Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.

I know, right? I sound all technical with my title. Now I’ll let you read it again. Yep – not the writing process, MY writing process.

The truth is, there is no THE writing process. I think the further we delve into the writing world, we realize this is all too true. But I do have MY writing process, and I’m truly coming to love it.

And it’s around the anniversary of my discovery of it.

About a year ago, I was suffering horrible vertigo, which made it impossible to play my MMORPGs Yep, that’s a true sad face there. I loved them. Best procrastination tools EVER.

But given time to think, I sat down and reviewed my life. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and worked on and off very hard at becoming one. But only on and off. A few months here, a couple of weeks there, followed by intermittent breaks and shiny distractions.

Sound familiar?

I finally realized I’m not a pantser. I have a very specific way of outlining, developing characters, developing places and things, outlining the plot and then point by point plotting that works uniquely well for myself. However, I’m fully aware my style doesn’t work for anyone else I know. At least not completely. A couple of writing friends have adopted different parts of my process, but there’s no way my full process works for them.

Why? Because it’s their brain and it works different than mine. Their imagination is triggered differently than mine. My brain – thrives on knowing what plot points I want to hit at what intervals and fills in the blanks gleefully on how to get there.

Other people might find this inhibiting and prefer a free flow to their writing. While I don’t think the way I draft loses any free flow, I do have points I make sure I include in every chapter, which makes me pretty much never have to go back and fill in plot holes. Because I don’t have any.

So fast forward to this week.

Being pregnant, my brain is only so good for so long. Instead of my four or so hour stints per night and twelve hour stints on weekends for writing, I only have 2-3 hours per weekday and maybe 5-6 hours on a weekend (day off) in which to write. I’ve opted for making my little 20 minute writing bursts not optional. As in – for those 20 minutes I don’t talk, surf, tweet… internet.

Jami and I have been warring like this for a few days. 0:00 – 0:20 – ten min break 0:30 – 0:50 ten min break. Every hour for at least two hours. Usually 2.5… On Sunday it was 3.5. And it’s working. I can hard focus on the writing and dive through my points and keep myself on track.

I’m not aiming to break the week the last draft I wrote took me. I’m trying to find a good balance of writing hell bent for leather, and having energy left to move afterwards. And, if I can write in mini spurts, it’ll make working after baby comes much more manageable.

So far so good. I’m sitting at 23k/30% of my current goal for this draft. At this rate I should definitely be done by this time next week. And I’m really hoping to make that deadline. It means I have my goals (mostly) in check, and that I’ve refined my process to be as efficient with my time and energy as I can be.

Do you find that your own writing process is a series of trials and errors? Of finding the right groove for you balanced with what you’ve been told and experienced for yourself? How much of you is in your own writing process?

Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.

You know those plans? The ones you were going to stick to and pull off until something not on your plan dove in and muddled everything up?

Yeah – those plans.

Enter: Migraine/Headache from hell.

You see, it didn’t start out as a migraine on Wednesday night, it just started out as a headache that stayed all through the night and woke with me on Thursday. And proceeded to get worse and worse the longer I was awake.

But didn’t you take meds and/or try to sleep it off I hear you ask?

Why yes, I did both of the above. Enter Tylenol and a round of two hours sleep. Hi constantly worsening headache. By the time I tried to sleep on Thursday night, it’d reached migraine proportions. We’re talking elephant sized. Good thing it was already dark – because light and I were NOT getting on at this stage.

And Friday – oh Friday how you hated me. Headache was back (a nice change from Migraine), but decided to slowly develop back INTO migraine and then further through to super migraine despite every nap I could throw at it. I felt like a vampire. Light hurt, and I swear if I stepped out in it, I’d burst into flame (no, I don’t sparkle thank you very much).

I even lost weight. The whole migraine thing not letting me eat lol. Not a good thing when expecting, but it was what it was. Had a brief respite for a few hours until it came back and bombarded me with pain at about 10pm and refused to let me sleep decently for most of the night.

Finally I attacked it on Saturday with tylenol and sunglasses. I FREAKING WON.

Maybe I shouldn’t say that so caps locky. After all the slight throb stayed in the back of my head until last night… sooooo As it stands now I have one victory. We don’t need to count how many Migraine has, do we?

The point to this story is: I wanted to be three days into writing AI2, but I’m only one day into it. Still – the #writemotivation goals are chugging along and I feel good about it.

1. Send Edits to Agent
2. Go to OWFI
3. Plot AI-2
4. Write AI-2
5 .Finish TDP 2 Draft 2
6. Be more consistent with blog posts/blog reading

YAY – so yeah 1, 2 and 3 down. I SHOULD manage 4, buuuuut you know – best laid plans and all

Also – that blogging thing will get whipped into shape this week!

