Tim Dodge's Blog, page 2

Guest Blog Post – Christine McDonnell: Keeping Motivated

Christine McDonnell

So, a year ago this week, I had the pleasure of meeting Christine McDonnell, a writer from Virginia, at my first Smoky Writers retreat. Christine is a word-production machine – I really don’t know how she does it. I was happy with 18,000 words at the 2016 retreat and 22,000 this year. Christine breezily knocked off 36,000 last year and another 31,000 this year. In six days.

She also just happens to be a lovely person who helps make Smoky Writers special. And she has generously contributed a post for this blog! Her contact information is below – give her post a read and check out her pages and her work.

Christine, the floor is yours ….

Ever had a time when you wanted to finish something – wanted it with ever fiber of your being – but needed a kick in the pants to get it done? What happens if no one else could give you that kick in the pants?

This is my endless struggle. Balancing a professional day job with a relationship AND a secondary writing career on top of that – It can be rather exhausting.

EX.HAUST.ING.

You guys feel me, right?

For me, motivation has to be more than a physical reward or reason. You have to want it internally too. There has to be a need to finish your project, a wild desire or fantastic dream to propel you forward. Without that drive, good luck on remaining motivated.

Currently, here’s what’s lined up this year:

Spending my first year without my best friend, who has been my kick in the pants for years.
Cross Training at #dayjob for two months this summer
Posting at least 2x a month on my website/blog
The Chaos Accounts stories I will be releasing need to be written (7+ more this year)
Promoting aforementioned Chaos Accounts stories NON-STOP
Finishing my ‘secret’ project
Pick back up my two Youtube Channels (one a vlog channel, another a Nightcore remix/AMV channel)
Returning to Ravencon in Williamsburg as a RETURNING author panelist for Year #2

AND to top it off, that secret needs a first draft, a few betas/editors, TONS of editing (though every author needs TONS of editing, so that’s a given), and then post-production coordination.

My motivation?

Wanting it more than anything else.

Ever since publishing my first short story in 2012, I’ve considered my writing as a second career. I didn’t consider upgrading to full author ‘status’ until the release of “The Protektor’s Reality” in 2014.

Writing has been my passion and obsession for over 13 years now, and I’m inching closer and closer to my dream of finally seeing my book on a bookstore shelf one day. That dream, along with my uncle and best friend cheering me on up above, is what keeps me motivated, keeps me making videos, keeps me writing, keeps me sane within the insanity that is my crammed, stress-filled life.

So, to answer the question I posed at the beginning of this post: sometimes, you have to kick yourself in the pants.

Support me on Patreon, so I can stay motivated! Lots of cool rewards!

You can find me at the below links. Keep Faith, everyone.

Facebook:: https://www.facebook.com/christinemcdonnellauthor/
Twitter:: https://twitter.com/discoverywritin
Website/Blog:: https://terraravikos.com/
Youtube Vlog:: http://bit.ly/2nwEH9D
Youtube Remixes/AMVs:: http://bit.ly/2nwugTd

Walking Through the Mountains With Tee Morris – Part 3

This is Tee’s Facebook Live video from day four of Smoky Writers 2017 (my third morning walk.) We talk fire damage, writing, rain, Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Cards Against Humanity.

Walking Through the Mountains With Tee Morris – Part 2

Day two of the Facebook Live videos that Tee Morris shot while we went for our morning walk up and down the mountain during last week’s Smoky Writers retreat. This one was from Wednesday, March 1.

Walking Through the Mountains With Tee Morris – Part 1

I spent last week at the Smoky Writers retreat near Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. I’ll post a recap shortly, but for now I’m going with videos. Tee Morris and I established a habit of starting each day with a walk around the area where our cabin was. The walks ranged from two to three miles each up some decent slopes (they’re called mountains for a reason.) Toward the end of each walk, Tee did a broadcast on Facebook Live. This is the first one. Warning: I look like someone who just got out of bed. Because I was.

Part two tomorrow.

