I keep forgetting about posting on today because I have to teach. But I am up early for me today and here I am!
First, thank you Lynne for the very delicious caramels. They worked beautifully for my party last night. Lynne is an amazing writer and an amazing woman and I feel lucky to know her. Her heart is as big as Provo. Also, guess what? She water colors and is quite good.
Our Upcoming March Madness Marathon: Preparing for March 18-31
1. Make a goal for your writing. This goal is very personal. It can be as many words, or as few words, as you like. You can decide to rewrite a book completely. You can start with a new idea and write the first half of a novel or the whole thing or whatever. HINT: This is a marathon. We are pushing ourselves. So don’t use this organized time to play around but, instead, really work hard. You know what hard is for you. Go for it.
a. My goal for me: decide between next two books–dark YA or fun, light YA.
b. Write a very rough and dirty 100 pages or 25,000 words.
1A. Make a secret goal. If you are like me and always set your goal too high (like 1000 goals for the New Year), make another goal that is more private. My secret goal is to finish the book. This won’t happen, I know, because I am a very slow typist and I usually need two whining weeks when I get to the middle of the book. But still, I like to think I could do this. Ann Dee CAN do this. I have seen her write a book in a day. Or something close to that.
2. Start planning what you want to write NOW. This does not have to be a word-for-word detailed, synopsis (unless you want it to be). I don’t ever write that way. HINT: So when I started the Motor Home, One-legged Rooster book, Steve sent the first few chapters to see if Paula Wisemen was interested in what I was doing. She asked for a few more pages and a few more and a few more. Then she asked for a synopsis. It did me some good to think ahead and wonder what might happen to my character. There are just ideas in that synopsis of mine, things I can change if I want to. Nothing is set in stone. But, like this motor home driving toward Las Vegas from Florida, I now have a bit of a direction.
2A. Give yourself a list of fifty things that could happen in the novel. You won’t use them all. And that’s okay. But think of those ideas like a highway and set up a few markers along the way of things that might happen.
PS Knowing the climax, or having a feel for what the climax might be, is important.
3. Decide now how much you will accomplish each day next week. Tuesday-Thursdays are my harder days. Do I get up earlier? Eat through dinner? Write during class? Stephen King, my favoritest role model, has a certain number of words he writes every day and he doesn’t get up until he’s done. I mean, he doesn’t get up and quit writing until he’s done. He may get up and like, use the potty or something. HINT: Writing to a goal gives you something to work toward for that day.REWARD: Last night checked on the place we will do our readings (from our new books) and have lunch or dinner. I’ll reserve this restaurant. We’ll eat (in a private room), hand out prizes, read and laugh our guts out. Cost will be whatever you have for lunch. It will be a fun 2.5 hours. Tentative date: April 8, 2013. Sorry that this part squished up into the other. I can’t make it be a separate paragraph. I blame WordPress.
Throwing Up Words 
This is a great reminder! Thanks, Carol. Time to push myself!!
I’m planning on doing it—only faster! Another friend, my husband, and I are going to try a 3-day novel on March 18, 19, and 20. We all saw LL Muir’s presentation at LTUE telling how to do it: lots of planning (which I never do). The goal is 60K, 20K per day. And my VERY necessary “secret” goal, if I don’t make it, is to keep going through the rest of your half-marathon time, Mar. 18-31—and that’s only 4.29K per day. That almost sounds do-able! See you at lunch. Or dinner.
If I had known you were having a party I’d have given you more caramels. You should have said, “This ‘aint enough.” Love Stephen King’s goals. That’s why he writes such scary things, so he can get up out of the chair for the day. He scares his own pants off and then has to go get some new ones.
I’ve changed my mind and the inspiration came from none other than yourself at the SCBWI event Wonderful presentation the other night, thank your very much, Carol.
My goal is to get my RockyDog story done and ready to push. I’ve been working on it since Claudia Mill’s wifyr class. Got the main first draft done by the start of this school year and turned it over to my critique group. Started a NaNo story that I became interested in and I put the other away for a while. So far a way, it took some effort to get back into it. So the goal is to ready it for an agent or publisher. My secret goal/confession is I probably wont finish it ’til I get a week off at spring break. An hour a day, that’s my March Marathon Madness goal.Once the break starts, I’ll up that to whatever it takes to have RockyDog done by April 7. So I guess my real secret goal is to extend the time period. But that’s a secret, so don’t tell.
I do have time to fit another thing in.