on how many stars reviewers have to give… 😉

The In-person Interview: Priceless

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Dashing off a post today, as I’m in Providence this morning and headed to day job meetings soon.

My weekend in Charleston was just perfect – and I got exactly what I needed. As regular readers might recall, I was feeling very blocked on revisions for Platinum and getting nowhere with phone calls to people. Networking that usually falls into place for me kept going absolutely nowhere. Finally David pointed out that there must be a reason I had to go in person and to trust that.

He’s a prince of a man.

So, I went over the weekend. And it all fell into place, from the first gallery I walked into, to the people that owner connected me to. Time after time, people offered me little jewels, exactly what I needed for this story.

I’d felt like I shouldn’t spend the money and it turned out to be the best money spent ever.

The take-home message? I guess there’s a couple:

1. Despite our very connected virtual world, nothing beats in-person conversation. People will show and give you in person what they never will on the phone.

2. Writing is an art and that means it comes from a place beyond us. Trusting what it’s trying to tell you is paramount.

3. I just love Charleston.

Shipping off my revisions tonight!

Clickable Titles – Bait and Switch?

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

I’m packing up my bags today and leaving my pretty garden behind, alas.

I’ll be in Charleston, SC over the weekend, prowling the streets and doing a little book research, then I’m in Providence, RI all week, winding up in Boston Thursday night and Friday. If anyone wants to hook up, ping me!

So, I’ve been working harder at creating better blog titles. This is one of the conventional pieces of wisdom for increasing blog traffic – a title that’s nicely clickable. I can see the point, and I know I have a tendency to do obscure, poetic titles that amuse only me and tell no one what the blog post is actually about. And it’s made a difference, too, both here and at Word Whores.

But I’ve noticed something else, too.

A lot of venues are getting this memo. Blogs, news outlets, what have you. Because the almighty click is the most important part, I’m finding that my level of dissatisfaction and disappointment is growing. Why? More and more, the article or post I click on isn’t about what the title led me to think it was about.

I’m not talking about people who title their blog posts “Crazy Sex!” and then say “now that I’ve got your attention…” That’s just a stupid, annoying trick which only alienates your readers and isn’t funny at all. I’m thinking of a post titled something like “Making Your Story Compelling,” and I read it and it’s all about the writer wondering how to make her story compelling. It’s not a false title per se, but I do feel misled. I didn’t get what I hoped to.

Now, some of this is just par for the course – it’s always a gamble whether something you read will satisfy you. But I’m encountering this more and more. Some “news” sites are particularly bad, offering enticing headlines and then a three-line “article” that completely fails to deliver. Not their problem, right? They already got my click.

However.

I’m starting to notice which sites are the most egregious violators and learning to know better than to fall for the lure.

At the same time, I’m trying to be aware that when I title my posts, that they’re interesting and informative of the content – in an accurate way.

Erf. Maybe I’ll go back to poetic and obscure…

Is Writing to Spec Selling Out?

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Flax is very nearly a weed – popping up volunteer-style just about everywhere. And yet, the blue flowers almost luminesce, making up for everything.

Selling out. It’s the cry of the artist. The accusation of the betrayed fan. I’ve blogged before about whether I think this is a real concept and where it came from. Essentially, for a writer, it’s sacrificing the story for commercial gain. That can mean even the gain of not violating an existing contract. We’ve all seen it happen. Charlaine Harris reportedly kept writing the Sookie Stackhouse books long after she wanted to. I would say that I’d love to have that problem – deciding between writing a book I don’t care about and a multi-million dollar contract, but I think it would be an extraordinarily painful decision to make.

All the same, I think brand new authors, especially pre-pubbed authors, worry about this a great deal. Maybe it’s because the artistic vision, the fledgling storyteller is so very fragile and new. It’s very difficult to know – definitely an acquired skill – how to separate good feedback from bad. Agents and editors famously reject anything that’s too outside the marketing box, even as they ask for “fresh ideas.” It takes time and confidence to know when to believe in a story nobody wants to buy. Because, sometimes, it can be true that your carnivorous shape-shifting sunflower story is and idea that plain should just not ever see the light of day.

The other end of the spectrum is writing to spec. The worst examples are those authors who get into writing particular series, like Vampire Diaries, where they have no artistic control, a corporate ideal dictates the characters and stories and straying from dogma is brutally punished.

As with all things, there’s a place somewhere in the middle. I’ve discovered it gets easier to find that sweet spot once you have a good editor relationship.

See, when you’re a new writer, you’re nearly throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Some are better than others at writing for the market, knowing what kind of thing sells fast and what doesn’t. I have a friend who’s an NYT Bestselling Author who absolutely planned her series with that goal. I, myself, am terrible at this. I tried the same thing, the same approach she did, and my “fresh take” on things is apparently so out in left field that no one has any idea how they’d sell it. So far, I have two totally different novels that have decidedly not stuck to the wall. They slide off into a disheartingly floppy pile on the floor. Sometimes I just let them lie there for a while.

But others *have* stuck.

And there, my friends, is the key.

Because once you’ve sold that book to an editor who loves you (and she will or she wouldn’t have bought your book – my editor Deb recently tweeted that part of her decision to buy a book hinges on whether she loves it enough to read it 4-5 more times in the course of editing, a hell of a lot of love), then you have a relationship where you can discuss the next story. In my case, I don’t have contracts for the next books, so they’re always careful not to guarantee me anything. Which is good for me because I don’t have to guarantee anything either. But they will give you an idea of will or won’t work for them. Editor Grace guided me towards a different word count and essential elements she’d like to see. I wrote Hunting the Siren with those guidelines in mind, but it was still my story. When I mentioned to Editor Deb what I was working on as a follow-up to Sapphire, she pointed out a few things that would make it a hard sell to the acquisitions team. I set that story aside and wrote Platinum instead, which the acquisitions team snapped right up.

Is this selling out? I just don’t think so. Mainly because I’m still writing all of my other stuff. It might also be that I have two fabulous editors who really respect that writing isn’t something that can be controlled and dictated. They give me freedom, but they also give me guidance for the market. That’s their part of the job, as far as I’m concerned.

And heck, at least they’re not cluttering up my kitchen floor.