November 5 2018

Repeat (Five Minute Friday)

If there is only one thing on my mind these days that I think of when I see the word repeat, it is winning my sixth NaNoWriMo. If you’ve followed my posts for very long you’ve heard it a time or two, or twenty. I wouldn’t even be here writing this post if not for finding this wonderful and difficult challenge. Every year in November, since 2013, all of my free time has been focused on writing.

Finally this year Hubby gets it. He made plans to take an intense training class this weekend and he knew it would be fine because it was November and of course I would be busy writing. Winning the first year gave me the confidence to believe I really was a writer. It also gave me the knowledge in each of the years that followed to tell myself that I’ve done it before and I can certainly do it again.

Every time I find something in my life that seems too hard and I think it can’t be done, I tell myself you’ll never know if you don’t at least try and if you can win NaNoWriMo, you can do ANYTHING!

If you can win NaNoWriMo, you can do ANYTHING! Click To Tweet

Every year has been a little different. Some years I get off to a really late or slow start, some years I lose confidence in my story mid-month and have trouble picking up the pace again, some years I get sick and struggle with keeping up and recovering at the same time. I hate it when I hear other writers give up before the month is half over with excuses that they don’t have time, but I have worked full time every year and still squeezed in the time to write at least 50,000 words. You have to want to win enough to give up watching tv, NetFlix, social media, hanging out with friends and family, cleaning the house, cooking fancy meals or whatever it is that takes up your time the rest of the year. If you want to write a novel, you will make time. I didn’t say it would be easy, far from it. Some days, the words just flow and other days you have to really dig deep to find them and struggle to pull them out and get them written at all.

But, my friends, you will never know if you don’t try. If you try and fail at least you tried. If you don’t bother trying at all, you have already failed, now haven’t you. Write on!

Some days, the words just flow and other days you have to really dig deep to find them and struggle to pull them out and get them written at all. This is the life of a writer. Click To Tweet

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Repeat
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Five Minute Friday, NaNoWriMo, Writing | Comments Off on Repeat (Five Minute Friday)
October 18 2018

Who (Five Minute Friday)

Kate says “who” this week. So timer set and here goes.

Who do you think you are to write and put it out there for the world to see? What makes you think anyone wants to read what you have to say? Sure the teachers told you that your writing was decent when they wrote the high marks on your essays in school. Then there are those older relatives, many of whom are no longer of this earth, that wrote in their Christmas cards how much they looked forward to your annual holiday newsletter because they liked getting to hear about the things we were doing throughout the year and that the photos were nice too. But that doesn’t mean the whole internet-viewing world needs to see what you write does it?

Well, why not? I have a lot of life experience to share, fifty-two years of experience and still gaining more every day. Why shouldn’t I write about the things I have seen and learned in my lifetime if I could help some younger person avoid the mistakes I’ve made? Maybe I DO have something worthwhile to say and share. Just because I put it out there doesn’t mean they have to read it, right?

Stop. That is where five minutes and my fast two-finger typing will get me. Until next time…

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Who
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Blogging, Confidence, Five Minute Friday, Writing | 2 Comments on Who (Five Minute Friday)
October 18 2018

Finding Time to Write NaNoWriMo

As October draws to a close and November approaches I find myself thinking about how I will fit in the time it takes to write every day. There are several things I can do during October to lessen the demands on my time next month. While I am planning to use these to find the time to write 50,000 words in the 30 days of November for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), these ideas could work for anyone at any time of the year for any reason you might be looking to find more time in your schedule to do the things you need or want to do. So here is what I can do to save as much time as possible.

Stock the Pantry

This sounds so simple, but if we stock up on the basics and make sure we have what we need to make meals and snacks, this will save us from unscheduled trips to the grocery. I also highly recommend that you make sure you have enough toilet paper, paper towels, laundry detergent, paper plates or whatever it takes to keep things running smoothly without the need to do those pesky little tasks like washing dishes for the next four to six weeks. Obviously, I try to stock up when things are on sale anyway, but this might not be possible, so just this once, sale or not, I will be stocking up to get me through the month of November at the very least and preferably through the rest of the year…think hectic holidays.

Menu Planning

You might already plan your weekly meals, and if so, that is great. If you don’t, now is the time to get started on that new habit. Plan things that can be prepped now and frozen, then just thawed overnight and dumped in a crockpot in the morning before work to save time with dinner prep later. Consider adding bagged salads or salad kits to your meal plan once or twice a week. When life gets crazy-busy, this is not the time to eat junk food and cut back on fruits and veggies. These can actually be easy or no prep snack and meal options to fall back on. These are also super easy to throw in a lunch bag when heading out the door to work. Trust me, plan simple meals that take little time to cook or make extras and freeze meal-sized portions to be eaten next month. Maybe menu planning means partnering up with a friend and making a schedule where you trade off cooking and share the feast every other night or something. Get creative, but plan to nourish your body instead of punishing yourself with unhealthy alternatives.

Consider things like browning larger batches of ground beef or turkey all at once then drain and freeze it in bags of about 2 cups/1 pound so it is ready to make tacos, sloppy joes, spaghetti, Hamburger Helper or whatever you use it for. It thaws much faster when it is precooked than a block of raw meat and make dinner prep much faster because there is less cooking and cleaning time involved.