How has your week been? Have you had a chance to pop over and check out the beta match up? Is your month progressing the way you wanted it to? Did you have any unexpected/unwanted interruptions this week?

Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.

Please don’t forget to check out the Beta Match Up Post

It’s not that I’m not working towards my #writemotivation goals. It’s simply that this month things are different. I imagine my meticulous planning habit is going to have to start accommodating for potential requests from my agent. Not that this is a bad thing.

While I definitely haven’t backslid, there has been no noticeable progress on my list because a couple of things crept up last week that I had to take care of.

1. Send Edits to Agent
2. Go to OWFI
3. Plot AI-2
4. Write AI-2
5 .Finish TDP 2 Draft 2
6. Be more consistent with blog posts/blog reading

We need to insert 2b – Send final edits to agent + the synopsis for books 2 & 3. Which is what I spent the last week working on

This week I plan to plot out AI-2, and begin writing it. So, 3 & 4 are looking good. 6 is looking good too. By the end of the month I should be back on my regular posting schedule.

However, 5 is not going to happen this month. I may begin it, but I’m not going to push myself to do so. 5 will be pushed to June and hopefully out to my beta readers by the end of that month

Also – since I have a baby on the way now, I’m trying to build in certain things I know I won’t be able to manage with a new born. My list just got that much more complicated, but I think my life just got that much better

So, those are how my goals are going, how’re yours? Do you find setting goals for yourself works? Do you remember to be realistic and build in time you may need for unforeseen circumstances (also known as life)?

Hope you’re all having a fantastic May as well!

Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.

Hello and welcome to the first #writemotivation beta match up.

Please bear with me as this is the first ever match up I’ve hosted.

We had 13 sign ups in diverse fiction categories, so there weren’t really enough to divide into categories.

Instead, I’ve highlighted what people are looking for and genre where applicable. Some are offering to be a CP/beta and asking for small crits in return. Most want a reciprocal relationship.

Included are the relevant websites and twitter handles. Since we’re likely all following each other on Twitter for #writemotivation, it might be easiest to just tweet the person you’re interested in partnering with. However, feel free to discuss in the comments below as well.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask, I can try and find out more information if needed/wanted.

There are a lot of great people looking for crit/beta partners – so good luck everyone!

If you did not sign up and would like to let people know you’re also looking or willing to beta – please drop a note in the comments.

Hope everyone’s #writemotivation is going fantastically well

May just keeps getting better!

Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.

Hi everyone!

It’s our first Monday check in for the May #Writemotivation month. Even though I’ve been a bit absent, due to the horrific internet in the hotel where OWFI was held, I’m still here and still on track – or I hope I’m on track

It seems like everyone is having a great cheering time!

OWFI

Over the weekend (or from Thursday – Saturday) I went with my local crit buddies Seti and Heather to Oklahoma City and attended OWFI. It was a lot of fun. Met a lot of fabulous people including some of my fellow #writemotivation people

Also met some agents and found out they’re not quite the intimidating creatures you think they are… at least not up close – from a distance though And I met some awesome editors too. Melissa Frain from Tor gave a fantastic presentation on Genre Fiction. Overall, the weekend was definitely worth it – my next goal will be to attend an even bigger conference!

#Writemotivation

I don’t believe I posted my goals anywhere but the list this time. So, here they are:

1. Send Edits to Agent
2. Go to OWFI
3. Plot AI-2
4. Write AI-2
5 .Finish TDP 2 Draft 2
6. Be more consistent with blog posts/blog reading

Now, I think I can definitely get 3 & 4 done, and I’m working on 6. But 5 might be a bit difficult because – I’ll get my final round of clean up from my agent today – and have to go through fixing typos etc so we can send out TDP1 on submission.

OMG – I’ll be going out on submission soon. *faints*

Anyway!

The 2nd draft might not get completed, but it will definitely get started.

I’ll be posting the information on the beta match up on Wednesday.

How is everyone going with their month? Are you excited for the rest of May?

Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.

Annnnd here we are! May 1st 2012 – another #writemotivation goal check month

Now, if my brain has done this right – everyone’s name should link to their website, and their twitter handle to their twitter handle. We do have one non-twitter person, but maybe we can lure them to the darkside – bwah hah hah! This month, we have 34 participants!

