Tips for Making a Writing Schedule Work

Time is a precious commodity, a truth writers know well. We also know that time is something that often needs to be planned in order to be used effectively. Today, we're happy to have Harlequin Superromance author Beth Andrews visiting the Posse. And she's brought along her fabulous collection of tips to help make the most of your writing time and stick to a writing schedule.

Those who know me know I’m what you might call easy-going. Which really comes in handy during summertime when I’m surrounded by my wonderful husband (he works from home as well) and my three kids (two are teenagers). But being easy-going and taking a laid-back approach didn’t work so well for my writing career. How do I know? Because that’s the approach I took for five years. And during those five years I wrote four books.

That’s right. Four.

Okay, to be honest, I revised three of those books extensively but after writing the third book, I spent close to two years writing partials of stories and submitting revised versions of three of my books -- but I didn’t write an entire story. For two years.

Then, on August 21, 2007, I got The Call! I sold my Golden Heart winning manuscript to Harlequin Superromance (For those who are interested, Not Without Her Family is out now. What? You didn’t think I’d write a blog and not mention my debut release, did you? *g*) After three GH finals and five years of writing and re-writing, I was thrilled to finally sell.

And then came the doubts. The first of which being: Can I sell again?

The second one: If I do sell again, can I write a story, start to finish, in a reasonable amount of time after having not written a complete story in over two years?

I was freaked. This was my dream job, the career that I’ve worked so hard for, so there was no way I was going to allow a few measly (although very real) doubts stop me. In March, I answered the first question when I sold two more books to Superromance. When I sat down to figure out my deadlines, I was terrified. Yes, I had a partial of the first story done but that was only 20% of the finished product. How long would it take me to write the next 200 pages? Did I even have it in me to write another full book? If so, how long would it take me to complete it? My other books, all the same length, took at least six months, but I want to grow my career in category and my goal was to have a book out at least every four to five months.

So, for about the hundredth time since I started writing, I made a Work Schedule. But this time, for the very first time, I actually stuck to it. Maybe it was the signed contract and a firm deadline that pushed me, but whatever it was, I finished that first book in two months. A personal record for me. *g* Best of all, both of my critique partners claim it’s some of my best writing.

It wasn’t always easy. I had a lot of bad habits and personal misconceptions about what I was and wasn’t capable of, but with dedication and determination I was able to make my schedule work. Here are some of the tips I’ve learned:

Be Realistic - This is one of my favorite goal-setting tips, but it works for making your schedule as well. Don’t schedule your writing time for 4 a.m. if there’s no way you can roll out of bed before 7. If you work full or part time, this is especially important. During the school year, my two older kids get home shortly after 3 p.m., so I work to have the bulk of my writing done before that time. Once my kids are home, I’m usually busy with them (even as teens, they want attention - go figure *g*) or taking them to one of their many sports practices, friends’ homes, after-school activities etc.

B.I.C.H.O.K really works! - B.I.C.H.O.K., or Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard, is the best advice I’ve ever heard. I might not always reach my page goal for the day, but if I stay at the computer long enough (and stay off of the Internet and e-mail) chances are I’ll get at least a few good pages.

Know Your Process - Everyone’s writing process is unique to them and as long as your process works for you, I say embrace it! I’m at my computer by 7 every morning, but most mornings I’m not able to jump into writing so I ease into it by checking e-mails and blogs first. When I write, I like to spit out a scene then go back and revise as I go so I have a fairly polished story when I reach The End.

Just Say No - Your work time is precious which means you need to protect it. Saying no isn’t easy but it can be done - and yes, I’ve done it *g*

Delegate - I’m a big believer in delegating although my kids aren’t very big fans of the concept - probably because I delegate so many responsibilities to them. They’re in charge of housework and now that my oldest has his driver’s license, he runs errands for me as well.