Grill a whole grill full of meat the next time you cookout and package the meat in individual serving sizes and freeze after it cools. We have pre-cooked burgers, brats, pork chops, chicken, and more. Having this food cooked and “banked” in the freezer means you can eat grilled meat with very little trouble all year long.

Clean all of your produce and bag it in snack-sized portions so it is easy to grab the healthy stuff and get back to writing. Anything you can do in larger batches and ahead of time will save you time later.

Clean the House

Yes, this means you. If your house is cleaned thoroughly this month then you can let it slide a little while you are busy next month. If possible just pick up after yourself regularly so it stays basically company-ready through November and you will be that much ahead of things for the holidays. We don’t want cleaning to be your procrastination activity of choice to avoid writing your novel. If you are overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, try FlyLady.

Practice Your Craft

Practice writing or doing something to work on your novel every day, if possible, to get a jump start on the habit for next month. Don’t hesitate to count “writing adjacent” activities toward the daily habit. My friend Alicia introduced this phrase to me and it means doing anything from outlining, reading, watching movies in a comparable genre to the novel you are writing, research, etc. as long as it has something to do with writing. It might just be five minutes a day the first week, but the next week you can increase it to ten minutes a day. If you want to be a writer, you must make time to write. Make it a priority in your life and start building small pockets of time to do something toward your writing goal with any free bit of time you find even if it is only five minutes at a time. All those little pockets of time can really add up. Keep a notebook or index cards with you to jot a quick idea or note about something that you thought of that you want to add to your novel. You can do this while standing in line, instead of pickup up your phone and scrolling through your social media feeds, instead of binging on TV or NetFlix. You know what your time stealers are…you don’t have to give them all up, but switch a few to writing adjacent activities. Thanks, Alicia for sharing writing adjacent-ing with us!

You Need A Plan

Plan what you will write. That means you need to get to know your characters, your setting and at least your major plot points ahead of time. Do whatever you can ahead of time to make sure you know what you are writing and will be ready to jump in a start writing on November 1st. If you have a well-planned project, you will be less likely to struggle with writer’s block when the pressure is on.

Those are my suggestions for organizing your time, specifically so you can write your novel with me and all the other NaNo participants in November. If you are not a writer, you can still make use of these tips (most of them anyway) to get you through those super busy times in your life without compromising your mental or physical health while you do so.

If you have any other time management tips to share, please leave them in the comments below, use the contact form or send me a message via email. I am always looking for ways to save time or make more time for the million things I really want to do but never seem to have enough time for. If I get enough tips, I will compile them into a new post to share here.

If you don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, please read more here. It is really a great way to meet other writers and get started on your story.

Category: NaNoWriMo, Organizing, Writing | Comments Off on Finding Time to Write NaNoWriMo
October 2 2018

31 Days of 5 Minute Free Writes Challenge

This post is part of the 31 Days of 5 Minute Free Writes Challenge. Scroll down for the links and the graphic showing the prompts for the month.

It will be pinned to the top of the page until the end of the month. Check back for updates on the prompts. I may write several at a time and update just a couple of times a week. I seriously considered not posting any at all until all 31 were written. But that seemed like a long time to let myself possibly get behind. So I will post at least once a week. Five Minute Friday posts will be posted separately as they have been and linked to this post. I may not write them in order and I might add to some after I have posted if something else comes to me.

1 [story] Tell me a story, we would say to our Mom. She knew what we meant. We wanted her to read us a story. We wanted the close interaction where we knew we had her attention even if we had to share it between the four of us. Sometimes when we were still small enough one of us would get to climb in her lap and see the pictures in the book while she read to us, assuming the book had pictures anyway.
I suppose my love of reading and even writing can be traced back to those early stories Mom read to us. It helped us understand that words had the power to transport you into worlds you might never get to see otherwise and meet people from other countries or even planets. Nothing was impossible in a story. The author could tell you something from their own life or make something up. It didn’t matter if it was true or not, only that it was interesting to hear or read.
Words build stories and stories build imagination and imagination can take you anywhere! Read to the children in your life, because doing so could completely change their life forever for the better.

2 [afraid] In 2017, I chose my first ever word of the year. I chose the word FEARLESS to guide me through the year. To read more about my year of being fearless, please see the post from January 11, 2018. Don’t be afraid to choose a word of the year to guide you, often the word chooses you. Just give it some thought, there is plenty of time to select one before the new year begins.

Continue reading

Category: Five Minute Friday, Writing | 2 Comments on 31 Days of 5 Minute Free Writes Challenge
August 2 2018

6 Writing Idea Generators

I hate to admit it, but sometimes I have no inspiration to write. I know, shocking, right?

When this happens, there are several things you or I can do to get over it. I am going to share six of them here.

1) One-Word Prompts

One of my favorites is using the one word prompts given each week at FiveMinuteFriday.com. These one-word prompts always seem to turn into something, though I won’t even pretend they are always easy to write to. Knowing that at least fifty other people are going to be writing and posting about the same word in the next week helps me not to admit defeat and give up on any specific week/word.

So, what if you randomly opened any book with your eyes closed and chose a word by pointing your finger down on the page? It could work. Since no one else would know, you could always pick a different word on the page if the one your finger landed on doesn’t inspire you to write for at least five minutes the way one of its neighboring words does. Once you have your word, set a timer for at least five minutes and see how much you can write. Remember to use the word you chose at least once. Continue reading

Category: Writing | Comments Off on 6 Writing Idea Generators