How do you feel about outlining/planning versus sitting down and just writing through a draft?
I’m a fan of both ways. I like to know where I’m going and the major plot points I’ll hit on the way there, but I usually pants the crap out of how the story gets there.
how do you find time to write and what is your book schedule like?
My schedule is insane. As always.
A couple of things I do that make a difference (for me. Your mileage may vary.):
* Schedule time to…plan your schedule. My planning period is Sunday morning. The rest of the week would fall apart without it.
* Track your time, just like you track your money. (I’m hoping, of course, that you track your money, instead of crossing your fingers every time you swipe your debit card. Not that I’ve ever done that, or anything.) Time is finite. You’ll never get more. You can’t save what you have. If you want to use it wisely, you must first get a good idea of where it’s going to waste.
* Differentiate between what you have to do (go to work), what you should do (clean out fridge), and what you want to do (write books). Drop what you can, then delegate the rest. The goal is to spend most of your time doing what only you can do.
* Use highlighters/markers to color-code datebook entries for an at-a-glance glimpse of where your time is going.
* Pencil in priorities first. Schedule the unimportant things around the important things, not vice versa.
* Break your big goals into smaller, bite-size pieces. Big goals, goals that take a long time to accomplish, have an aura of someday about them. Breaking them up into smaller bites give you a daily win, something you can accomplish right the hell now as opposed to some ethereal someday somewhere down the line. For instance, if your big goal is to write a book, your bite-size goal might be write 350 words. If you want to eventually run a 5K, set a daily goal of doing a C25K interval three days a week. It’s amazing how well this works.
* Combine activities when you can. I listen to class lectures and podcasts while I’m shopping in the grocery store or cleaning the kitchen. These activities also lend themselves well to audiobooks and catching up with friends. Treadmill time is for listening to audiobooks/podcasts, catching up on TV, and reading.
* If you want other people to respect your schedule, you have to respect your schedule. Blowing off writing time to do other things gives those around you the impression that writing time isn’t important and is therefore up for grabs.
* Speaking of those around you, get rid of the timesucks and emotional leeches. You know who they are. And trust me, you’re better off without them.
* If you’re like me and have trouble saying no to people who call and ask for favors, turn off your phone. It’ll feel douche-y for a few days, but you’ll be glad for the uninterrupted writing time. And if you do it often enough, the constant favor-askers will eventually take the hint.
* Take a day off. From everything. Trust me, you need it.
* Use your mornings wisely. They’re usually the only part of the day when you and only you have claim to your time.
* Don’t forget to sleep. It’s scary how much I forget to pencil in sleep.
This is a total loser question (I fail at life): how do you make time to read and write? When I’m writing I tend to only want to write and vice versa.
I make time to read like I make time to do everything else: I pencil it into my schedule. Just like work. Just like writing. Writing won’t make you a better reader, but reading will always make you a better writer.
Do you ever get any blog comments or emails from your blog that surprise you?
Every now and then I get hate mail and that’s always surprising, because come on! I’m freaking lovable!
What TV shows are you most excited about this year?
Um…I have no idea! I haven’t been tempted to watch much new stuff this year.
I did check out SLEEPY HOLLOW, though. (I mean, how could I not, right?) But there are so many issues! I seriously hope they get them all worked out, because it could be SO GOOD.
There was also supposed to be a show about Ron Weasley as a superhero, but I never saw it anywhere, so I assume it didn’t get picked up. Which is a shame, because dude, Ron Weasley! As a superhero!
Anonymous asked:
You pin a LOT of food on Pinterest. (Not complaining!) Do you ever eat any of it or do you just pin it?
I mostly just pin it. I find it hard to justify the work and cost of cooking since I live alone.
Anonymous asked:
Are you doing NaNoWriMo again this year?
Yes! I am!
You can find me here: lizwritesbooks
Anonymous asked:
What’s the most you’ve ever written in a day?
I’m going to tell you a little story about The Perfect Day.
It was in December 2005. I was home sick with the flu, or at least that’s what I’d told my boss. I don’t actually remember if I was sick or not, only that I’d called in sick, and given my work ethic in 2005, it could go either way.
(Oh, who am I kidding? It was more like 60/40, in favor of lazy over sick.)
Anyway, I was home and in pajamas and I managed to crank out something like 45 pages.
It was kind of awesome.
But of course when you have a day like that, you kind of start using it as a stick by which to measure all other days. And so, almost ten years later, I find myself thinking back to that day and wonder what I did right then and what I’m doing wrong now.
The answer, of course, is that I did nothing “right’ then and I’m doing nothing “wrong” now. There are so many factors involved in that freakshow of a day, factors that will probably never align again. But still my subconscious won’t let it go.
So there’s your answer. Most words in a day: 45 pages.
But it’s also worth noting that those 45 pages? Complete and utterly useless. They got deleted on a first pass edit. I’m sure there was something I learned from those 45 pages that eventually found its way into the book. But the pages themselves? Not so perfect after all.
Anonymous asked:
Do you find your’e drawn to the same colors/visuals/themes when you’re writing? I feel like I overuse the same things in different books. “Oh look a dragon, how original”. Do you think this is a bad thing?
There are a lot of things that keep showing up in my work. I reckon this is because I, um, wrote them, and I am me, and there are things that I resonate with, and I use them.
And then there’s the part where every book I write is about a secret princess. So you know. There’s that.
But I think every writer has one core story that they keep telling in everything they do. Mine happens to be secret princess. Yours has something to do with dragons.
I remember Jennifer Weiner once talked about her work and how all of her stories are basically variations on the same theme: “My parents split up and I’m sad about it.”
If you’re at all familiar with her work, you can see clearly where that comes in. And while her books are all quite similar to one another, it isn’t like she’s writing the same book all the time. They’re their own book, too. They’re just part of the same family. Variations on the same theme.
Even Joss Whedon has recurring themes in his work: strong female characters; mind-control assassins; robot girlfriends; musical episodes. You can see a direct line from the Buffy musical episode to Lorne (the demon karaoke bar host) in Angel to Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. It’s not a bad thing.
(OK, so the Buffy musical was kind of cheesy. But that’s beside the point.)
What I’m saying is, only you know why the dragons keep showing up. Do they mean something to you? Is your subconscious using them in your stories to try and sort something out? Is it a cheat, an easy go-to, like a reptilian version of Kraft Easy Mac you keep throwing in to keep from having to think too hard? Or are you just overanalyzing your alleged over-use of dragons?
Think on that for a while and see where it leads you.