This was the initial sign up page if you’d like to nab the badge! Please remember to give credit for the image. Also – no more sign ups for this month. We’ll have another in July. Sign up post will be in mid-June

Please note: even if you aren’t signed up for #writemotivation on the list, feel free to take part in the hashtag and cheer and be cheered. Beware of flaming zombie stripper cheerleaders… I may have that turned around

For a refresher -

The Rules:

1. Make a list of realistic goals for the month – and achieve them.
2. Make a Blog Post every week (preferably Monday, but if you don’t post on Mondays just add it to the next day you would normally post  ). This is to help us keep tabs on our own progress, and for others to cheer us on if it’s a difficult week. Please link to the post in the #writemotivation hashtag
3. Visit your #writemotivation team mates blogs, and participate in the #writemotivation hashtag to cheer people on

Beta Match Up

I will post the list up next Wednesday – May 9th, and we will take it from there. I’ll do anything I can to facilitate between people, but by that time we’ll probably all have thrown cookies, caffeine and cheerleaders at each other anyway

May Roll Call List!

That’s all of us!

Here’s to a fantastic #writemotivation May 2012! This is going to be a FANTASTIC month!

If you have any questions – just ask them below and I’ll get to them asap!

Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.

Today is the last day of April. I know, obvious, right?

But for me, April has been my worst month productively this year. Never mind that for the last 3 weeks I’ve been fighting off the previously mentioned Zombie virus. I refuse to let it carry over into May as I have far too much to do in that month. So, who’s with me? May will be a fantastic month!

Interview!

Now for the cool news Brenda, who organized the whole Pitchmadness thing, interviewed me last week! I was really excited, since it’s thanks to her brainchild that I got my but into gear and had TDP ready a month ahead of schedule If you’d like to see the interview – please pop over to A Pitchmadness Success Story

Edits

I’ve been, when my zombie brain would allow, homing in on my edits. Now – if I were at normal operation capability (read: not sick), then I would have had these edits out of the way within a week as there really wasn’t tonnes to do. Fiddly things, clever insertions to add some more oomph, but overall, not much. As it is, it’s taken me two weeks so far.

I hope to have the rest of them finished by tonight/tomorrow and sent off to my agent (hahaha I can SAY THAT) before I leave for OWFI on Thursday. Cross your fingers for me, my brain currently needs the help.

Guild Wars 2

Yeah, so it’s not in my title, but the first beta weekend was this past weekend, and it was awesome. I really enjoyed it. I didn’t play non-stop (which is a first for me), and I actually took my time getting to know the classes I tried out, and when best to use which skills. With the beta weekend a casual success for me (that I juggled with edits) I have hopes that I’ll be able to play my first ever casual mmo game.

#Writemotivation

Yay I’ll post up the participant list tomorrow morning (as in, I’ll get it ready tonight & tomorrow morning). You all know where to find us on Twitter – although I’ll highlight our non-twitter participant so we go visit their blog

Next week I will post up the beta match so we can spend the rest of the month meeting, greeting and finding beta partners

I’m accepting entries until midnight cst tonight. So if you haven’t signed up and want to, go here to do so.

Let’s get May underway with a BANG! I’ll be doing that by attending the OWFI conference this weekend SQUEE MOMENT!

How was your April? Are you anticipating a better May?

Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.

In case my fantastic amount of inactivity on the net didn’t give it away – I’m sick. I’ve been sick for two weeks now.

When I say sick, I mean SICK. I mean raging fever, clogged nose, cough of death, and generally fighting off the zombie virus from hell.

This has caused four things to happen:

1. I dropped out of the A-Z challenge, due to pure lack of energy to click buttons.
2. I’ve been woefully absent in cheering on all my friends with their #writemotivation goals. I apologize profusely for this.
3. I’ve been horrifically negligent of Triberr. Actually I sort of forgot about it until this morning. Will rectify my absence asap!
4. I’ve lapsed into a brain rut where I only have so many good minutes in me per day to work on edits.

Now, if you know me, you realize that number 4 is killing me. When I’m healthy, I can pound out quality edits in a more than timely manner. Hell, I can even surprise myself with what I come up with. Right now, however? I’m having major issues keeping any focus for longer than thirty minutes, which makes completing the edits my awesome agent has asked me to do (and there aren’t even that many!) a slow and agonizing process.

In short – this zombie virus has made me feel like a different person. My only hope is to get over it soon, because I’m not used to being this unproductive - or slowly productive. It’s just not what I do!

Okay – now that rant is over. Thank you for sticking with me.

I’d like to move onto #writemotivation.

I’m really excited for May. I have another 7 days to get rid of this zombie virus so I can dive into May with renewed energy and be back to my old self Wish me luck!

