Can’t talk…writin’

Filed in: blog | event | writing    Tags: Fast Draft | rsswwf | ruby-slippered sisterhood | winter writing festival

You have reached the blog of Jeannie Lin. Jeannie is temporarily on blog hiatus so all her words can be poured into her current Fast Draft for the Ruby-Slippered Sisterhood Winter Writing Festival.

Wanna join?

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Blogging at the Ruby-Slippered Sisterhood about Fast Draft

Filed in: blog    Tags: Fast Draft | romance scholarship | ruby-slippered sisterhood | writing rituals

I discuss my pre-game rituals over at the Ruby-Slippered Sisterhood today:

http://www.rubyslipperedsisterhood.com/rss/index.php/fast-draft-madness/

Actually, a more interesting topic is yesterday’s discussing about the academic study of romance. Had some heavyweights weighing in:

http://www.rubyslipperedsisterhood.com/rss/index.php/getting-some-respect-the-ivory-tower-takes-a-serious-look-at-romances/

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Day 1…

Filed in: blog | writing    Tags: Fast Draft | romance divas | writing groups

…and where writing is like a 12-step program.

I met my goal and sort of feel like the leader of a 12-step group. I’m instigating daily writing chat sessions on Romance Divas as well as a couple of encouragement threads and more and more people want to jump onto the bandwagon.

That’s all good. Now I feel like I can’t let them down and I have to keep my end up as well as do some cheerleading and whip-wielding. Something I learned from teaching — good lesson plans and browbeating will only get you so far. The rest is peer pressure. Now I’m sure to have the bulk of this draft done in two weeks.

Gone is the day of the lonely typist in the night. Would Poe and Salinger laugh at us? Aren’t we such together-together monkeys?

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Fast Draft Madness

Filed in: blog | writing    Tags: Fast Draft | swords | writing rituals | wudang

It’s about to start!

I’ve set aside April 11 through April 24 Fast Draft. I never can do NaNo because it happens in the worst month. November is not only Thanksgiving, but it’s also my birthday month. I’m too busy demanding attention for myself to do Nano.

Fast Draft for me is very simple. It’s two weeks of writing 10 pages a day. I always do it about four chapters into a story and it gets me past the hump. It’s really a psychological thing. I do a bunch of psyching myself up before hand and then I have the comfort of knowing that at the end, a good portion of the story will be behind me. We all need our little writing quirks.

I’m surprised how many writers have jumped on the bandwagon on Romance Divas and set their own goals. So many that I’m getting a little intimidated being the ring leader. I hope they don’t expect a task master.  All I do is manage myself.

Well, one of my Fast Draft rituals I got from Candace Havens is to put a collage together. I also do some research so I can put myself on research blackout for the next two weeks. No China History Forum, no travel sites. I’m going to ban YouTube as well. I did spend an hour or so studying some beautiful Wudang sword styles yesterday:

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The Power of Post-Its

Filed in: craft | The Bookshelf | writing    Tags: anna destefano | Fast Draft | post-its | revision process

To get ready for today’s Write-a-thon, I went out and spent about seven dollars on Post-Its. They’re expensive! There’s little colored flags and tiny fluorescent Post-Its for mini notes.

Why do I do this? Because I think that using this special method will somehow, inexplicably make this final revision process fly smoothly. There are some changes that need to be threaded through from start to finish. So I’m going to assign a color to it and mark up all the pages.

I’ve never actually done this before. Anna DeStefano suggested this in a workshop at RWA and her process is very close to my process: Fast Draft the “ugly draft”, fix global/structural issues, then line edit. She’s just way more organized — and way more successful.

Another part of it is magic. Yes. Magic. I think feeling I have a special trick calms me down. I know it’s all psych0logical. Every big endeavor needs a special mind trick and this time, it’s Post-Its.

There are so many colors. So pretty!

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