Multi-tasking - To be honest, I’ve given up multi-tasking. I was always trying to do four things at once and still not getting anything done. So when I read an article that said multi-tasking doesn’t work, I decided to give it up *g* Now, I do what I call Chunk-tasking. I ‘chunk’ tasks together and work on them one at a time. For instance, Saturday morning is my time to work on Promotion. I make a list during the week of what I need to get done. Then on Saturday morning, I do each item (one at a time) until I’m done. I’ve found this works really well for things such as sending out prizes, writing thank-you notes, updating my Web site and writing blogs ahead of time.

Make The Time - Yep, this is the most important thing I’ve learned. I used to say that I couldn’t ‘find’ the time to write, then I realized that no one ‘finds’ time to write. They make the time. And making the time isn’t easy. It usually means giving up something such as time, money, your favorite TV program, weekly lunch with your girlfriends, etc. For me, I had to give up my easy-going existence. Gone are the days where I wandered into my office when the mood struck me. I no longer get up from my chair to just “See what’s on TV” during the day. No more sitting down during my scheduled writing time to read a magazine or a book. Nowadays I stick to my schedule - and I’m loving every minute of it!

What about you? Do you have a strict writing schedule? Do you believe in multi-tasking? If you had an extra hour in your day, how would you spend it?


Don't forget to pick up Beth's debut release, Not Without Her Family, out this month from Harlequin Superromance. And swing by her Web site at http://bethandrews.net/ to learn more about Beth and her books.

Labels: Beth Andrews, Guest Blogger

posted by Trish Milburn @ 12:01 AM 30 comments

Confessions of a Research Geek

Some people think research is really, really cool. Nancy Northcott is one such person. Like the Noodlers, Nancy is a former Golden Heart finalist (twice). She's also finaled in the Orange Rose and the Maggie Award of Excellence contests and won the Put Your Heart in a Book, Molly and Emerald City Opener contests, all with books set in historical periods. Her undergraduate degree is in history, and she spent a summer studying Tudor and Stuart England at Oxford.


I love research. I really love it, and not just as a cover for procrastination. Opening a book for the first time, visiting a new place, or meeting someone with an interesting job always holds the potential to reveal some previously unknown, fascinating tidbit. I may--or, more likely, may not--ever use the tidbit, but I like knowing about it anyway.

Loving research can lead to some risky habits, like ordering unknown, out-of-print books on obscure subjects over the Internet. Sometimes those blind orders turn out to be gems, and sometimes they’re triggers for “Geez, what was I thinking?” On balance, though, the gems have outweighed the clunkers, and I try to keep such risks relatively cheap--$10 or so with shipping and handling. I also spend a lot of time reading titles on bargain tables.

The research habit can turn vacation trips into opportunities. No matter where I am, I tend to leave the local booksellers happy. It’s not as if I can get a book on slang of the Lake District here at home, right? My vacation journal doubles as a research reference, but I’ve learned not to depend on that alone. After madly scribbling notes on the Warwick Castle map while the master archer demonstrated, I resolved never to be anywhere potentially useful without a pad, one sized so I could write on it with one hand and no extra support. And extra pens in case one runs dry. And a camera. Mine doesn’t take panoramic photos, so I buy the disposable panoramic cameras before we go.

All those docents standing around in the house uniform are fountains of knowledge just waiting for someone to tap them. Ask one of them a friendly question on a day that’s not busy, and you may make an instant friend. While some of them aren’t talkative, many are. They rarely see people who show genuine interest in these sites and who seem to care what they’re looking at and why it matters, as opposed to just wanting to say they’ve “done” the places. A word of caution, though--do not, ever, under any circumstance, try to engage guards in conversation. Some of them see educating visitors as not their job or, even worse, a distraction from said job.

The downside to this fondness for research is that not everyone shares it. Have you ever tried to corner someone to discuss swordsmiths in Anglo-Saxon England? The menu at medieval banquets? The rigging of sails in the wooden navy? If so, science fiction or fantasy readers, medieval re-enactors, and ship fanatics would love to meet you. Fortunately, so would writers. Anyone else may edge warily away from you, looking for someone to fling into your path as a diversion.