Words To Remember During a Terrible Week

Smokey Writers 2016 – Day 7

I’m sitting in the terminal at the Knoxville, TN airport, waiting for a flight that doesn’t leave for another four hours. When someone offers you a free ride to the airport, you take it, regardless of how early it is. It’s Easter Sunday, and Smokey Writers 2016 is officially over. We had a group breakfast at a Gatlinburg pancake house. Many hugs were exchanged and goodbyes said. Hard to believe it will be a year before I see most of them again.

Yesterday was much like the other working days of the retreat. A day of writing, followed by readings at 6:00 pm, followed by food, drink and fun. I spent a good deal of time wrestling with plot problems, but by the time I finished for the day, I had produced 3,005 words. For the week, I produced 17,688 new words plus the changes I made to the ghost story book. That’s an average of just under 3,000 words a day, a level of productivity I’ve never achieved before. I’m very satisfied with that. Next year, I won’t be. If I’m not getting better, I’m getting worse.

My reading last night was with Alex White, Bryan Lincoln, Pip Ballantine and Starla Huchton. It was my first time reading with Alex and Bryan, so getting first tastes of their works was a treat. Bryan’s work is an audio drama, so we each read parts. I got to show my voice acting chops, such as they are. Starla’s reading was from the novella that she finished while on the retreat. No spoilers – all I will say is that you should buy it when it goes on sale. Seriously. And Pip’s book is a hoot. Really looking forward to that finished product as well.

After reading time was over, Tee Morris organized a showing of the Disney movie Tomorrowland in the theatre room. I’d never seen it before, and had a really good time. I think it’s definitely worth another viewing. The movie was interrupted by yet another delicious dinner. I may need to go on a beans and rice diet for a couple of weeks once I’m home. The night wound down with some March Madness action on TV, some guitar playing, and relaxing on one of the balconies.

My only regret is not making it to Mass on Easter Sunday, something that I’ve never missed before. Because we had to be out of the house early, and because I didn’t have my own transportation, and the church was four miles away, I just could not make it. It does not feel like Easter to me, and that’s something I feel bad about. In retrospect, I should have just reserved my return flight for Saturday.

That regret aside, this was an incredibly fast and rewarding week. You would think that sitting around all day making up stories would be difficult and slow. You’d be right about the difficulty but not about the slow part. Almost without fail, I’d look at my watch each day and say, “It’s 4:00 already?” Writing anything well is hard work, and time goes fast when you’re working hard. And all of us worked very hard this week.

I am grateful for the opportunity I had and for the people I spent the week with. I hung with old friends, got to know a few people better, and made some precious new friendships. For the first time, I met someone who cares more about the Frozen Four than the Final Four. I learned that the number of flavors of moonshine rivals the number of Baskin Robbins’ ice cream flavors. I learned that Tennessee is a beautiful state. I saw cooks melt sugar on creme brulee with a tool that looks like a small blowtorch. I heard stories of World War I dogfights, 1890’s high society, ancient stories of the middle east, and con artists. I wrote words that made people laugh and others that made them shiver.

Everyone agreed that we want the same house next year. The house became as much everyone’s friend as the other people did. It’s just a magnificent setting for a retreat like this. I miss it already.

God willing, I will be back in the Smokey Mountains next March for the 2017 retreat, if they’ll have me. It was without question the most rewarding week I’ve had as a writer. Tomorrow, I return to being an insurance guy. For the last week, I was a writer sharing space with some of the most wonderful, talented, creative people I could hope to meet. For that, I am one very, very lucky guy.

Happy Easter.

Smokey Writers 2016 – Day 6

We’re in the home stretch here at Smokey Writers. I had a terrible time getting going yesterday. I made the mistake of checking my work email for a few minutes, which set me back. I didn’t do any actual day job work; a colleague from a committee I’m part of needed a link to a court decision (he called and asked for it on Tuesday), so I re-sent him that email. However, the temptation to skim my messages proved irresistible. I did it just long enough to remind myself why I’m on vacation.