We’ve already had over 20 sign ups. I’m still curious as to how someone managed to sign up on the March sheet, but I will transpose their entry hehe.

We have quite a few new people on board AND even one person who doesn’t use Twitter.

The Beta Match Up

I’ve not done one of these before, but I’ve seen them take place. I’ll make a post early May listing everyone who is looking for a beta match up. I will try to divide them into specific genres/and or those who are willing to do a wide range of genres.

This should allow for easy reference. Everyone will have everyone’s twitter handle – and we can go from there and start in on the Match Up!

OWFI

May 3-5 is the OWFI conference in Oklahoma City. I’m really looking forward to this. Of course, I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d have an agent by this date, so I’ll be cancelling my pitch session. But I’m still really looking forward to the conference. Going with my local crit group and hoping to meet up with some of my #writemotivation buddies there too!

So basically – I’m here to tell the Zombie virus that I don’t have time for it! I have way too much shit to do in May! HAH!

How has your April been? Have you been sick? Been stuck in a rut? Had a fantastic month?

Let me know!

Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.

What is a Goal-Check month? 

Apart from the general cheering we do on a daily basis, a Goal-Check Month is where you set goals for yourself and hold yourself accountable to them. You let us know what those goals are, and report during the month how you think you’re going with them. This helps hold yourself accountable.

The aim here isn’t to compete with each other – it’s to compete against ourselves (and that pesky inner-critic and procrastination demon that try to defeat us when we least want them to).

To that end we try to add incentive every month. This month we’re adding a beta/CP match up

In these months, there are rules. Don’t worry – they’re completely doable.

The Rules:

1. Make a list of realistic goals for the month – and achieve them.
2. Make a Blog Post every week (preferably Monday, but if you don’t post on Mondays just add it to the next day you would normally post  ). This is to help us keep tabs on our own progress, and for others to cheer us on if it’s a difficult week. Please link to the post in the #writemotivation hashtag
3. Visit your #writemotivation team mates blogs, and participate in the #writemotivation hashtag to cheer people on
4. Please fill in the form here:

Once this done you’re ‘registered’

It’d be nice if we all subscribed to each other’s blogs, but I don’t want to make that a rule, just a courtesy.

So – sign up and let’s keep #writemotivation going. Really looking forward to kicking some butt in May

Also – remember to take advantage of a beta/CP match up if you’ve been looking.

Here’s to a fantastic May 2012!

This is our icon. Please give credit for it:  Header image and thumbnail photograph by Hugh Lee and licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Hover credit is fine.

Header image and thumbnail photograph by Hugh Lee and licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sahlgoode/

Please link back to this post if you don’t mind. Signups will close on April 30th and I’ll post the list up on May 1st.

Any questions? Please ask! Let me know what you think

Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.

On Friday, one of my fellow #writemotivation tweeps released her first book: Nether Bound!

Bonnie set herself a goal, and never backed down from it even though I know sometimes she was overwhelmed.

This is a really exciting thing for many reasons. I’ve seen her go through betas and edits, and more edits – send it out to a professional editor, and then polish and correct some more.

She’s agonized over it (just like most writers do), and nitpicked at it until it was just right. Not only that, she’s got an amazing Author Site.

And then she went and got AMAZING cover art.

See? Isn’t it a gorgeous cover?

So – what’s it all about, you ask?

Here’s the blurb:

Seventeen year old Ava Walker has everything a girl could ask for. She’s captain of the cheer squad, has tons of friends, and could easily have any guy she wants. Being popular is easy.

Lying about her entire life, on the other hand, isn’t.

Since she was little, Ava has had a connection with the dearly departed. She knows seeing dead people is abnormal, but they never try to communicate, so she does her best to turn a blind eye. The older she gets, the worse her visions become. With more and more ghosts showing up, her secret is on the verge of driving her mad.

The only person Ava ever trusted is her best friend, Devon. Only, she hasn’t really talked to him in years and lately he hasn’t been acting like himself.

To make things worse, her evil stepfather, Mark, is hitting the bottle harder and harder. Ava hates the alcoholic psycho her mother married a few years ago. To him, beating women is a sport. Lately, the beatings are getting worse. Ava fears it won’t be long before her mother is among the ghosts invading her life.

She wishes Mark would just die. When he suddenly does, her life changes forever.

Just when she thinks her family is safe, Mark shows back up.

 Not all ghosts are silent, and dear old Daddy wants some serious revenge.

Be careful what you wish for …

And you can buy it here:

for $2.99

In a couple of weeks I’m going to drag her onto my blog and interview her. I’m so proud of you Bonnie

And am I right? Gorgeous cover!