Tag: writing

Plan B

~ JodiLea

Draft #4 (D-4) has begun. It will be the Final Draft. At last.

D-3 was a lot of gutting and changing plot, outline & characters, so D-4 is a complete mess. Things need to be organized so they can be written and then all tied up at the end. Like a book, say.

Five years are enough! I made 2 major errors that have come back to haunt my efforts.  The first is that my outline was too sketchy.  The second error springs from the first one: I can’t make up my mind. About the end, the start & critical scenes.  So what do I do? I go into Deny and Avoid mode and nothing gets accomplished. I sit at my computer and catch up on email, work on Mary Kay or the Quilter’s Guild correspondence & website maintenance.

Anything and everything. Except for The Novel. Once I realized I was doing this and becoming depressed about being afraid of my writing, I had to do something about it. Deny and Avoid mode must be turned around into Focused and Excited mode.

In order to get to the damned point, yes, there is one, I have a Plan B. Why should you care?  Because Plan B involves YOU! The wonderful and fun people who read this blog, can now get a peek into the fictional story that has consumed me for over 5 years.

All I ask is that you read it.

Some or all – is up to you. I do not expect comments (good or bad) about the story – no book reports or pop-quizzes either.  I need to know that someone out there is reading my story, so I stay motivated to keep going and finish what I started.

I’m not making any promises of total chronological order, or a certain daily word count. I do intend to devote as much time as I possibly can.  So, when I write only a couple of words  – such as:  “Research and more Research!”,  you can bet that I was actually doing just that.

I remain “Not Pretending” here at my place  🙂
– Jodi Lea

♥  TTFN  ♥

P.S.

May those who read, enjoy…

Permission – Give Yourself Some

~ JodiLea

I figured something out about myself. I knew it in my brain, long before this week, but I just was not getting it. Until I saw the pattern in my day-timer.

I need to slow down. I need to give myself the permission to slow down.

I spend all day plowing along (as quickly as I can) to get things done ASAP. So I can have some time to devote to myself, my puppy, and my novel. HA!  No matter how quickly, and efficiently I make progress – the day is over before I knew what happened and now it’s time to fix dinner. I’m too tired to get involved with anything else, except getting pajamas on and going to bed.

My Day-timer has a to-do list for today, and one of the items is “bunny faces”. Yesterday was “cut out bunnies”. Now that I have a stack of bodies and ears I want to embroidery their faces before sewing them together. Well actually, between calls to my health insurance company about a claim, digging in the file for hubby’s important papers, planning menus for the week, and designing a flyer hubby can post in town to sell firewood. OH! and don’t forget the spring cleaning I need to finish.

TTD-Waiting

All those “in between” things are not even on my day-timer schedule. I’m going to start making appointments in my day-timer with my novel. I do many other things on my computer, so I need to FOCUS and only work on my neglected book when scheduled. It sounded pretty structured and stressful, until I had an epiphany this morning.

The bottom line is I can’t focus on my writing because of guilt. Or should I say GUILT. It is so obvious and in my face, that I could not see it.  I would not, in good conscience, prioritize writing over other tasks on my schedule. My novel was last on my list of things I needed to do. It wasn’t critical or urgent to work on, like paying bills, grocery shopping and volunteer work is. Right?

NO!  Just because something is important to (only) me, doesn’t mean I’m neglecting my duties when I make time to do it. Writing is my “pursuit of happiness” – much more than a hobby or pastime. To me.

Old Notebooks

So, please excuse my messy house, and leftovers in the fridge. I’ve given myself permission to finish my novel.

Before I am dead.

 

♥  TTFN  ♥

 

Going to Camp

~ JodiLea

I am sending myself to camp this April. CNW_Participant_Square

I will not be traveling there because it is a virtual writers camp (Camp NaNoWriMo).  No meds to pack, no boarding for Ziva. Yeah!!
Just me & my cabin mates with our laptops, caffeine, snax, and notebooks containing research notes, ideas, ad nauseam. Some of us are starting new novels and a few of us, myself included, are editing our November novels. Either way, our cabin is full of  Young Adult Fiction writers, so it has to be fun. Right?  🙂

BTW, I am looking for a sponsor – someone to donate $$ to those who work hard to keep the camp running. Interested? Click  HERE for more info!

Wish me luck!!

♥  TTFN  ♥