If I was home, I would have attended church services on either Holy Thursday or Good Friday or both. Since I’m ensconced in the mountains, I tried to compensate by listening to St. John’s Passion by Bach as I worked yesterday. Not quite the same, but it did remind me that Smokey Writers isn’t the only thing happening this week that’s important to me. (Of course, everyone in the house is aware of the horrible events in Brussels this week.)

After a start that was a little bit slower than pulling molars, I picked up some momentum and ended the day with 2,408 words written. In regular life, I’d be doing cartwheels over that kind of production, but it felt like an off day here. Today is the last writing day, and I really want to crack the 5,000 mark again.

Several people have hit their goals this week. K.T. Bryski has written a short story every day. Tee Morris finished his work in progress yesterday. Christine McDonnell somehow managed to write 30,000 words in five days. Foo Borregaard pushed 8,900 words yesterday. Beyond sheer quantity, the material I’ve heard in the nightly readings has been terrific. I am so proud to have spent a week writing with all of these great people.

Last night was fairly quiet. Some gaming, and I got to watch my Syracuse University Orange eek out a win over Gonzaga in men’s college basketball. I expect that we will have one last great night tonight.

Tomorrow is Easter, and we have to vacate in the morning. My last Smokey Writers blog post might not appear for a few days. Until then, I Should Be Writing.

Smokey Writers 2016 – Day 5

After the free day Wednesday, it was back to regular business on Thursday of the retreat. I had a bit of a slow start (as in staring at the laptop screen and trying to figure out how I was going to start the sequence of events.) However, I got on a pretty decent roll before lunch. I did in fact kill off a character, though not the one I’d originally planned on offing. The end result was 2,716 new words for the book.

Hastening my character’s demise required me to do some research that may attract the attention of the NSA. For future reference, I was last sighted near Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

After I’d done all I wanted to on the current book, I went back to edits on the ghost story. It’s harder to quantify progress on this, as I’m adding and cutting chunks of text. Also, these edits are not merely fixing typos. I’m changing the way the story sounds, adding some spark to the dialogues, rearranging scenes, and so on. These changes require a lot of thought. My guess is that, by the end of the day, I had fewer words in that book than I did at the beginning, but hopefully the story is better. Also, there will be sessions where I add a thousand words. I just don’t know yet.

After yet another awesome dinner (beef wellington!), a bunch of us assembled in the theatre room in the basement for a recording of Tee Morris’s and Philippa Ballantine’s podcast The Shared Desk. In addition to Tee and Pip, the participants were Foo Borregaard, Rosemary Tizledoun, Hugh O’Donnell, and me. We discussed the retreat so far and how it compared to our expectations. Look for that episode to hit an RSS feed near you sometime within the next two weeks.

After that, several of us re-gathered in the theatre room for a rousing game of Cards Against Humanity. If you are familiar with the game, then you know that it revealed us to have pretty disturbing senses of humor. After two games, Lauren Harris and Bryan Lincoln held the coveted title of Sickest Person at Smokey Writers 2016.

We just said goodbye to Hugh, who has a two-day drive back to Buffalo. Most of the rest of us are here until Sunday. It’s hard to believe that the retreat is starting to wind down. It’s not over yet, though – I’ve got a few thousand words to write today. I’d best get to it.

Smokey Writers 2016 – Day 4

The fourth day of the retreat was a bit different from the others. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, it was a “free” day. There were no evening readings scheduled, so people could hang out at the house and write or go into Gatlinburg, or basically do whatever they wanted. There was no expectation that we would produce new content, though there certainly was nothing stopping anyone who wanted to work.

After I published yesterday’s post, my relative lack of sleep for the past several days caught up with me, and I snuck in a much-needed nap. After that, I got to work, and while I have yet to repeat Monday’s 5,000 words plus output, I was happy with the chapter I wrote. I finished with 1,986 words for the day, all of them for the new book. I didn’t work on the ghost story at all. It was warm enough outside that I worked for a long time on the balcony outside the dining room, at least as long as my laptop battery held out. It may theoretically be possible to grow tired of that view, but I don’t think it’s likely.