Even the most devoted readers don’t want to know every single fact about, say, food preparation in the Middle Ages. If you’ve spent the afternoon reading about medieval banquets, how much do you put on the page? Probably a tiny fraction of what you’ve learned. All that reading wasn’t wasted, though. The more we know about a time and place, the better our “feel” for it, the more texture we can give our readers.

So, any lovers of research out there? If so, in what meaty area of research can you really lose yourself?

To learn more about Nancy, visit her website, www.nancynorthcott.com. She’s building reference lists there for writers and curious readers.

Labels: Guest Blogger, Research

posted by Trish Milburn @ 12:01 AM 38 comments

That annoying dead guy

Today, we're lucky to have author Jeanne Adams hanging out with us here at the Wet Noodle Posse. She's an expert in...wait for it...body disposal. If you've got some dead characters in your books, she's here to give you some ideas for where to go to figure out how to actually get rid of those characters' bodies.

I’m going to blog visit today with pure 100% controversy. I’m going to talk about how annoying a dead guy can be. (Warning! Explicit discussion of the aforementioned dead guy and how to get rid of his body…)

So, tell me, have you ever had an annoying dead guy hanging around in one of YOUR stories? You know the one. He’s important, at least at first, but you really don’t want to focus on him. You really just want him or his rather messy demise to draw your hero and heroine together. But he just keeps hanging around. AAnnoyyyyying.

Now some of you are smiling because you write romantic suspense or contemporaries and you’ve done this. Killed off a “red shirt” character in order to tangle up the H/H and get that story going with a bang. Others are looking at the screen thinking, “This woman’s nuts, there’s no annoying dead guy in MY books.” (Still others are snickering in true feministic fashion thinking, “But what if it’s a dead WOMAN?”)

Yeah, yeah yeah. Well, whichever gender, and however you killed them off, you the author get to figure out how to dispose of a body. I was in the funeral biz for about 13 years. It was really interesting, if you’re into that stuff, and morbidly fascinating even if you’re not. Using that knowledge, I offer a class to writers on how to get rid of the dead guy or gal.

Why, you might ask? Because I’ve read it done so badly, so carelessly that I’ve shut the book and never bought that author again. You’re my friends over here at WNP. I want your sales to soar, I’m thinking NYT. So…I’d like to help you get rid of the body.

I am aware that here in the first part of the 21st century, there are grown people out there in reader and writer land who’ve never even been to a funeral. Either their grandparents died long ago and they were too young to go, or everyone’s hale and hearty. Lucky you, if the latter is the case. Hard to know what goes on behind those quiet doors and walls if you’ve never been there.

On the other hand, you might have been involved in the planning of a funeral or two, but never had to deal with the kind of mortal end you dealt to that unfortunate character. Let’s call him Red, shall we? (Rude to keep calling him Annoying, don’t you think?) So, here you are ready to kill Red off and you’ve done your homework on the forensics and are pretty sure you can burn Red up in a fire and destroy the evidence you need to make the story work. Yeah, but what about Red? Hmmmm? What do you do with the crispy critter he’s become?

Or it’s Ol’ Grandpa who kicked the bucket, left the heroine a bazillion dollars as long as she marries the hero. All this comes out at the funeral. Ahhhhh, but if Grandpa died under suspicious circumstances, you can’t just jump from dead guy to funeral. Or, if you live in Canada, Alaska, Wyoming, Maine or points north, you may have to wait months (until spring thaw) to actually BURY Grandpa. Did you know that?

So do you need to know how to get rid of Red? Believe me, he has special needs. Ha! Have you called your local funeral director? Or e-mailed me? (Click, click, nope, you didn’t e-mail me! Sob!) Do you have an area of expertise that makes you wince at mistakes in books you read? (Any doctors or nurses out there who hate ER?) And last but not least, do any of you historical writers know the origin of the euphemism about dying, delicately referencing the dead guy as having “stuck his spoon in the wall”?

