Becoming A Fiction Writer
One girl, one dream … and a whole lot of procrastination
February 4, 2009 by amanda

15-day challenge and Amazon contest: success!

No doubt some of you have been wondering how I went with my 15-day creation challenge and my goal of getting my novel ready for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. The good news is: I did it!

Procrastination overcome by short-term goals

I really have to shout out a huge thank you to Zoe at Essential Prose for coming up with this 15-day challenge. The goal was to choose a project and work on it for an hour a day for 15 days. I’m actually pretty amazed at how well this worked.

Perhaps knowing that this intensive work would only last for 15 days helped me to keep doing it night after night – because I nearly always worked on my novel last thing at night, after all my paid work had got done – and having picked a project that I thought I could finish within the 15 days really helped. I think there were only one or two days that I didn’t do a full hour of work on my novel editing, but in each case I had done closer to two hours the day before so I didn’t feel too bad.

When the Amazon contest opened on Monday (Sunday night in the States, but that was 2pm on Monday here – right when I was in the middle of class and had to nervously wait a couple of hours and hope the first 10,000 entrants hadn’t already got their novels in) I was ready to go. And I was pretty pleased with myself, I have to say. Again, this is not a contest I expect to get anywhere in, but the motivation to complete my big edit in time to enter was perfect. (And given that entry was free, it’s been a great motivator all round).

What’s my next 15-day challenge?

Since this 15-day creation challenge worked out so well, I’m already thinking of what my next one will be. Since the rewrite I’ve just done goes a long way towards satisfying my second goal for 2009 I think I’ll concentrate on making progress towards the third goal instead, which is to get my second novel ready to submit in May. So my next 15-day challenge will be related to finishing the draft of that novel. I’ll have to take a closer look at how much I’ve done – and I seem to recall I have quite a lot of outlining done – and see if finishing the draft in 15 days is realistic, or a sub-goal of that instead. Stay tuned – and try the 15 day thing yourself if you feel like it will help! Let me know if it does. Or share your own anti-procrastination tricks, too.

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January 18, 2009 by amanda

A 15-day creation challenge is a good kick up the bottom!

Not only did I start 2009 a lot later than others, I just can’t seem to get back into my fiction writing. I think being away from my computer over the holidays was something I quite enjoyed, so now that I’m back home I get my paid writing done – the “must” part of my writing life – and then get as far away from the keyboard as possible – often, I must admit, into the swimming pool.

Editing my Japan-based novel

Since an important goal of mine this year is to start getting my novel out to prospective agents and/or publishers, it’s going to need a very good edit. I’ve started this, worked on it in dribs and drabs (and even pulled it out twice this week for half an hour at a time) but I really need to devote some serious time to getting it done. Doing it over a long period of time is proving impossible. I quite often read things and am not sure if they’re consistent with something earlier in the story, or if a character has already been mentioned before, and so on, and because it’s been so long in between each editing attempt it takes me ages to look back and find out, or, more commonly, I’ve just been writing margin notes that I need to check it out later. It’s driving me crazy.

Essential Prose’s 15 Day Creation Challenge

And so, just a few hours after worrying about this, a great post came up from Zoe Westhoff: she proposed a 15 Day Creation Challenge to encourage people just like me to actually finish something they start. Zoe sounds like she’s not unlike me in having trouble getting down to the creative side of her writing work, even though, like me, it’s the part she really loves. Silly, isn’t it?

Anyway, I’ve decided to “enrol myself” in this 15-day challenge. My goal is, as per Zoe’s rules, to spend an hour per day working on editing this novel, so that by 2 February I should have a new version of my novel. Editing at least seems easier right now than actually writing something new so I hope that this will give me the creative kick up the bottom required to make some progress on my 2009 fiction writing goals. Stay tuned for a progress update.

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January 13, 2009 by amanda

Starting 2009 a little later than others

Of course, you know I have procrastination down to an art form – and what better way to prove it than to make my New Year’s Resolutions on January 13? Still, in our family we say that “13″ is a lucky number, so perhaps I’m doing it just right.

