Hi, Julie here, and every now and then, you meet another author with whom you click like the snap of your fingers. I don't know, maybe it's the smile, the sparkle in the personality or just an innate kindness, but the minute I met Jocelyn Green online, I knew we were destined for that kind of friendship. And then I read her book, Wedded to War, and fell in love with the author as well as the person. Hands-down one of the best researched historical romance novels I've read on the Civil War to date, Jocelyn not only captures your breath with heart-wrenching historical detail, but your heart as well with a tender love story that will steal you away. It's my pleasure to introduce my good friend and award-winning author, freelance
writer and military wife and mom, Jocelyn Green:
Stop the
Clock! Ten Tips for Time-Starved Writers
by Jocelyn Green
I should have known better. But when the local reporter came
to interview me about my newly released novel, Wedded to War, I told her that my kids, ages 3 and 6, would be home
with us, but that they “knew how to stay quiet.”
Can you guess how that interview went? Let’s just say that by
the end of it, the reporter shifted her line of questioning from the Civil War
inspiration to: “This is your fifth book since I was here last time. How do you
write with two little kids running around?”
Great question! I’m practically starved for writing time most
of the year, and if you have a family or a job or some desire to do anything
other than write, I know you can relate.
I do have one writer friend who, when a book deadline
approaches, packs up and heads to her cabin in the mountains for weeks at a
time to just get ‘er done. How nice for her.
But since we can’t all have the cabins of our dreams, and the
time to use them, what’s a writer to do?
The only answer is to maximize the time that we do have. Here
are ten tips I’ve picked up over the past several years.
1) Write without
editing yourself. (Yet.)
I was an editor before I wrote any books. But when I let my
editor’s brain take over my writer’s brain, I played a mental tug-of-war on the
page, rewriting a scene (or even—dare I say it?—a single paragraph) several
times and not making any actual progress on the word count in a given day.
Since then I learned that we write with one side of our
brain, and we edit with the other side. So don’t try to do both at once. Just
write the thing first. You can edit later.
In Bird by Bird,
Anne Lamott says:
“Almost all good writing begins
with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting
something—anything—down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is
the down draft—you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft—you fix
it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft
is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it’s loose or
cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy.”
I have gone through more than three drafts, I’m sure, but
that’s beside the point. The point is—get it down. Editing slows the process in
the initial stage.
2) Don’t do
the laundry.
At least, not during your writing time. Writing from home,
it’s so tempting to “just throw in one load.” But if you put a load in the
washer, you’ll probably want to put it into the dryer. And if you put it in the
dryer, chances are, you’ll want to fold the clothes before they wrinkle. The
interruptions pile up faster than the laundry.
The same concept goes for washing the dishes, dusting, etc.
It might seem like just a few quick minutes to straighten up, but if it’s
taking away from your writing time—and more importantly, from your focus—it’s
not allowed. I read somewhere that after every interruption, it takes about 20
minutes to get fully back into the groove of your previous momentum. I can’t
cite this source, and I’m not sure how they did this study, but it feels true enough, or close enough to
the truth, for me to ruthlessly squelch the urge to do just a tiny chore during
writing time.
3) Set
goals.
And make them just beyond what you think you can achieve.
Whether you try to hit a word count or write a certain number of scenes per
day, aim for something. If you’re at a loss in this area, the book 90 Days to Your Novel spells out all the
daily goals for you. You can adjust the timeframe as you see fit.
4) Write “as
the bullets fly.”
I’m stealing this phrase from Pamela Redmond Satran in a
recent article she wrote in this month’s Writer’s
Digest. She shares how after she had a baby, she waited until the quiet
moments of nap time or after bedtime to write, but it was never enough. Then,
she had an epiphany. She says:
“Forget about waiting for the quiet
moment alone in the pristine room: I was never going to get that again, at
least not for a long time. And so rather than stealing writing time in my
office, I moved my laptop to the living room. Instead of writing late at night
or early in the morning before my child woke up, I started doing it while she
was right there. I wrote while I watched the 802nd viewing of Cinderella. . . ”
And the pages added up.
This is something I am learning to do right now. My “office”
(aka laptop) now travels with me to the playroom, the family room, and the
backyard. I use www.logmein.com to access
the files and email on my desktop computer.
5) Be
anti-social.
When you’re up against a deadline, shut down your email, turn
off Facebook, Twitter, etc. One writer I know deactivates her Facebook profile
when she’s writing, and reactivates it once she’s done. If you really can’t go
totally dark, tell yourself you will only do social media during one (or two)
designated small slots of time a day.
6) Write
when you’re fresh.
If you do your best writing in the morning, don’t whittle
away that time responding to emails. Write first. The emails can usually wait. I
used to tell myself I could write in the evenings, but I’m so exhausted by the
end of the day, one hour in the morning is worth three hours at night!
7) Get up
earlier.
Hey, I’m not a morning person either, but I found that by
getting up at 5am instead of when my kids get up at 7, I can double the amount
of writing time I usually get in a day. Amazing!
8) Skip writer’s block.
If you have trouble writing a certain scene, skip it and move
on to something else you can get into. You can always go back to that trouble
spot later and fill it in. Just keep writing.
9) Create
time.
What can you delegate to others to free up more writing time
for yourself? Would it be worth it to have a maid service come in so you can
use that time to write?
Child care is always a dilemma when they are young. I hired a
babysitter (make that seven babysitters—long story) last summer. This summer I
am bribing them. If they are good in the morning, we go bowling or to the water
park in the afternoon. I’m also trying to write as the bullets fly! If they are
too young for this to work, you might want to find another mom and swap kids a
couple times a week.
The other relentless time-consuming issue is meal
preparation. I don’t want to spend hours in the kitchen before and after we eat
dinner, but I also don’t want to resort to fast food or take-out. So I make
meals ahead of time and stock the freezer with them. Check out the book Don’t Panic! Dinner’s In the Freezer for
plenty of recipes.
10) Pray.
This is the easiest thing to do, and so important. Before
your fingers touch the keyboard, pray. Pray that God will give you focus,
clarity, creativity, whatever it is you most need on that day. And ask others
to join you! Many writers, myself included, have a prayer team supporting them
throughout their writing project. Or just ask a few trusted friends for prayer
on a more spontaneous basis. I cannot even count the number of times I have
asked friends to pray, and then within days (sometimes within hours) that
specific request was answered above and beyond my expectations and hopes.
Stories are powerful. Jesus used them (parables) to
communicate profound truths. Why not pray that God will help us tell the story He
wants us to tell, the way He wants us to tell it, and that He would help us do
it before our deadline? If he could feed the five thousand from two loaves of
bread and five fish, He can help us make the most of our writing time.
GIVEAWAY!!! How do you make the most of your writing time? Leave a comment telling us how or just leave a
comment and you will be entered in our drawing today for a signed copy of
Wedded to War.
ABOUT JOCELYN GREEN: Jocelyn is an award-winning author and freelance
writer. A former military wife, she authored, along with contributing writers,
Faith Deployed: Daily Encouragement for Military Wives and Faith Deployed ...
Again: More Daily Encouragement for Military Wives. Jocelyn also co-authored
Stories of Faith and Courage from the War in Iraq & Afghanistan, which won
the Gold Medal from the Military Writers Society of America in 2010, and
Stories of Faith and Courage from the Home Front, which inspired her first
novel, Wedded to War. She loves Mexican food, Broadway musicals, Toblerone
chocolate bars, the color red, and reading on her patio. Jocelyn lives with her
husband Rob and two small children in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
You can contact Jocelyn at her websites at http://www.jocelyngreen.com/ and http://www.faithdeployed.com/.
