6 Things I Learned from a Crunch Deadline and a Giveaway

by Pam Hillman

Overcoming obstacles is a badge of honor for our characters. Just as overcoming obstacles should be for those of us who write those characters' stories and literally pull them out of the fire and save their bacon!

Typing The End, and then digging in to smooth and polish should make us pump our fist in the air and do a joy-jig. Yes, I did a joy-jig when I turned in The Promise of Breeze Hill. Actually, I did FOUR of them.

The first was when I typed The End.

The second was when I finished the rewrite and met my deadline.

The third was when I turned in requested edits on time as promised.

The fourth was when I turned in copy edits a month or so after that.

And each time was su-weet! Each pass made the manuscript better, made me fall in love with my characters and the story even more than before. Summing this whole process up in four short sentences makes it sound easy, but it was far from it. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.

So here are six things I learned to make those joy-jigs as joyous as humanly possible. By the way, I write in Scrivener, so a couple of my tips are specific to that software. If you use Word, or even write long-hand, just apply some of the same basic principles to your method.

Plan the Work - Work the Plan. My husband is a carpenter. He’s been building houses for over thirty years. His father has been in the business for over fifty years, and they still use very detailed house plans.

Every. Single. Time.

Trying to work through plot issues mid-stream really does a number on my daily word count. Sometimes a major plotting snarl can set me back several weeks. I’m about to start book #3 on the Natchez Trace Novel series, and I’m going to take a page from Melissa Jagears. In a Seekerville blog post last month, 5 Ways to Maximize Your Writing Time, Melissa said she pre-wrote between 30-50K on her last two manuscripts before she even started writing the novels.

I’ve done this to a certain extent, but in my mind, I was writing portions of the manuscript, not a 20, 30, 40K synopsis. Thinking of this pre-writing as an extremely detailed synopsis instead of part of the actual manuscript will keep me from cringing when I have to delete 5K because it no longer works for the story.

If the above makes you cringe (you know who you are), then let’s just move on …

Frontload. Do not wait until the last few weeks to write your novel. Life happens. I had eight months to write The Promise of Breeze Hill. EIGHT MONTHS. Never mind that I wrote several novellas in that time, took care of the accounting for three family businesses and babysat the grand during that time. I needed to get started earlier, write longer, and more often. You’ve heard it said, you can’t edit a blank page. No matter how bad it is, get it down on paper long before your deadline. Allow two months to edit. Three or four are even better. What? You scoff at needing three months to edit? Of course you probably don’t. But start with that mindset of getting it done earlier, rather than later, and you’ll have time to spare. If you’re blessed enough to get finished long before your deadline, then yippee…start your next book.

Scrivener Tip #1. Make sure all scenes and chapters are checked “Include in Compile” and after you compile, check the word count in Word against the original Scrivener document. I dropped a scene in a novella once, but thankfully, caught it in the final edit before the collection was published. Whew!

Scrivener Tip #2. If you write in Scrivener, do not wait until 2 am to compile, then run spell check in Word. Compile early and often and run spell check on chapters as you go. Scrivener does have its own spell checker, but a second opinion is welcome.

Learn from the Insanity. Tina has told us over and over again that the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I submit that writing and editing for 14-19 hours a day for eight straight days leading up to a deadline is insanity. (Not that I’d know about that. Ahem.) So, whatever your insanity is, learn from it and figure out how to do it differently next time. Me? See all of the above.

Don’t throw in the towel if you find yourself in the middle of a crunch. Just buckle down and do the work. But when it’s over, take a deep breath, and learn from the all nighters and the insanity and apply what you learned next time, and the next, and the next.

AND... We have a GIVEAWAY!

Since my time crunch led to THE PROMISE OF BREEZE HILL, coming August 3, 2017, I'm celebrating by giving away a signed copy to one lucky winner. Solve the puzzle and leave a comment letting me know you want to be on the auction bl --- wait, wrong crowd --- in the drawing.





Also, if you want a 2nd chance to win, hop over to the HHH blog post - Why Write About Indentured Servitude? - and solve the puzzle and leave a comment. Last chance to enter the HHH contest is today, so you're doubling your chances. Cool, huh? :)

Today's discussion...well, as usual, we get to talk about pretty much whatever we want to, BUT, if you need a bit of direction, what's the one thing (or two, or three), you always do to keep yourself from drowning in a crunch?

Breaking News!

The Promise of Breeze Hill received 4 1/2 Stars and is a Top Pick with Romantic Times.