J. Mark Miller | A Writer's Fantasy |

One of the most exciting aspects of writing, for me, is the process of discovery. I’ve found myriad layers of discovery from finding what’s in my imagination, discovering the motivations and personality traits of my characters, and most important, self-discovery.

As I’ve made the commitment to be more intentional about my writing over the last year, I’ve been learning what does and doesn’t work for me in the writing process. My first completed novel was one I had been working on half-heartedly for nearly ten years. I finally decided about a year ago to buckle down and finish it, spending a month rewriting and re-charting the 60,000 some-odd words I’d already produced, then finishing the first draft in about a month or so.

What was interesting about the process was how I unconsciously chose to approach the manual aspect of writing—good old paper and pencil. I purchased a five-subject spiral notebook, and went to work a few hours each day writing the remaining manuscript by hand, finishing it sometime in early October.

There’s a point to this story, so hang with me. The remainder of October was spent typing the hand-written manuscript into my computer, and though it was the extra step, it really became something of a blessing. During the transcription process, I was able to essentially do the first round of editing, so in the long run the time was not wasted.

When November came around, I was done with the transcription, and NaNoWriMo was under way. I had downloaded the trial version of Scrivener, determined to give it a real run for the money since I could purchase it at half price after winning NaNo. So here I was, suddenly shifting from writing a first draft by hand to writing on my laptop. Granted, I didn’t know if I could keep the minimum pace necessary to complete 50,000 words in 30 days writing my hand, but I suspect in hindsight I would have.

In fact, I now have suspicions I would have well exceeded the word count.

You see, I’ve since completed that NaNo novel, and as I’ve been going back to do a first round of revision, I’m finding I don’t like the voice of the novel as well as my hand-written one. Even after NaNo was over, and the pressure to produce a minimum word count was gone, I continued forging ahead on the laptop. I fell in love with Scrivener and used it daily to complete the first draft.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve taken up plotting a new novel, and a short story as well. Without thinking about it, I’ve found myself with pencil and paper in hand, writing out the plots and notes to these stories by hand. I’m enjoying the process so much more than when sitting on the couch with my laptop, and I’m finding myself much less easily distracted. The whole experience feels more organic and natural to me, and I know I’m producing a better first draft.

NaNo is approaching, and I’m considering doing it by hand. Since I can enter a word count number of my own without using the official word counter, I’m thinking I can just figure out how many words per hand-written page I average and use that as a guide for my daily goal and word count. Sure, I’ll have to type it all up later, but I think I’ll come out with a much tighter manuscript in the end.

I completely spaced on posting the next set of Kindle screensavers yesterday. The day was pretty packed, and so is the rest of the week, except for today. Today’s respite was unexpected, and I’ve got a little extra time this morning to play catchup.

Without further ado, here are the M and N screensavers.

Hi folks, welcome to the weekend. I’m still busy editing my novel for vacation. I spent about 10 hours yesterday, and probably will again today. Serious revision is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. So much for the glamorous life of the writer.

Here are the H and J screensavers. Nope, nothing for I. Enjoy.

Moving on down the alphabet to E, F, and G.

I’ve been able to read a lot more than usual in the last three months, something which might account for why I’m behind on edits. Here’s what I’ve read along with my 5-star rating system and some brief comments.

A Betrayal in Winter by Daniel Abraham
An Autumn War by Daniel Abraham
The Price of Spring by Daniel Abraham

I found The Long Price Quartet to be brilliant. It is easily one of the most enjoyable and innovative series I’ve read in recent memory.

White Gold Wielder by Stephen R. Donaldson
The Runes of the Earth by Stephen R. Donaldson
Fatal Revenant by Stephen R. Donaldson (No stars. I gave up reading it.)

I may catch heat for this, but I’m done with Donaldson. I know he’s a best-selling, award-winning, multi-published author and I’m an unpublished hack, but I just can’t make myself read his books anymore. I found the latest series to be a boring mass of confusion. If I never see the word condign again I’ll be happy.

Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn
Grass for His Pillow by Lian Hearn
Brilliance of the Moon by Lian Hearn

A masterful series, though it can be a little slow and repetitive at times in each book’s middle segments. I put off reading these books for a long while. I bought them and they sat on my shelf. Though I’d read great things about them, I wasn’t sure the subject matter would be of interest. Now, I wish I had read them sooner.

