Recently, I did my bi-annual newsletter subscriber survey. As usual I asked if there were any questions. My subscribers did not disappoint! Here are my favorite questions:

1) From Debby: She wanted to know what authors I read and what ones are my favorites.

Hoo boy, I don't have a favorite, per se. There are so many great authors out there. Latest reads include Yasmin Angoe's Her Name is Knight series, Shirlene Obuobi's On Rotation medical romance, Milla Vane's Heart of Blood and Ashes, Kimberly Lemming's That Time I Got Drunk fantasy romance series, and an alien/sci-fi romance by Aria Starling. Oh, and I read Elizabeth Everett's Victorian/STEM romances recently and they were also excellent!

So, yes. My reading tastes are eclectic!

Perennial favorites include anything by Robin McKinley, Anne Bishop, J.R. Ward, Holley Trent, and Katee Roberts. And, like everyone else in the world, I'm also reading through Sarah Maas's ACOTAR series right now.

2) From Nancy M: How do I stay motivated to write everyday? Do I keep a journal to jot down random thoughts or ideas to use as inspiration?

First of all, I don't write every day, mostly because of my Day Job. I write as much as I am able, but the work often comes in blocks of several days or a week at a time. After writing in those blocks, sometimes I do feel like I got run over by a dump truck!

I jot down notes regarding the characters or the story that I'm currently working on. But I don't have a specific "idea journal" for future stories. One other thing that's interesting. My brain insists on remaining pretty linear. Meaning, I have to work on one project at a time. If I skip around between two or more incomplete projects, everything gets really muddled. So, even on deadlines, I have to wrap up one project (draft or edit) before moving to the other project.

3) From Kathy: How long do I spend each day writing? Do I schedule it? Do I write a really rough draft first?

Again, I don't write daily for all the reasons above. When I have time off, I do block out chunks of time to write. (Meaning, I make sure hubs is out of the house on what we call "alone day" so he's not driving me nutty!)

Oh yes, that first draft is absolute garbage. Awful spelling, minimal punctuation, no dialogue tags. It's utter crap, and I am happy with that. Because once the draft is on the page, I can fix it! The more important part of prepping that first draft are my 10-page character interviews of each main character (and villain, when applicable). That, and a refined outline are what sets the stage for me to draft quickly.

Thanks to my subscribers for these great questions, and happy reading!

​As some of you know, I have been knee-deep in COVID doctor-y stuff since the beginning of March. I'm one of the physician leaders at my hospital, and the non-hospital clinic has been crazy pants. And over the past several weeks we've had a lot more sick patients -- things are starting to heat up. And the meetings just keep coming. My brain has had one setting and it's: COVID COVID COVID 24/7.

So for months, the only writing work I've been able to successfully accomplish involved not CREATION but only REVISION. These are not equal activities. I can tell a big difference between CREATION which takes a clear, uncluttered mind and longer periods of blank, free time -- versus REVISION, with I can do in short snippets and in between non-writing activities. (And while on call, true.)

​Recently, I had a great time at  Emerald City Writers’ Conference  and did a talk on Fastdrafting 101. A few questions came up after this talk that I wanted to address here. I may have answered some of the questions, but honestly, the first 20-30 minutes of that talk was like an out-of-body experience, due to nerves. Also, if I cussed during that time, I'm super sorry... (sometimes I say bad things when I'm super nervous)
 
As we approach NaNoWriMo, the fastdrafting materials might be helpful for those WriMo-ers out there gearing up for November!
 
Here are my prior fastdrafting blog posts, if you would like a refresher/cautionary tale…
 
Part 1: I've got an idea!
 
Part 2: Bad decision making, for sure, but what could possibly go wrong?
 
Part 3: Uh oh...

​            Recap: Because of some questionable decision-making on my part, I ended up fastdrafting a paranormal romance novel over an approximately 4 day period. Part 1 and Part 2 give a good recap of those four days of insanity.
 
            So, the first draft of the novel was completed as of 2/23/16. Deadline to send it to the developmental editor: 3/6/16. My personal preference? I hate being late, so I generally try to get things in a little early, mostly to reinforce to my latent OCD. So late is not an option.
 
            That meant I had to take the novel from first draft (37K words) to ~45K words – my second stage goal. No, the book is not done yet – not by any stretch – but I wanted it layered enough for the editor to take a look and make revision suggestions before I go back for another rewrite and expand it some more.
 
            Disclaimer: I make no claims as to the quality of the manuscript. Also, no claims as to any expertise other than how dumb I was to attempt something like this in such a short period of time. Making bad choices? I'm a level 11 certified expert.
           
            So. 12 days to revise the book. 160 pages divided by 12 = 13.5 pages/day. Should be easy, right? (Spoiler alert: This scheme doesn’t work well if you have a day job.)

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.

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.