Day 1…

…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? 🙂

Fast Draft Madness

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: