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HOW YOU CAN INCREASE YOUR WRITING OUTPUT
By Karen Rose Smith
1. Increase your alertness by focusing.
You start the day intending to get everything finished. You sit down to
write. The telephone rings. The school calls. One of the children is sick. The elderly neighbor calls. She wants to tell you about her visit
with her daughter over the weekend. Your husband calls. He wants to bring
his manager home for supper. A newspaper reporter calls. He wants to do an interview.
You will handle each of these calls differently. But the point is that you want to have the choice to make the decision which of these you're
going to let eat into your writing time. Invest in an answering machine and use it to monitor your phone calls. (I know many writers who have one
and don't use it. The ring of that phone is tempting.) Every time you sit down to write, turn it on. Make your writing time sacred except for dire
emergencies.
2. Set personal deadlines and meet them.
How fast can you write? How slow do you write? What's a good average? Can you finish a chapter in two weeks, a month? How long will it take for you to finish a book at this rate? You need to know the answers to these questions if you ever sell on a proposal. You need to know these answers to be productive.
Critique partners are great for personal deadlines.
3. Keep your energy level as high as possible before you write or while you write.
Developing fresh and clear mental pictures which is what writers do, requires high level energy, not left-over energy.
What energizes you? Doing stretching exercises? Listening to a favorite song? Reading a chapter from a new book? Eating a carrot stick? I'll skip over chocolate. Whatever it is, take the five minutes to do it before you write. I use silence or new age or classical mood music while I write.
It's a type of programming. I sit in silence or else put the music on,
sit in my writing chair, and automatically pick up my pen.
4. Know when to stop or take a break.
If a scene isn't working, give it a rest. Then try a new direction, a new
turn of phrase, a new character. Don't spend an hour staring at the same sentence when you can go do the laundry, sit down again later--if you set a
daily quota for yourself you will--and finish the scene in five minutes (well, maybe ten).
5. Visualize exactly what you want and it will happen faster.
What scene will you work on the next day? Give it to your mind to work on before you go to sleep. Are you in the middle of your manuscript?
Visualize that book cover!
6. Keep a network of names and addresses at your fingertips. Get a rollodex so you don't have to search for them.
7. Invest all of your time wisely.
Don't waste any experience that can be used as research. Keep a notebook by your side at all times for that sudden inspiration, a novel description.
When doing research, choose your books carefully. Can you read one
comprehensive book on a subject rather than searching through ten for one chapter on the subject or spending three hours on the web searching for
information? Do you have a contact who can give you a specific web site to got to? Can you interview someone and ask every question you need to know
the answers to?
8. Learn the difference between what you HAVE TO DO and what you SHOULD DO.
9. Take control of your time and respect it. If you do, others will too.
Manage your time today--not tomorrow. Procrastination will never finish a
manuscript.
It's truly amazing how much faster a chapter is completed, or even a book, when you manage two extra pages a day. Or more!
Karen Rose Smith has seen 32 romances published since her first debuted
in 1992. She has been named a finalist in the Traditional Category of the Virginia Romance Writers Holt Medallion Contest, a finalist in the National
Readers' Choice Awards, and also has been nominated for Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award for best Silhouette Romance. Her romances have
made both the USA TODAY list and the Waldenbooks Bestseller list for Series
Romance. Her latest romance, HER HONOR-BOUND LAWMAN, Silhouette Romance
#1480, will be on the shelves November 16.
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