Please see the full post at Will Read for Feels. Also check out their awesome reviews and blog posts!

The playlist for Flame’s Dawn (Songs are listed in the order they appear in the novella.)

Here's the awesome YouTube video of the playlist -- again, thanks to Will Read for Feels! 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcwqCmEi9Jc&list=PLL9Ccxm_X9baIA0KbpgbOe1p43j-YpkqL

• Jackie Wilson “Higher and Higher”
• Herman’s Hermits “There’s a Kind of Hush All Over the World”
• The Monkees “Daydream Believer”
• The 5th Dimension “Up, Up and Away”
• Santana “Evil Ways”
• Jimi Hendrix “Machine Gun”
• Blue Swede “Hooked on a Feeling”
• The Carpenters “Top of the World”
• Kool & the Gang “Jungle Boogie”
• Elton John “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me”
• Bachman-Turner Overdrive “Takin’ Care of Business”
• Grand Funk Railroad “The Loco-Motion”
• Jim Croce “Time in a Bottle”
• John Denver “Sunshine on My Shoulders”

Although it wasn’t listed specifically in the text of the novel, while editing this novella, I had Melanie’s “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)” on eternal repeat. I had never heard of this song until I stumbled upon it while searching for songs from 1970. (Long story, I got the year wrong for part of the story on my first draft and for a while looking for songs from the wrong year. Anyway.) Now I can’t get “Lay Down” out of my head. The live version at Woodstock with the Edwin Hawkins Singers gives me goose bumps.

in the last post, we talked about what IS fastdrafting. Now I'm going to share how I tried it. Yes, everyone is different, but maybe this will give other folks good ideas for writing to work for them.
 

What are the rules?
 
As far as I can tell, there’s nothing set in stone, but here’s what I needed to pull this off:

1. Fully fleshed out character interview (10 pages for each character done ahead of time) and a solid outline, preferably revised a few times before starting.
2. A set amount of protected time. (For me – all day Friday, 7-12 on Saturday and late that night, pieces of Sunday and also late that night, and all day Monday.)
3. Verbal commitment from hubby who understood that I needed those protected times and a promise from me to take him out for dinner for his birthday Saturday night.
4. Permission to wear comfy clothes or whatever outfit was most conducive to writing lots.
5. Permission to sit wherever I could write lots

 
 
Here’s what happened (times are approximate)
 
Friday 7-9am – Shiny object! Day off work! Surf Internet and read other folks’ blogs and writing articles. Polish up website. Check electronic medical records (EMR) at work to sign off orders and put out fires.
 
Friday 9-12 – Guilty about not writing, so wrote nonstop. Took breaks q15 minutes to check Twitter/Facebook because I’m easily distractible.
 
Friday 12-5 – Lunch, then more writing. And 30 minutes on the treadmill + shower in there somewhere. One more round on the office EMR.
 
Friday 5-8 – Hubby how-was-your-week time. Took him out to dinner this evening, BTW.
 
Friday 8-midnight – Writing lots. (end of day = approx. 6K)
 
Saturday 7-8 – Surfing, emails, checking office stuff one more time because…kind of a workaholic, yeah.
 
Saturday 8-2 – Hubby is fishing, hooray! Other than the occasional text of some brownish green fish of indeterminate size he’s obviously proud to show me, I am writing uninterrupted and feeling like stuff is flowing. Like, I just look up at the ceiling, think about the scene and type away. That kind of zone.
 
Saturday 2-5 – Hubby is back home, chatting about fish size and then dinner ensues. Also got 55 minutes on the treadmill + shower.
 
Saturday 5-12 – Lots of writing. End the day at 16K words, feeling pretty stoked. But I’m going to have to turn up the afterburners to get to goal.
 
Sunday 9-2 – Writing. (Slept in because up late the night before) Hubby is nice enough to go shopping and to the coffee shop to give me some quiet time. No treadmill today. Too tired.
 
Sunday 2-7 – Cleaned portions of house, by no means complete. I knew the environmental conditions were deteriorating beyond human tolerances when hubby announced he would “take care of” the vacuuming. He only does that when the dust bunnies unionize and revolt. Also hubs and I watched The Martian which was a good movie but the book was better, IMHO.
 
Sunday 7-1am – Wrote my little heart out, interrupted a few times by hubby wandering in to ask random questions and see how things were going. He went to bed at 9. I kept writing… Ended day at 24K words, feeling really good, almost on a high. Could be lack of sleep.
 
Monday 7-8 – Went to check on patient at hospital. Yes, I’m on vacation. Yes, it’s a long story. Please note the 6 hours of sleep. I did not believe I could complete the project near target on that little sleep.
 
Monday 8-12 – Wrote like my pants were on fire. Hubby at work. Only occasional “I’m bored, send kitty pictures” texts from hubs.
 
