Archive for December, 2011

This week’s topic is:

What is your number one writing tool and number one writing resource you utilize as a writer/author (besides our writing accountability/goals group)?

My top 3 writing tools (and we can name up to three):

1. Write or Die – It helps with writing challenges and getting the words out without worrying about the internal editor.

2. My Beta Readers – They help me with giving me their views on the story, any thing they notice that is out of place, that draws them out of the story and even any grammar hiccup I may miss.

3. One Note – An invaluable tool for creating world bibles and keeping track of things, especially for series. And it’s great for logging research notes too. And especially in creating characters

My top 2 writing resources:

1. Romance Divas – I have talked about how great RD is before on the blog. It has been one of the most valuable resources in terms of support and information that I have found.

2. My thesaurus – Cause sometimes you can’t think of another word for scream (for whatever reason) and you just need an alternative cause you’ve already used the word (or a word) once (or twice) on the page.

If you want to check out how a few of my writing friends write:

* Alexia Reed * Danie Ford * Emma G. Delaney * Kimberly Farris *Kristen Koster *

The question is: How do you plot? If you plot. If you pants it, do you do it straight through or do you jump around from scene to scene then sew them together? How do you know when your story is ready to send out?

I’ve said before I’m a plotter. I usually do a synopsis before hand and a blurb about the story. Usually that’s enough to get me going and keep me going in a story. It’s structured enough I know what’s going to happen but loose enough that I don’t feel like I’ve already written the story.

If I’m stuck or stalled or it’s one of the more involved or complex stories then I’ll do a world bible (usually in one note), plot outline (either phase outline or a brief paragraph for each chapter or a scene by scene outline in excel).

And I think the story is ready to send out after a few round of edits and a round of two from my beta readers. This is how it goes usually – Write. Deep Edit. Send out for Crit/Beta. Edit/Tweak. Beta/Crit. Finally run through. Query/Synopsis/Submit.

If you want to check out how a few of my writing friends write:

* Alexia Reed * Danie Ford * Emma G. Delaney * Kimberly Farris *Kristen Koster *

So my muse seems to have gone on vacation.

So I decided to bribe her with some shiny new  books as an extra push towards finishing one of my major writing goals before the end of the year.

It seems to have worked because I have a nice stack of books by the computer and some new ones loaded on the Nook that I won’t be reading until I get to the end.

Let’s hope I can hold out because there are a few books I’m itching to get started on.

Here’s hoping it works.

Do you bribe your muse? If so, how?