Linda Nelson

Last week at this time, we were having one of those nuance snow storms that we do tend to get every once in a while here in New Hampshire. It took time out from writing to make my snow man. Sadly this week he has come under the weather – so to speak and has taken to lying down on the fence railing. His nose and mouth fell off. I think the dog is much sadder about this than I was. She seemed to think it was her new buddy. She will probably feel otherwise when she finds his Twizzler mouth and carrot nose in the snow as a token of his past comradeship they had in the driveway.

Last week I was trying to make a record word count that just didn’t happen for me. I wasn’t surprised. But it was fun trying.

My goal had been to get as close to 50k as I could before March 1^st. That was the deadline for the NHRWA Query Quandary Contest. Needless to say, I didn’t make it. There is always next year.

My next goal and I think there is a good chance I may make it, is to have Along Came Neil done in 30 days. That would be the first draft, of course. My record stands at 60 days from when I wrote Witch Book.

I do know a lot does have to do with pre-writing. I have to agree with Heather on that. But I am also a plotter. I have to have a strong plot to write fast.

With Witch Book I had a pretty good plot outline to follow. I had used a deck of tarot cards to create the plot for that story and to me it was a wow moment. Having the plot pretty much well defined I was able to get from point A to point B pretty quickly.

Along Came Neil is sort of like that. There is one difference.

I really enjoy writing fantasy. I can get so involved in the world I create that I can get lost in the story I am writing.

Teen Contemporary is different, especially Romance. I have to really think before I begin to write or I will be going back in time to when I was in school. That would make it a historical instead of a Contemporary. I don’t want a historical at least not at this moment.

Since last Sunday I have added close to 4k words. I think this is pretty good progress and I’m not done yet for the day.

90 minute writing sprints do work pretty well too. Writing this post is part of my break from my 90 minute sprint. Next I will check my email, Facebook and Twitter and then hit the coffee pot once more and start the next sprint.

Hope the rest of you have good progress too. If not, remember tomorrow is always another day.

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It’s been a pretty productive week.

I started it off with by participating in a great Pre-Writing Workshop held by my YARWA Chapter. I never realized how much help it is to have as much of your pre-writing done before you begin working on your novel. I’m not just talking about having a plot outline either. I mean having the whole ball of creativity rolled up on a page before you.

All I can say is WOW…

This week I knocked out about 7k words. I don’t think this is too bad considering most of it was done just yesterday.

If I keep up this pace I might be able to beat my all time writing record of 60 days and crunch it down to maybe 30. I would be very happy and impressed with myself if I was able to crunch the time from start to finish of a first draft down to that amount of time.

With practice I just might be able to crunch it even more in the future.

So why didn’t I do as much writing today as yesterday. Well, as Rumplestiltskin would say, “The day is not over yet, dearies.”

I had to stop this afternoon and get a smidgen of shoveling in. I couldn’t let Mike have all the fun. In the process I had to set myself to be creative outdoors.

My snowman – Huh?

I had a good time making him. My dog Julie thinks his nose and mouth smell great and she can’t wait to give him a kiss on those Twizzler lips.