Monday 12-5 – More writing + lunch + 30 minutes on treadmill. By a miracle of God, finished up at 7pm with a decent “the end” and 37K+ words. (Target goal 35-40K)
 
 
Now, time to let the manuscript marinate for a few days and revise, which of course takes longer when you fastdraft, and for obvious reasons. But now I have the really big picture and that’s when other questions and hole-fillers appear. So we’ll see if I can get the revisions done in time for deadline. I will update if the final product fails to materialize as a result of fastdrafting.
 
 
What I learned:

1. Write down questions and text markers within the text or at the beginnings of chapters and just keep going. (For example : “add scene where bad guy makes more detailed threats” or “add in more stuff about her ex”, “bring up issues about struggle w/ culture earlier”)
2. Certain music helps to write faster and stay awake. Put in the earplugs and pick some tunes. (I like Sia tunes where David Guetta has mixed them into dance music.) It helps stay focused.
3. I would be so much more productive if the Internet did not exist.
4. No way could I have done this in a normal work week.
5. I cannot do anything else when fastdrafting. No domestic stuff, no work stuff, no significant running.
6. This brain will not turn off after that much of a concentrated level of creativity. I did not expect to experience inability to sleep because more ideas kept popping up. Keeping a pad and paper next to the bed helps.
7. There IS a maximum amount of diet Dr. Pepper someone can drink before they start feeling hung-over the next morning.

 
I hope this gives folks who write but also have a “day job” some hope or at least some ideas to get their book created faster. If you have any comments or questions, let me know. I’m not an expert in anything but what I just did here this weekend. And chocolate. I'm at expert level 10 for chocolate and could be quoted liberally in the press regarding chocolate consumption.

For more fallout, check out Fastdrafting Part 3: Revisions

​ 
There have been lots of great articles on fastdrafting, but I wasn’t a believer…
 
Until this last week. You see, I had a four-day weekend earmarked to write. I had a deadline for a developmental editor pass in two weeks. And before this last weekend started, I had…no book.
 
So I figured, why not? Let’s try fastdrafting. And I mean really fast. Could I crank out my usual first draft of a novel in four days? (Usual first draft for me = 35-40K words FYI)
 
 
What is fastdrafting?
 
Basically, it’s writing the first draft of the book without stopping (editing) and just getting the ideas and words down on paper. Some websites shoot for getting a book done in one, two, or four weeks with this method. I think it must also depend on the length of the book.
 
 
Who benefits from fastdrafting?
 
At the risk of being blunt, people who aren’t full-time writers will benefit. Maybe even some folks who are full-time writers. Fastdrafting is a great time-management tool when writing time is sparse/sacred. I understand that all the articles and advice say: “Make time to write every day.”
 
Well, okay. But when the day job can go 60-80 hours/week and the hours are unpredictable (I’m a family doc who admits patients to the hospital and delivers babies), then an hour/day of writing is frankly unrealistic.
 
Enter fastdrafting. I did a modified version of this in October 2015 when I wrote the first 50% of my novella over ten hours in an airport and finished the novella over the next two weekends. (35K words when all said and done final -- not initial -- draft) But it wasn’t a true fastdraft.
 
I wanted to try it on a regular book-length book. (Book-length for me is final product 50-70K. Again results may vary depending target lengths.)
 
 
Who also benefits from fastdrafting?
 
People who can produce an outline beforehand and make decisions to deviate on the fly from the outline while mid-manuscript.
 
Also, writers who are okay with an imperfect, incompletely researched first draft. For example, I’ve left out place names or even certain character names, rather than stop and look them up to find just the perfect name. It can be added later!


Check out the ​next post for "what happened" during the fastdraft experiment!

 
            As the first book of a new, top-secret project departs for initial developmental edits, I feel kind of lost. There’s been so much writing and editing and creation going on for the past few months -- now that there’s a break, I feel weird. Like the brain still has ideas bouncing around, but it’s too tired to process them right this minute. Could also be because I’m 10/10 exhausted from this call week, too, but that’s beside the point.
 
            Nowadays, I can’t not have a project to work on in front of me. Like, it feels…wrong…not to write.
 
            At nighttime, after sending off that last project, my head switch gears.  Like I wanted nothing more than to start outlining the next book, but simply couldn’t do it. Too tired. But then the scenes for the next story started lining up, on their own! Couldn’t stop if I wanted to.
 
            Maybe there’s some truth to what more seasoned authors say: These stories rolling around in the head must be let out! Only, it would be nice if those stories gave me a break every once in a while.
 
            So what if I don’t write this day or this week? Good news! There’s always something for a writer to do. Always. If it’s not writing, its editing. If it’s not editing, it’s sending queries. If it’s not queries, it’s marketing current books. The work doesn’t end, and I love all of it. Even the times when there’s waiting.
 
            Only…it’s never waiting. Not really. It’s just time to write more!