Anyhow, I’ve already hinted that 2009 will be a year of submissions and agent-hunting for me, as well as finishing another novel. I’m also revisiting some of my 2008 resolutions to guide what I plan for this year. So without, as they say, further ado, my fiction writing resolutions for 2009 are:

  1. To submit 20 short stories to contests or potential markets (as of today, I’ve already submitted one to Every Day Fiction. Just 19 to go!) I’m putting this resolution at the top of my list because short fiction is something I keep neglecting, even though I think there’s a lot of value in it for me – to practice the skill of writing and to get published outside of travel writing.
  2. To finish revising my novel Kanako’s Foreigner and submit it to agents. I’m having New Year angst about this one – is it still any good? Is there a decent novel in there worth saving? I hope so. I’ll have a good look at it this month and finish my new round of edits and hope I still believe in it.
  3. To finish my second novel and edit it ready to submit to the Australian/Vogel award in May. I’m confident I can do this, my only problem is deciding which is my second novel. Is it the Bratislava novel I’ve got three or four chapters into, or the NaNoWriMo attempt from November? I think it’s the Bratislava one, but I need to sit down and make a real decision. Am I a procrastinator or what?
  4. Increase readership of this blog, Becoming A Fiction Writer. Last year, my writing resolutions included travel writing goals too, but this year I’m focusing on fiction – the travel writing seems to more or less take care of itself.

To keep myself more accountable to these goals – and to get some support from you people too – I’ll be posting a monthly summary of how well I’m doing in regard to these resolutions. Those twelve checking-in spots throughout the year should keep me well on target. After all, last year I actually achieved the majority of my writing resolutions – and this year I’ve made less – so I can’t see any reason why I can’t do it all. Wish me luck.

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December 31, 2008 by amanda

How did my 2008 writing resolutions go?

When you read this, it’ll officially be the last day of 2008 (yes, I’m posting ahead because I’m *going on holidays*, but I didn’t want to abandon my readers completely). Since I’m pretty sure that said holiday will mean I don’t achieve any more goals between now and the end of 2008 (a week away as I type), I think it’s safe to look back at my 2008 writing resolutions and see how I went.

  • Edit my 2007 NaNoWriMo novel and submit it

Check! I did edit it, and I submitted it to two novel contests. Luckily I didn’t define what “submit” meant (because I would have liked to put it out further than just those two contests) but technically, I achieved this resolution. Having said that, I’m now one third of the way through another major edit of this novel and I’d like to do some “heavy duty” submitting of it next year.

  • Plan and write my second novel idea – plan during the year and write in NaNoWriMo 2008

Half done. I did plan my second novel idea out quite well, and I’ve written about a quarter of it, and still like it and would like to continue. Then as NaNoWriMo approached I changed tack and started writing my third novel idea in November instead, but as you’ll remember, I didn’t become a NaNo winner so what I have there is a draft of about a third of a novel, and again, something I hope to continue next year.

  • Write more short stories: submit to at least 20 contests

Partially achieved … in a small way. I wrote (to completion) five short stories this year and submitted them each to one contest. I would like to revisit these in the future and get more regular about writing short fiction for contests, both because it’s great writing practice and because I think it’s also good “PR” to win a few contests sometime … I mean, it should help a little bit when I start looking for agents and publishers for novels. Well, I hope it helps, and it would make me feel a little bit more confident anyway.

  • Increase blogging work and freelance travel writing income by 50% (my real goal list has the figure, but that’s a secret!)

Tick! Fully achieved. However, I should let you in on a secret – part of that came from increasing my workload a little; part of it came from getting pay rises for consistent and (I guess) good work – and part of it came from a massive fall in value of the Australian dollar against the US dollar, and since most of my work is in the US, I’ve ended up with more in my bank account. In any case, I’m pleased with the outcome here.

  • Monetise my Ballerina blog. I think. I’m still not sure if that’s where I want to go with this one – but let’s say, at least consider the issue carefully

Partially achieved, but not with Ballerina. I ended up switching this Becoming A Fiction Writer blog to its own domain during the year and increasing readership is something I want to focus on in 2009.

During my holidays I’m going to be thinking hard about my 2009 goals. Each year I get older and I hope, a little bit wiser, and I my drive to achieve things seems to increase – so next year I’m hoping to have a real killer writing year!

Happy New Year to all of you and let me know in the comments how you went with achieving what you wanted in 2008.

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December 20, 2008 by amanda

Fiction writer’s Christmas procrastination syndrome: Have you caught it too?

