Julie Lence's Blog - Posts Tagged "skills"
The Start of A New Year...And Something Challenging
The mad dash of the holiday season has come to an end. Presents have been unwrapped, greetings have been exchanged, the tree has been put away until December and the kids are back in school. For me, this is the best time of the year. Not that I make New Year's resolutions. I never stick to them. But I do make writing goals; realistic ones based on my abilities and my time.
From January thru March, my home and family life usually slow down. The yard doesn't need weeding and watering. I have only one school activity to fulfill, and my son isn't coming in one door and out the other with his friends. This is my time to concentrate and really get something worthwhile scrawled across the computer screen.
I start out slow when contemplating my writing goals. The first is to finish the story I'm currently working on by the end of the school year. And by finish, I mean have it written, edited and ready to submit to my publisher by June. That is a must, because once summer vacation begins, my time is not my own. It's hard paying close attention to wrapping up a story while keeping one eye and one ear on the kids splashing in the backyard swimming pool.
Then there's that terrible 'p' word--promotion. I try to spread out interviews, contests and covers throughout the year. I use a variety of romance sites to keep my name and titles fresh in the reader's mind and enjoy working with the fabulous ladies who run these sites.
After I set up my schedule to accomplish my June goal and make the arrangements for promo ops, I start thinking ahead to the next story. Character names and backgrounds, scenes, the setting, problems and struggles, villians; ideas begin moving though the back of my mind. By July, I'm itching to begin work on a new project. But if you've got an idea running through your mind now, why wait? Get started today.
How? By giving yourself your own challenging goal. Beginning today, write for the next four weeks. Turn off those red and green lines on your computer screen, put your bottom in the chair and write. Don't look back on what you wrote yesterday. Keep going. Every day, and by the end of the month, you'll be amazed at how many pages you've written. I did that once for a contest and won. It was fun, challenging and rewarding; not just the prize, but the amount of work I'd accomplished when I wasn't worrying about spelling. Or sentence structure. Or POV. Or obsessing over what came next, as I normally do.
At the end of four weeks, give yourself a prize for your hard efforts. An evening at the movies. Dinner out. Have your nails done. Or indulge in a quiet night of reading. And then get back to work; writing and not editing what you've already written. Within a few months, depending on the length of your story, you'll have the first draft written and be ready for the first round of editing.
Be creative in your endeavors. Take your characters where they normally wouldn't go. And have fun. That's what the voices in our heads are all about--having fun and challenging our skills each and every day.
From January thru March, my home and family life usually slow down. The yard doesn't need weeding and watering. I have only one school activity to fulfill, and my son isn't coming in one door and out the other with his friends. This is my time to concentrate and really get something worthwhile scrawled across the computer screen.
I start out slow when contemplating my writing goals. The first is to finish the story I'm currently working on by the end of the school year. And by finish, I mean have it written, edited and ready to submit to my publisher by June. That is a must, because once summer vacation begins, my time is not my own. It's hard paying close attention to wrapping up a story while keeping one eye and one ear on the kids splashing in the backyard swimming pool.
Then there's that terrible 'p' word--promotion. I try to spread out interviews, contests and covers throughout the year. I use a variety of romance sites to keep my name and titles fresh in the reader's mind and enjoy working with the fabulous ladies who run these sites.
After I set up my schedule to accomplish my June goal and make the arrangements for promo ops, I start thinking ahead to the next story. Character names and backgrounds, scenes, the setting, problems and struggles, villians; ideas begin moving though the back of my mind. By July, I'm itching to begin work on a new project. But if you've got an idea running through your mind now, why wait? Get started today.
How? By giving yourself your own challenging goal. Beginning today, write for the next four weeks. Turn off those red and green lines on your computer screen, put your bottom in the chair and write. Don't look back on what you wrote yesterday. Keep going. Every day, and by the end of the month, you'll be amazed at how many pages you've written. I did that once for a contest and won. It was fun, challenging and rewarding; not just the prize, but the amount of work I'd accomplished when I wasn't worrying about spelling. Or sentence structure. Or POV. Or obsessing over what came next, as I normally do.
At the end of four weeks, give yourself a prize for your hard efforts. An evening at the movies. Dinner out. Have your nails done. Or indulge in a quiet night of reading. And then get back to work; writing and not editing what you've already written. Within a few months, depending on the length of your story, you'll have the first draft written and be ready for the first round of editing.
Be creative in your endeavors. Take your characters where they normally wouldn't go. And have fun. That's what the voices in our heads are all about--having fun and challenging our skills each and every day.