Since I’m celebrating the upcoming release of my debut novel, Dark and Dangrous (June 1, 2008!), I’m giving stuff away. I’ve got a Dark and Dangerous Beach Read Prize for one random commenter and a copy of the book and some Godiva for whoever can tell me about that dratted spoon euphemism. Oh, and thanks to the fabulous WNP for allowing me to come speak of the dead. Grins.

Okay, do you have questions about how to dispose of one of your departed characters? Here's your chance to ask the expert. And be sure to check out Jeanne's Web site where you can find out more about her and her debut release.

Labels: Guest Blogger

posted by Trish Milburn @ 12:01 AM 51 comments

Conflict from the heart

Hiya, Noodlers! Thanks for asking me back to your fantastic blog!

Ah, conflict in a romance novel! What a sticky wicket that can be!

It’s at the heart of what makes a great romance and because it’s so intrinsic to writing a great book, it’s one of the hardest things to get right. As Trish so wisely pointed out last week, it’s NOT bickering. It’s something that touches the deepest part of who these people are.

There are two great quotes I remember when I talk about conflict. One I heard at our Romance Writers of Australia conference back in 2004. The other I only heard recently.

Kate Walker, who writes for Harlequin Presents, said the conflict in a romance novel must come from something at the most essential level of the characters. People generally talk about conflict in connection with the protagonist’s goal. That’s because a really compelling conflict is created when the other person is what stands in the way of that goal. And the goal has to be something they would do anything to achieve.

As Kate said – and this was the punch line for me – they have to be willing to sacrifice the love of a lifetime in order to achieve their aims. The goals need to be big and meaty and important. Stakes need to be high. Then you get the kind of conflict in a book that keeps your reader up all night.

The other great quote about conflict comes from wonderful Aussie Desire author Bronwyn Jameson. Bron was talking about external and internal conflict. Her definition of the two is that, “External conflict is what drives the characters together. Internal conflict is what pushes them apart.” It’s fabulous, isn’t it? Simple yet so true.

To give you an example of conflict in action, I thought I’d talk about my debut novel, Claiming the Courtesan. (You can read an excerpt here). The Duke of Kylemore wants to marry his mistress, the notorious courtesan Soraya (hero’s goal). She wants to escape her decadent life and retire to obscurity and freedom (heroine’s goal). External conflict emerges because their goals are diametrically opposed and that’s where the events of the plot come from.

But at a much deeper level, both these people have survived horrific pasts only by completely expunging emotion from their lives. Love is the enemy and love is what the other person represents. That’s the internal conflict – they’re fighting themselves and they’re also fighting what the other person means to them. Obviously the internal and external conflicts here overlap in various ways. But you can see what I mean by the stakes being high – to both Soraya and Kylemore, surrendering to love threatens their very survival. In a metaphysical sense, it’s a life or death situation.

I’d love you to share your analysis of the internal and external conflict in your work in progress or the most recent romance you’ve read. My favorite take on a story wins a $15 Amazon voucher!

Labels: Anna Campbell, Conflict, Guest Blogger

posted by Trish Milburn @ 12:01 AM 51 comments

WNP Welcomes Guest Blogger - Gena Showalter

The Wet Noodle Posse is pleased to welcome our latest guest speaker, New York Times and USA Today Bestseller, Gena Showalter.  Look for her book, Savor Me Slowly, in bookstores at the end of December 2007. 
I wrote for about two years.  When it comes to the past, I'’m time challenged. So by “two years” I could mean two and a half years or even five. Finished around 5 or 6 books. Again, I’m number challenged. Could have been four books, could have been twelve. Nearly all of them were in different genres of romance, sometimes even a combination of two or three. Or six. (As I tumble down a shame spiral thinking of the horrid things I once wrote -- Heaven's Fury anyone? -- I will tell you that I was trying to find my voice.) Each time I finished a book, I queried agents. Got a lot of rejections (don't ask me how many). But then, I wrote The Pleasure Slave.

Labels: Guest Blogger

posted by Jill Monroe @ 2:53 PM 5 comments