Wednesday Writing guest Post: Targeting a Novel by Lorraine Mace

I’ve known today’s guest, Lorraine Mace, for a good number of years, and it’s no exaggeration to say that her advice helped with one or two of my early projects.

Lorraine is incredibly busy in the writing world (see links at the bottom of the post). She also write novels as both herself and Frances di Plino. How does she find the time? I’ll leave it to lorraine to tell you more.

[image error] 

When writing a guest post on the topic of writing output, it’s probably not a good idea to do it for the blog of someone like David, whose prodigious productivity leaves mine in the shade! However, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

Although I am involved full time in various aspects of writing (it’s how I earn my living) my creative writing time is limited. I spend more hours mentoring other authors through several drafts of their novels than I do writing my own. I run a private critique service and also critique short stories for one of the top writing magazines in the UK. I am a columnist for another. I run three international writing competitions. To promote the books I have already had published, I also run two blogs.

So, as you can see, there is very little time left over for new creative writing.

If you add to the above the fact that I am a novelist under two names, Lorraine Mace and Frances di Plino, you’ll realise that I have to be very disciplined with my time.

Under my real name, I am the author of a trilogy for children, the first of which, Vlad the Inhaler, was published earlier this year. The second in the trilogy has already been accepted for publication in 2015, but I still have to write the third and final book.

[image error]

As Frances di Plino, I write crime and the fourth in the Detective Inspector Paolo Storey series is due out in October. However, I now need to get started on the next in the series for publication next year!

So, how have I managed to find the time to write, edit, rewrite, edit again, rewrite and so on, four crime novels and three children’s novels (two of Vlad, plus the first in a new series, which is with my agent) while keeping my head above water with my various day jobs?

I’m glad you asked, because this post will explain how you, too, can fit writing around your busy lives without needing to lock yourself away from family for hours at a time.

I set myself daily targets of 500 words, which means the absolute longest it would take me to write an 85,000-word crime novel would be slightly less than six months. That’s all – think about it, if you wrote a measly 500 words a day for six months you, too, would have a complete novel to your name.

Even if you wanted to have weekends off, you could run up 85,000 words Monday to Friday in 35 weeks.

All writers can put down 500 words as long as they have a clear idea of what it is they have to write each day, which means, if you follow my plan, you need to have a scene by scene structure to follow. Actually, even if you can knock out 10,000 words a day, it’s still a good idea to have a structure to follow!

On the text of the novel document, before I shut down after writing the 500 words, I make notes about what to write the next day. Just a few lines, not even proper sentences, but it means I can pick up where I left off without having to read over what I’ve written the day before. For example: Paolo talks to Barbara about stab wounds – Sean knocked down by Michael – Paolo brings team up to date

Obviously, there are days when I have time to write more than 500 words, but I look on such occasions as a bonus. The next day I still stick to my 500 word target.

So, if you want to write a novel, but have a demanding job or a busy family life, or both, try setting aside time for 500 words. You’ll be thrilled as the word count grows week by week.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must leave you. I have my daily target to meet.

[image error]

Lorraine Mace is the humour columnist for Writing Magazine and a competition judge for Writers’ Forum. She is a former tutor for the Writers Bureau, and is the author of the Writers Bureau course, Marketing Your Book. She is also co-author, with Maureen Vincent-Northam of The Writer’s ABC Checklist (Accent Press). Lorraine runs a private critique service for writers (link below). She is the founder of the Flash 500 competitions, covering flash fiction, humour verse and novel openings.

Her debut novel for children, Vlad the Inhaler, was published in the USA on 2nd April 2014.

Writing as Frances di Plino, she is the author of the crime/thriller series featuring Detective Inspector Paolo Storey: Bad Moon Rising, Someday Never Comes and Call It Pretending.

Writing Critique Service

www.lorrainemace.com

www.flash500.com

Frances di Plino