A bunch of us last night played a board game developed by our own Alex White. It’s based in the world of micro-breweries, something dear to the hearts of many of us. We had a good time, and I’m looking forward to the announcement that he has copies for sale. Alex is a fine writer, musician, artist, and now apparently a fine game designer. My jealousy knows no bounds. I’m thinking that we should ask him to create architect’s drawings for a cabin to host next year’s retreat, and possibly oversee the construction as well.

Lauren arrived late last night! And Stephen is due back around mid-day! The circle isn’t quite complete, because Mur had to get back to her family yesterday, but it’s 95 percent there.

The big question for me on day 5 is whether or not I will kill off one of my characters, and, if so, how exactly I will snuff him. I may have an answer for you in tomorrow’s post. Or not.

Smokey Writers 2016 – Day 3

Three days of Smokey Writers are now in the books. I did not achieve Monday’s word count heights yesterday, but it was still a satisfyingly productive day. I wrote 2,629 words on my new book. Essentially, one new chapter with two scenes.

After that, I dove into detailed edits of my ghost hunter novel. I recently hired the always-awesome K.T. Bryski to do a substantive edit of the book, and she did not disappoint. I was looking for constructive advice on how to improve it, and I got it. Therefore, a good chunk of yesterday afternoon was spent mulling over her critiques and rewriting certain parts. There is much left to do – one character may end up on the cutting room floor, I need to do some tweaks to setting, and the whole tone of the book needs revision. This is the perfect place to get started. The 6:00 readings last night were great. I was in a group with Tee Morris, Rosemary Tizledoun, Piper Drake and Amy Sisson. We heard some dark material and some that made us all laugh out loud.

Renee White and Chris Bupp are spoiling us silly with the food. They are spectacular cooks, and they’ve got me enjoying foods I never wanted to try. Exhibit A: Brussel sprouts with bacon. If you had told me a week ago that the first item on my plate that I would eat was brussel sprouts, I would have laughed at you. Last night, I dove into the brussel sprouts first – and then I went back for seconds. If writing is the heart and soul of this week, then Renee and Chris are the backbone.

Last night was pretty mellow. Several people crashed (relatively) early. Some of us did a slow boil in one of the hot tubs (side note: Make sure your iPhone is out of your swim trunks’ pocket before climbing into a hot tub. I’m very lucky my phone works today.) It was a night for good, long conversations.

One of the joys of this week is making new friendships and deepening existing ones. I’ve gotten to know Stephen Granade much better this week. He is extremely interesting to talk to. I have an old college roommate who is a middle school science teacher. I’d love to put him and Stephen in the same room, hand them each a drink, and listen to them talk about science for a few hours. I’m sad to see Stephen leave us this afternoon so he can deliver his talk in Atlanta tonight, but he’ll be back tomorrow.

I’ve also gotten to know Amy Sisson and Foo Borregaard, both very talented writers who can produce some wickedly funny stuff. Like me, Amy has lived in upstate New York, so we have that in common, and she’s married to a guy who works for NASA, which is cool beyond words. I’ve talked presidential politics with P.C. Haring. I’ve watched the moon rise over the mountains at night. I have zero complaints.

Today is a free day. There are no formal meals planned, people can hang out here and write or go into Gatlinburg and do the tourist thing. I spent the weekend in Gatlinburg, so I’m inclined to stay here and work. However, the Titanic Museum sounds interesting, so I’m leaving my options open.

We are sad today to be saying goodbye to Mur Lafferty, who delighted us all by being a last-minute addition to the group. Also, as mentioned above, Stephen is going AWOL for a day. On the bright side, we welcome Lauren “Scribe” Harris (listeners to The Geek Side of Life may recall a couple of interviews I’ve done with her.) Lauren is a dear friend, and it’s been too long since I’ve seen her. We’re all looking forward to her arrival.

So that’s day three. Time to launch my fiction writing for day 4. More updates tomorrow.