I’m sorry, muse; I’m sorry, grand goals and dreams. Getting around to writing – even this blog post – seems so difficult at this time of year. Combine summer and Christmas (as we do here in Australia) and there are long daylight hours to spend socialising, catching up with people you may not see much during the rest of the year, spending far too long in the shops to do anything because half of the city’s population is there with you and trying to plan ahead for Christmas itself and in our case, the holiday that follows hot on its heels.

What I’m trying to say is I haven’t done much writing lately. I’d like to spread a bit of the blame to the great novels I’ve been reading lately, as well as blaming the season. ‘Tis the season to be jolly but for me at least, ’tis not the season to be writing much. I’m struggling just to get my paid work done and to be honest, the creative juice just isn’t there to do much more.

Solidarity: Do all writers struggle with the end-of-year can’t-write blues?

I hope that there are a few of you out there who just like me, can’t see the forest for the trees at the moment (or should that be – can’t see the Word files for the piles of Christmas presents?). It’s a frustrating time because I want to be well-prepared for the New Year. The turning of the calendar to January always gives me a big shove into action and I want to be ready to use this impetus for good, not boring stuff like getting my desk organised and figuring out a writing action plan. I want to have everything ready to go for 2009 – the year of submissions and agent-hunting and finishing another novel. (That’s the broad sweep of my writing goals, which I really want to sit down and flesh out soon, before it’s actually 2009).

Help! Please leave a comment if you’re feeling the same way. If you’re not then please stay silently smug and go off and finish your fantastic writing projects.

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October 12, 2008 by amanda

Maybe Comotivate will motivate me

While I’m still working on revising my first manuscript (more on that later – it’s going well!), I’m trying to get going with novel #2 as well. I was about to write “trying to get disciplined” about writing novel #2, but I remembered a recent Zen Habits post with the enticing (if sensationalist) title The Only Two Secrets to Motivating Yourself You’ll Ever Need. Leo made a very valid point that sticking to your goals is not a matter of discipline, but a matter of motivation: if you make your goals motivating enough for you, then you will achieve them without the military-style push of “discipline”. That makes sense to me.

So anyhow, speaking of motivation, the owner of the Comotivate website contacted me recently because he’d (rightly) heard that I’m interested in achieving goals. Comotivate is a quite new website (actually it’s still in beta) that aims to connect up like-minded people who are trying to achieve similar goals. For example, my goal is listed in the Write a book goal list although I’ve yet to find a buddy or a team to join. By far the biggest number of people have joined up with health-related goals like getting fit or losing weight.

But I really like the idea and encourage you to check Comotivate out if you’re like me and need a bit of support to reach one of your goals … and especially if you’re trying to write a book too then search for me and “buddy up”! It’s easy to find me on Comotivate because my username is amandak and my picture is of my cat Lucy.

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October 5, 2008 by amanda

“Read it in one sitting” = another procrastination excuse

It’s quite incredible, really, just how many different ways there are for a budding writer to procrastinate. Well, especially when that budding writer is someone like me.

You may remember I got quite enthusiastic about revisiting my first novel draft after I re-read Stephen King’s On Writing. I’ve got a brand new draft printed off in a ring binder (a pretty ring binder of course, because this particular procrastinating writer loves cool stationery). I’ve got a list of everything I want to look for when I re-read it, including mechanical kind of stuff like too many adverbs, and deeper stuff like enhancing the theme and symbolism.

So, this attractive ring binder has now been sitting on the floor next to my bed for over a week. I’m enthusiastic and tempted to pick it up often, but I’ve been stopping myself with one bit of King’s advice: I should re-read it all in one sitting.

And it took me until today to realise that this is just my subconscious procrastinator at work.

Of course, in an ideal world re-reading a novel draft in one sitting makes a lot of sense. You’ll clearly remember the details of the story so you’ll pick up any contradictions or changes along the way that don’t fit. You’ll have a mental picture of the characters nicely fresh in your mind so you can check that their motivations work throughout the story, and that they’re developing as they should. And so on.

But it is probably only writers like King who have the hours available to re-read an entire novel (even a short-ish one like mine) in one sitting. I can’t imagine when the time would come that I have six or seven hours to sit down and slowly and lovingly read this novel, making copious notes along the way and really sinking myself inside it.

Now that I’ve finally figured out the error of my ways, I’ll pick that ring binder up tonight and start reading and notetaking before I go to bed. I promise.

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