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi
The Sagan Diary by John Scalzi
The Last Colony by John Scalzi
Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi

What a fun, fun, fun series this turned out to be. Old Man’s War felt like reading Starship Troopers with 21st century sensibilities. No surprise to read in the acknowledgments Scalzi’s nod to Heinlein. Well done, fast moving, and never boring.

The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville (No stars. Couldn’t get past the first chapter. I’ll give another Mieville book a shot in the future.)

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik
Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik
Black Powder War by Naomi Novik
Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik
Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik

Another series I wish I had conceived and written myself. When I first started the series I was skeptical, wondering about the blend of history and dragons. Wow, what fun. I highly recommend any dragon lover or history buff to give this series a try.

With a name like Chaotic Shiny a website’s gotta be good right?

I have to thank Lynn Viehl at Paperback Writer for posting a bunch of links to Chaotic Shiny’s generators. I’ve already put one of them to good use.

I’m sure many of you have used name generators before—and this site has those—but the real beauty here is the sheer number of generators I’ve never seen anywhere else.

The Civilization Generator helped me flesh out an idea for the central culture of a novel I hope to write in the next year or so. You’ll find generators for superstitions, mottos, laws, languages, and much more.

I highly recommend you bookmark Chaotic Shiny.

I’ve already made mention of how good I think James Scott Bell’s The Art of War for Writers is, but I’d like to put one of its recommendations into practice. To do so, I’m putting this up for public record.

Chapter 4 of the book talks about discipline as the first step toward victory. One area of discipline is to set writing goals and stick to them. I’ve already discovered this for myself, but in terms of writing there is a further piece of advice which Bell learned from Anthony Trollope.

Write a quota of words every week.

Rather than shoehorning a daily writing goal into a schedule which doesn’t always work out as planned, set a weekly quota based on six days of writing per week. That way, if writing one day goes awry, you can make it up on another day, plus have an extra day for making it up if absolutely necessary.

I still keep a daily record of the number of words I write, but my goal has shifted to a weekly rather than daily quota. Here are the quotas I’m setting for myself, broken up into two separate sets of circumstances.

While Working on Revisions:

• Weekly word quota: 8,000 words (average 1,333 words per day, six days a week)
• Weekly revision quota: 6 chapters (average 1 chapter per day, six days a week)
• Weekly reading quota: 6 chapters (average 1 chapter per day, six days a week; these are writing improvement books, not reading for pleasure)
• Weekly blogging quota: 3 posts per week minimum

While Not Working on Revisions:

• Weekly word quota: 9,000 words (average 1,500 words per day, six days a week)
• Weekly revision quota: 6 chapters (average 1 chapter per day, six days a week)
• Weekly reading quota: 6 chapters (average 1 chapter per day, six days a week)
• Weekly blogging quota: 3 posts per week minimum

Observations

1. The pace of writing new content is only slightly reduced during revision work times. I’ll admit the revision/editing process is one I’ve not fully experienced before, so I may have to come back and adjust some quotas there. I finished my first novel just before NaNoWriMo started, and I set it aside until I finished my second novel just over this last weekend. I now have two 150,000+ word novels ready for revisions.
2. I won’t beat myself up if I don’t reach the daily average. I used to feel bad about not making the daily goal, but since switching to this method, I’m finding myself surpassing the weekly quota by one to two thousands words fairly easily.
3. I wonder if this method will work during NaNoWriMo? At first glance, it looks like it would, making the weekly goal 11,667 words per week. The pace during NaNo is frenzied anyway, but spreading it out over a week makes it seem more manageable. I’m concerned, however, that it takes away one of the largest motivating factors of the event—the daily pressure to produce.
4. How does the brainstorming and planning of new stories work into all this? I’ve always wondered how other authors deal with the planning stages of their works? Are they still writing something everyday in addition to brainstorming, or do they count whatever notes they put down as counting toward a word count? Can anyone comment on this?

How do you set quotas for yourself? What methods or advice can you share that has helped you reach your writing goals.